Skimming for the main ideas

When you skim a page, you take the main ideas from the reading

material without reading all the words. You look for and seize upon

words that appear to give the main meaning. If you’re a newspaper

reader, you already know what skimming is — you skim the head-

lines of the newspaper to decide which articles to read.

Readers skim when time is short or when they need to understand

the general ideas but not the particulars of an article or book.

Skimming occurs at three to four times the normal reading speed.

For that reason, your reading comprehension takes a nose dive

when you skim.

Skimming strategies include reading the first and last sentences of

paragraphs, reading headings and subheadings, and studying tables

and charts (and their captions). Later in this chapter, “Discovering

the Art of Skimming” offers more detail on skimming strategies.

Studies show that people read and comprehend text on a computer

screen more slowly than they read and comprehend printed mate-

rial. Readers can’t skim as efficiently on their computer screens

either. When you read or skim a Web page on your computer, do so

more slowly than usual if you want to read and skim efficiently.