Last week, I described a strategy for using highlighters to clarify your thoughts on the first draft of a piece of writing. You may recall that this strategy creates a colorful visual that helps you identify the number of ideas you introduce in a single piece of writing, the relationships (or lack thereof) between those ideas, and the amount of space that you devote to each idea. I stumbled upon this strategy as a way of offering feedback on student writing more efficiently than scribbling complicated notes in the margin – in my terrible handrwiting, no less – explaining that the paper starts with a strong claim or thesis statement about topic a, then shifts to focus on topic b, followed in rapid succession by topics c through f, with a particularly heavy emphasis on topic e. As a feedback strategy, the highlighters proved to be a godsend, especially in those semesters when I worked with forty students or more. When my students began using this strategy unprompted on their own first drafts, I realized that it was a godsend for them, too. And then a whole new world of highlighter strategies dawned bright and glowing in my world.
Suddenly, I found that almost any step in the writing process could be enhanced with the use of my snazzy sixteen-color set of highlighters. I’ll detail three of those uses below. The three highlighter strategies that I’ll cover in this week’s post are as follows: organization; claim, evidence, analysis; and fulfilling the criteria of the assignment prompt.
The first strategy, Organization, is perhaps the most intuitive of all the highligher strategies I’ve developed over the years. Like the strategy I described last week, this strategy helps you see how many ideas you address in a piece of writing and how those ideas are (or are not) related to one another. The difference between this strategy and last week’s strategy lies primarily in when you use it. While last week’s strategy is intended for use on the first draft of a piece of writing, when you’re still trying to settle on the main idea of the paper, this strategy is intended for use on a more polished draft, such as the second or third. By the time you’ve finished the second or third draft, you’ll have a solid idea of what you want to say and how you want to say it, but your ideas might not be as well organized as you would like them to be.
This is where the highlighters come in handy. Simply choose two or three colors to represent different components of the text, such as “background information,” “describing the problem,” and “offering a solution to the problem.” Let the highlighters show you any or all of the following issues: 1) how well (or not well) these three components transition into one another, 2) whether you treat each component as a self-contained unit or mix components together, 3) whether or not mixed components fit together well, and 4) whether or not the components are well balanced, in terms of the amount of space dedicated to each. For example, if your highlighting reveals that the “background information” component spans five pages, while the “describing the problem” component spans two paragraphs and the “offering a solution” component spans only one paragraph, you most definitely need to revise, striving for a better balance among components!
The second strategy, Claim, Evidence, Analysis, works particularly well with the classic academic argument paper. In this type of writing, you’re expected to assert a claim, argument, thesis, or main idea in the first or second paragraph of the paper and use the rest of the paper to defend that argument. In defending your argument (aka claim, thesis, or main idea), you’ll strive to present evidence which persuades your reader that your claim is, indeed, correct, true, or at least worthy of consideration. Writers generally find it easy to present evidence that supports the claim, but too often stop there, without offering any analysis of the evidence they present. Yet the writer’s analysis of the evidence is almost always the most important part of his or her argument. It is in the analysis that writers can explain – and readers can understand – how the evidence supports the claim. While evidence can sometimes stand on its own without explanation, most evidence presented in a written argument does require at least some analysis to help the reader understand its relevance to the writer’s claim.
For this reason, it’s crucial to ensure that you include not just sufficient evidence but also sufficient analysis to help the reader understand – and perhaps agree with – your claim. Highlighters are a perfect way to help you determine whether or not you’ve included sufficient analysis in your paper. Simply choose three highlighter colors, one for each of the following elements: claim, evidence, and analysis. I like to use yellow for the claim, pink for evidence, and green for analysis, but your color preferences will most likely be different than mine. Once you’ve selected your colors, begin by highlighting the claim using your claim color. Then move through the paper highlighting evidence and analysis with the appropriate colors, bearing the following issues in mind: 1) you probably won’t highlight every single word of the paper. This is normal. 2) You may find that your evidence and analysis colors frequently overlap. This is also normal. Indeed, it’s a good sign that you’re blending evidence and analysis together in sophisticated ways.
To gain additional benefit from this strategy, recruit a friend, roommate, or classmate to highlight the claim, evidence, and analysis on a clean copy of your paper, using the same colors that you used. When your reviewer has highlighted your paper, compare your reviewer’s markings to yours. If you and your reviewer disagree signficantly about what consitutes evidence, what constitutes analysis, and perhaps even what constitutes your claim, you may need to consider revising.
The third strategy, Fulfilling the Criteria of the Assignment Prompt, is probably the most straightforward of the highlighting strategies. But don’t be fooled into thinking that this strategy isn’t important, just because it’s not complicated! Ensuring that you have fulfilled the criteria of the assignment prompt is a crucial, but often overlooked, step in the revision process. Be careful not to overlook this step: doing so could affect your grade more seriously than you think. To use this strategy, simply choose one highlighter color for each element in the assignment prompt or the grading rubric. As you read a polished draft of your paper, use the appropriate color(s) to highlight each passage of your paper that addresses one or more of the elements listed in the assignment prompt or grading rubric.
Be mindful of the fact that colors are likely to overlap frequently.
If “grammar” or “language use” is one of the elements listed in the assignment prompt or grading rubric, you can use the “grammar” or “language use” highlighter to call attention to typos and language-use errors, such as misspelled words and incorrect verb tenses, as you encounter them. Simply highlight the errors without correcting them: you’ll have time to make corrections later.
If your highlighting reveals a significant imbalance between your text and the assignment criteria, consider revising. For example, if the assignment criteria indicates that the provision of “background information” is worth only 5% of your grade, while the provision of “solutions to the problem” is worth 25% of your grade, make sure that the “solutions to the problem” section is larger than the “background information” section. Once you’ve completed any necessary revisions, look through the paper for flashes of the “grammar” highlighter color and correct errors as you encounter them. By correcting grammatical errors last – after you’ve finished revising the ideas in the paper – you’ll not only read and revise ideas more efficiently but also find it easier to correct the errors, as your brain won’t need to divide its attention between correcting errors and pondering ideas.
As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, highlighting strategies are an excellent way to help you maintain balance in your writing. The colorful visuals can help you see when you’ve got too much of an element that’s relatively unimportant, too little of an element that’s enormously important, or just enough of everything. May your highlighters soon become your best friends!
I invite you to describe one or more of your own favorite writing strategies – whether or not those strategies involve the use of highlighters – in the comments section!
Happy Writing, and Happy Highlighting,
Dr. Lori
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