Mine own study habits and various articles and wasted highlighter ink have made me realize how useless highlighting is. I already take side notes and spend time reviewing previously written notes to improve my memory retention, but I'm wondering if there's another effective method to stress important facts while taking notes. Thanks!
If the text is written correctly, the first sentence in the paragraph is the point, the last is a transition or summary. Everything in between is example or support.
Get a rubber duck, etc and read every third sentence to it (as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging) - it has the virtue of having you consume the idea, condense and simplify it, and then repeat it. If you can't explain it simply, you do not understand it. And that's the key thing: you don't need to memorize the text; you just need to understand it.