October 09, 2002
Dumb highlighting makes you stupider
You know how penniless students save money by buying used textbooks? And you know how those textbooks are often filled with tons of highlighting -- relics of the previous owners?
Researchers have known for a while that highlighting has a strong cognitive effect on readers. People tend to pay attention to highlighting -- even when it's not their own. That's why pre-owned textbooks can have a certain pedagogical appeal. I remember friends of mine who preferred to buy pre-highlighted textbooks because it would "save them time"; the previous student had already done all the work of identifying the relevant passages, right?
Except -- what if the previous owner was a moron?
In that case, reading the textbook turns you into a moron too. According to a study by the academics Vicki Silver and David Kreiner, students who were given textbooks with "inappropriate highlighting" wound up scoring worse on tests than students who were allowed to do the highlighting themselves. (The study isn't online, but an abstract of it is here, about three-quarters of the way down the page.)
Silver and Kreiner won an Ig Nobel Prize this year for their study. I was at the ceremony, and in her acceptance speech, Silver summed up the results of their research neatly: "Don't buy textbooks from dumb people."
Posted by Clive Thompson at October 09, 2002 01:35 PM
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Wasn't this a line from the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School"? When he was in the schoolbook store buying "Shakespeare for everyone!" he wanted his son to put back the used book and buy new because even though it was highlighted already, an idiot could have done it.
Oh wow -- I remember that movie! I totally did not remember that line. Heh.
As a I recall, that movie starred the creepily-normal-looking actor dude who played the teenager in the movie version of Stephen King's Christine.
I wonder if they realized that the Ignobles are not awarded as compliments...?
Well, the academic Vicki Silver showed up to accept the award and seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor about it! It's a rather surreal event, so I'm assuming it's impossible for anyone to take particuarly seriously.
Me, I want to read the paper that won the Ig Nobel award last year in the Medical category: "Injuries from Falling Coconuts".
I remember reading a story (somewhere, somewhere) about a store that would pay a premium for highlighted textbooks from students that got an "A" in the relevant class - I guess that's an attempt to remove the "moron factor."
Hell, I graduated summa cum laude, and still have some books on accounting, economics, and strategy - you know, if you college kids are feeling a little loose with the wallet. Not sure what a 1993-94 book will do for you, but let's not rush to judgement - operators are standing by.
Dude, if you ever find that story, let me know! That's wild.
Worse yet, there is a correlation between how much you care about the material and whether you sell the book back --> the fraction of "moron books" would be higher than the fraction of morons in the population. A scary thought.
Worse yet, there is a correlation between how much you care about the material and whether you sell the book back --> the fraction of "moron books" would be higher than the fraction of morons in the population. A scary thought.
Heh. It's like natural selection.
So, what if you get a moron book and afterwards is highlighted by an intelligent person; so most of the book is highlighted. Does the next person become smarter or dumber for reading the textbook?
Hey! Were like scientists now. Peer reviewing and the like. Wait, wasn't that highlighted in my textbook?
One day in 8th grade science, the teacher asked a question. I saw the answer was pencilled in the margin of my textbook, which I'd inherited from my sister, who had the same teacher the year before. (We had to buy all our books.) The teacher asked another question. My sister had written the correct answer in the margin. Apparently, he asked exactly the same questions every year. And my sister had written down all the answers. It was a great moment for me, though it may explain my sketchy comprehension of science.
I always used a different color highlighter than the person who'd owned the book before ...
After one particularly troubling night of reading Hume and Berkeley in a compendium that was pristine (sometimes, you had to buy new), I decided to start highlighting random words that, in context, were inoffensive, but out of context might make you giggle.
I eventually sold the book, but I wish I'd kept it. I remember being particularly amused by what I'd done. (Some say that's a problem of mine ... :)
This can work in more subtle ways, too. I once borrowed an art theory book from a conceptual artist friend. I loved the book, but thought my friend had highlighted all the wrong stuff! (though maybe he had purchased it used, with the highlighting already in?... I never did ask.)
He who highlights everything highlights nothing...Ohmmmmmmmmmmm
I had a friend in medical school who used the "Black Highlighter" technique - he would obscure information that he considered useless. I believe the term he used was "bullsh*t". Perhaps research could be done with negative highlighting to see if the same theory holds true.
This must be a U.S. thing. I would never deface a textbook, except to put in a particularly crucial erratum. And I never sold my books either, even though I could have used the money. What if I had wanted to look something up five years later?
I don't _think_ it's just a US thing, but more of a personal decision. For me, highlighting usually doesn't do any good to me since I remember about 90% of what I read anyways. I wouldn't _need_ to sell a lot of my books... but y'never know. Some folks do!
Besides, a lot of the course folks buy books for, they won't _care_ in five years. If you graduate with a political science degree, are you really going to care what the atomic weight of lead is? (Presuming you're not normally into that kinda stuff)
Actually in some countries, it is viewed as almost sacreligious to write or highlight in a book. I am a law student and a fellow student who is from Sweden was absolutely appalled that the vast majority of us law student write in our books. Hey, summarizing cases in the margins sure beats spending time briefing them and typing 2-4 pages.
By the way, really good students write in the books, not highlight. It is called active reading. So if you are looking for help from the previous owner, look for handwriting covering the margins :)
I think that people who write in text books are cool i aced every one of my science tests last year (geography, chemical, & weight/mass) i think I learned a lot more from my text book then my droning teacher or idiot school mates!
Thanks for the information
