Get Reading - Active reading

How to skim read

Here's that paragraph again:

There were four cats lying on the step in the sunshine.  One was a tabby, two were ginger and the other one was black and white.  When the door opened they all looked up at their owner expectantly, she stood there in her tatty dressing gown and yawned, blinking in the sun. 

Did you read the paragraph quickly enough or perhaps too quickly? Reading speed is a persistent worry when you study. There always seems to be much more to read than you have time for, so you feel a tremendous pressure to read faster. But then, if you go too fast, you don't learn much. So what is the 'right' speed? The answer is - it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

It's surprising how much you can pick up if you push on quickly through a few pages.  Skimming first sentences, or even entire paragraphs can give you a sense of what a section of text is about, but it doesn't convey what the main arguments or points are in a piece of academic writing. It certainly doesn't save you the job of reading an article or a course book, however skimming in this way is useful in:

  • Helping you to decide whether to read the article 'properly';
  • Putting you in a frame of mind able to understand the article;
  • Reminding you afterwards of what the article was about.

There will be many times in your studies when you need to look through texts quickly, scanning through lots of pages to get the gist of the issues, or to find specific information. It is very useful when you pick a book off a shelf, for example, to be able to review it quickly so that you can decide whether or not to read it. You just skim through the contents list, glance at details about the author, look for familiar names in the reference list, scan the preface and dip into a chapter or two.

It is important to be clear however that this rapid scanning of texts is not reading. Skimming can tell you about a text, but you will not learn what is in it.

To find out what a current student says about academic reading look at What do students say?

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