Highlight is a verb that is used in different contexts. It can be an object that sticks out from another , one that detaches from a place where it was fixed, or a body that bounces repeatedly.
The most common use, however, is associated with emphasizing something , highlighting it or emphasizing some of its characteristics. For example: “In my speech this afternoon I am going to highlight the achievements we have achieved in the last five years” , “The performance of the Córdoba player is worth highlighting: he scored three goals in twenty minutes” , “In my new book I tried highlight the values of our culture.”
Highlight text
The action of highlighting can be physical: highlighting a text, in this sense, consists of underlining or marking it in some way. That is why in some countries a certain marker, marker or marker whose ink has light tones, ideal for highlighting words or paragraphs , is known as a highlighter ; In addition, these instruments have a thick line, generally the height of a normal line of text.
Let's look at some example sentences in which highlighting refers to underlining or marking a text: "Don't forget to highlight the most important ideas of the document ," "I took care of highlighting the names of the deputies in the text but now I can't find them." ” , “I suggest you highlight the countries in yellow and the cities in green” .
The use of different colors, as can be seen in the last example, is very suitable for highlighting concepts or phrases that do not belong to the same group or topic. Highlighters are usually sold in green, yellow, orange and pink, all in light tones, and their use is very common in both the educational and business fields : many students and teachers use them to mark important parts of texts, In the same way that businessmen from various sectors point out important data in corporate documents.
The technological option
With the emergence of word processors came the possibility of leaving behind paper and pencil, or typewriters, but the highlighting function is present in all relevant products today. In general, the procedure lacks the spontaneity and imprecision of using a real marker, since to mark a text you must first select it with the cursor and then activate the highlight function, which generates a rectangle around the words, painted with the desired color.
In recent years, technology has offered more and more options to interact with devices in ways that are intuitive and more similar to the way we use books and notebooks, for example. Among the most prominent components of this new trend , touch screens and graphic tablets undoubtedly stand out; In some cases, such as certain tablet PCs, the two combine to provide an extremely precise and satisfying user experience when creating and manipulating images or handwritten text.
Thanks to these technologies, the possibility of entering text by hand is also common today, which in turn gives rise to two functions : the storage of documents in graphic format (generally, the text is previously converted to information vector) or handwriting recognition for conversion to a digital text document equal to what could be obtained using a keyboard. In both cases, if the program and the device support manual input, there is also the possibility of freely highlighting and making marginal annotations.
Highlight in oral language
In oral language , certain ideas can be highlighted through a particular intonation, gestural accompaniment or other resource.
Suppose the governor of a province is giving a press conference and indicates: “In the last year we created 15,000 jobs. Do you understand the importance of this figure? “We created 15,000 jobs.” In this case, the politician uses a rhetorical question and the repetition of a phrase to highlight what he is interested in spreading.