SKIMMING & SCANNING

SKIMMING & SCANNING

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Skimming and scanning are, as teachers always say, two very useful reading techniques. Skimming and scanning help you cover the whole reading very quickly and efficiently.

Hoever, they are two different reading strategies. 

SKIMMING:

- SKIMMING means rapidly moving the eyes over text with the purpose of getting only the main ideas and a general overview of the content.

How to skim a text:

• Read the title--it is the shortest possible summary of the content.
• Read the introduction or lead-in paragraph.
• Read the first paragraph completely.
• Read the first sentence of each paragraph (because the first sentence often have the main idea of the paragraph).

* Tips: you should look for:
            - Key words
            - Proper nouns 
            - Capitalized words
            - Numbers and figures
            - Qualifying words (highest, lowest, best, worst, least, most, etc.)
            - Typographical cues (italics, boldface, underlining, asterisk, etc.)

SCANNING:
- Scanning means to rapidly covers a great deal of material in order to locate a specific fact or piece of information.

How to scan a text:

• Keep in mind at all times what it is you are searching for. If you
  hold the image of the word or idea clearly in mind, it is likely to
  appear more clearly than the surrounding words.
  
• Anticipate in what form the information is likely to appear--
  numbers, proper nouns, etc.
  
• Analyze the organization of the content before starting to scan. 
  

• Let your eyes run rapidly over several lines of print at a time.
  
• When you find the sentence that has the information you seek,
  read the entire sentence. 

In scanning, you can skip paragraphs and not understanding them in order to find the piece of information you need.