Identifying the Most Important

Word Groups: Thought Units

Generally speaking, a thought unit is a word group that expresses a

complete thought or idea. Every sentence is composed of thought

units because every sentence conveys at least one thought. If you

can recognize the word groups that convey thought units, you can

read these word groups in a single eye fixation and increase your

reading comprehension greatly.

Thought units can be difficult to pick out in sentences because you

can’t look for commas or other punctuation marks in a sentence

for guidance in finding them. Instead, you have to develop the abil-

ity to quickly examine how the parts of a sentence fit together and

locate the weightiest, or meatiest, part of the sentence. In this sen-

tence, for example, notice where the (italicized) thought units are:

A quick glance at the menu told us that, at this particular res-

taurant, on this particular evening, dinner would cost a fortune

no matter what we ate and drank