#Skim reading how to

■ Do I already know something about this? ■ Do I have a lot to read and only a small amount of time? If you answer yes to any of these, then skimming is a useful tool. While reading, ask yourself the following questions to help you decide whether or not to skim. By skimming, you can quickly locate the information you haven’t mastered yet and study only that material. You need to review the material you learned, but you don’t want to reread everything. It will also increase the amount of usable material you obtain for your research. Skimming will help you locate the information quickly while making sure you use your time wisely. Because you must be ready soon, you do not have time to read each word, but you need a large quantity of solid information. You locate six books and four newspaper articles about this topic. Suppose you are taking a presentation skills class and have to deliver an oral report in a few days about the first computers ever made. There are many times, however, when skimming is very useful. When to skimīecause skimming is done at a fast speed with less-than-normal comprehension, you shouldn’t skim all the time. If while skimming, you feel you are grasping the main ideas, then you are skimming correctly. Remember that your overall comprehension will be lower than if you read in detail. Since the last few paragraphs may contain a conclusion or summary, you should stop skimming there and read in detail. Continue to read only topic sentences, dropping down through the rest of the paragraphs, until you are near the end. If you do not get the main idea in the topic sentence or if the paragraph greatly interests you, then you may want to skim more.Īt the end of each topic sentence, your eyes should drop down through the rest of the paragraph, looking for important pieces of information, such as names, dates, or events. Also called topic sentences, they give you the main idea of the paragraph. Once you know where the reading is headed, you can begin to read only the first sentence of each paragraph. By reading the first few paragraphs in detail, you will get a good idea of what information will be discussed. Let’s say you are doing research on a long chapter or a web site. What you read is more important than what you leave out. So what material do you read and what material do you leave out? However, to skim effectively, there has to be a structure but you don’t read everything. Many people think that skimming is a haphazard process placing the eyes where ever they fall. Skimming takes place while reading and allows you to look for details in addition to the main ideas. You read only what is important to your purpose. With skimming, your overall understanding is reduced because you don’t read everything. Skimming refers to looking only for the general or main ideas, and works best with non-fiction (or factual) material. Skimming is one of the tools you can use to read more in less time. Their skill lies in knowing what specific information to read and which method to use. They do not read everything which is what increases their reading speed. They read according to their purpose and get the information they need quickly without wasting time.

#Skim reading how to

They are at the fast end of the speed reading range, while studying is at the slow end. People who know how to skim and scan are flexible readers. They are each used for different purposes, and they are not meant to be used all the time. Skimming and scanning are two very different strategies for speed reading.