We Need to Talk about Highlighting

If you’re highlighting entire stories, you’re not highlighting anything

Edit: January 29, 2021. I’m still annoyed with highlighting on Medium, but no longer think it’s fair to criticize individuals for how they use it. How unfair to make judgments on an individual’s reading habits?! Something so personal is not their fault when it becomes common knowledge. It would be like my mirror in my bathroom suddenly being filmed to all people as they brush their teeth. So, while I’m still annoyed by my past ability to highlight something WITHIN a highlight (something that was fixed a while ago) and still annoyed with Medium’s highlighting function, I rescind the personal attacks I made on those who highlight an entire article.

I’m looking at another green wall, trying to get through an interesting story. There’s a sentence I’d like to remember for next time or keep to expound upon on my own later. I’m on my phone so I won’t be able to highlight the sentence I want, because someone has highlighted the entire paragraph. To be fair, I do this sometimes, it isn’t highlighting this one interesting paragraph that makes them an idiot. No, this particular idiot has highlighted all but two of this 25 paragraph story. And most of the subheads. I know because I needed to open my computer so I could highlight just the sentence I wanted to remember, instead of my finger selecting the highlights that came before (as it does on my phone).

(Medium Staff it would be lovely if we could toggle highlighting on a story as we are reading on the phone, or if we could select what to highlight outside of other people’s selections.)

The downside of highlighting too much

When I have seen walls of green for a couple stories in a row from the same person, I stop following and often mute them. The annoyance of seeing how bad you are at highlighting a story is just too much for me.

Medium is already suffering from a lack of discernment.

This excessive highlighting is a symptom of being unable to edit, and I am just not interested in picking through your writing if you can’t be bothered to figure out exactly which idea in a paragraph you needed to save. Medium is already suffering from a lack of discernment. Articles are published in large publications with major typos and grammatical errors, many of the niceties of the community standards are being ignored, and now I need to watch your thought process in reading an article?

I have unfollowed two authors in as many days just to turn off their highlights. I wasn’t counting before, but they were not the first who I left due to this scourge. When I visited their pages I couldn’t remember which story had convinced me they were worth a follow, making it easy to hit that unfollow button. The last impression I had of them was their inability to be selective.

I am not the only one who has realized this is the only way:

Highlights are (mostly) a boon

I like the community aspect of highlighting. I love noticing a highlight by an author I like and then reading a story they wrote in response. Scanning a story and seeing the ideas an author I admire pop out can help give me an idea of whether or not I’ll find this story useful or interesting. Highlighting can also break up the monotony of blocks of texts and show an author how readers will understand their writing.

If the story was that good or that important, you can return to it later.

Use mindfulness for better highlighting

Control your desire to highlight an entire block of text. Take a deep breath. You do not need to finish the story you are reading in record time. (In fact, the author might appreciate the additional read time you give their story.) Think about how you will use this information in the future. What specific word will you need to remember? Look at that word in the sentence. Does the whole sentence explain the idea you would like to capture? If not, continue to the sentences on either side. In most instances, you should find a way to highlight two sentences, max.

It can be quite tempting to highlight nearly everything, even though this is not the best strategy. Think about what sentences are telling you what you need to know for you exam. Keep in mind that it is harder to repeat a big piece of text than a few of the most important sentences. Therefore, make sure to only highlight the main topics of the text. Bonus tip: this is often the first and/or last sentence of the paragraph.

— Stuvia

Always remember, if the story was that good or that important, you can return to it later. You will be better off returning to it than seeing a large number of paragraphs on your highlights page. And it will be less likely to turn off your followers.