Why You Should Use Multiple Highlighters When You Read
Getting the Most Out of Your Digital Reading
Getting the Most Out of Your DigitalĀ Reading
To put it lightly, Iām a voracious reader.
My love of reading sparked as I entered college. And my physical library has grown exponentially ever since. But recently, Iāve run out of places to store and display my books.
As a result, Iāve turned in increasing capacity to ebooks and audiobooks. Of the 92 books I finished last year, 12 were digital or ebooks and 22 were audiobooks.
This has been a difficult transition for me to make. Even as someone born into the digital age, the world makes the most sense to me when I can hold things in physical form. I enjoy sitting down with a book in my hands and a pencil or highlighter resting on my ear as I read and mark the pages.
That said, Iāve sought ways to replicate that reading experience with ebooks. In the process, Iāve created a digital reading method thatās helped me to read 3ā8 books per month for the last three years.
I hope this article encourages you to use the reading practices below as you tackle your library.
The Four-Color Highlighting System
Highlighters play a critical role in my physical and digital reading systems. The difference between both methods is how many I use.
When I sit down with a physical book, I use only one highlighter color throughout, using any color of my choosing. I highlight the key passages and then underline supporting information in pencil.
For digital books, I get more specific.
Ebook services can offer you a wide selection of highlighter colors to work with. Amazonās Kindle, for example, offers four colors: red, orange, yellow, and blue.
Whereas with a physical book, I would choose one of those colors, with digital books, I use all of them.
Each highlighter color that I use for a digital book has a defined purpose for every ebook in my library.
Using the Kindle default colors, my system looks something like this:
Yellow: Key Information
Orange: Supplementary/Supporting Information
Blue: Direct quotations, often those not by the author
Red: Key Terms & Their Definitions
Why So ManyĀ Colors?
Youāll notice that yellow highlights take the role of my normal highlighting method. With yellow highlights, Iām focusing on the key information the author wants to convey.

Orange highlights replace my method of underlining in pencil. The orange highlights allow me to record supporting information for my yellow highlights. Having a separate category of highlights keeps the key highlights concise. It also ensures you donāt lose any information thatād be critical for future review.

Yellow and orange highlights cover most of my annotations. However, the easy access to other colors allows me to take my reading practice even further.
When I go back and review my highlights for a physical book, Iām able to see direct quotations in their entirety. I can see the quotation marks or indentation on the page and the attribution for who said the passage.
With digital highlights, I may have highlighted an excerpt from a quote. With no quotation marks or attributions nearby, how do I know if the passage is from the author or someone else?
When highlighting a direct quote, I highlight it in blue and leave a comment saying who that quote is from.

The note is often a simple āQuote from [NAME OF SPEAKER/AUTHOR OF QUOTE].ā Thatās usually more than enough to ensure that I donāt misquote someone.

I also often return to particular books for a reminder of specific terms an author has used. I highlight these terms and their full definitions in red.

Why I Prefer Reviewing DigitalĀ Books
I designed this highlighting system with the standard set of e-reader tools in mind.
Most systems allow you to filter your highlights by color. If want to generate a summary of the bookās key takeaways, I can filter through my yellow highlights.
Filtering is also useful if I want a complete list of relevant terms used throughout the book. A filter of red highlights presents a list of every key term I identified along with the definitions.
The ability to filter is helpful when Iām compiling or sharing material. If someone wants the key takeaways from a book I read, I can send a list of yellow highlights or use them to write a summary.
This simple method of sharing has encouraged me to read more digital books. It is now a part of my digital book reading process then upload my highlights to Glasp. This platform allows me to share what Iāve learned on a public profile that anyone can view. My Glasp profile provides a simple way to share my reading activity and what has caught my interest.

My increased comfort with reading digital books has eased my book storage conundrum. It has also allowed me to travel with more reading material at my disposal.
The way I read digital books will continue to change as new platforms and tools become available. For now, Iām happy with the digital reading system Iāve developed.
Whether you follow this system or not, I encourage you to add some form of digital reading to your regular schedule. I canāt think of a better use of oneās screen time than that.
Socials:
Substack: bryceallenreads.substack.com
Twitter: twitter.com/bryceallenreads
Threads: threads.net/@bryceallenreads
Glasp: glasp.co/#/bryceallen
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