Lowdarker

When reading a textbook, it is common for students to highlight that information which they feel is most pertinent to the subject. Ideally, that text which is not highlighted will serve to clarify, expound upon, and make memorable that which is important.

However, this is often not the case. Many textbook authors are clueless as to how to write well, and fill their prose with non sequiturs, trivial asides, and esoteric attempts at humor. This is unfortunate for the scholar who is reviewing the text for the purposes of note taking or test preparation. Where he should be drinking from a clear stream of relevant facts, he is too often drowning in a sea of superfluous verbiage.

Thus, the need for the anti-highlighter: the lowdarker. Where the highlighter uses bright colors to draw the eye to information, the lowdarker uses dark colors to mute that text which the reader finds unnecessary. While the lowdarked text will be surrounded by a low-contrast color, it will still be legible without too much eyestrain, and may even allow lowdarked passages to remain readable on 1st-generation photocopies.

As we all become increasingly burdened with information, it would be nice to have a tool like the lowdarker to help manage at least a small part of it.