Need someone help.

I am dealing with digital modulation stuffs recently. I have come across this term and hope someone can explain the meaning to me.
'The redundant bits provided by the punctured turbo encoder are associated to the highest protected bit'. What is the meaning of highest protected bits over here? If let say I am using 16 QAM.Thanks

for example,if you transmit "001" to represent as a voltage,and the most left bit as the 8 and the most right bit as the 1,then when y transmit and receive as the "101",then the error is large,but when you protect the most left bit,then y may receive "000",the the error is small,so the most protect bit is the most bit in your application