Sometimes skimming is necessary — here’s how to do it well
From novel-a-week English courses to 40 pages of a textbook three times a week, the amount of reading assigned in college can make your vision blur. Don’t professors realize you take other classes? That you eat, sleep, exercise, socialize and have a life?
When the pages are adding up and you find you’re spending more time with your books than you are sleeping, it’s time to try skimming.
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You might think you’re an expert skimmer — you’ve probably been doing it as long as you’ve been a student. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to skim a book. Mastering the art of the skim means you’ll save yourself time and still have the knowledge you need to chime in during class discussions.
What is skimming?
“It is not a haphazard activity, rather an organized one,” says Abby Marks Beale, an educator and speed-reading expert. “It’s about getting a broad overview of whatever material you have in front of you.”
Here’s what skimming is not: lazily flipping through a text quickly, reading a sentence whenever you remember to, as if the fact that you technically laid eyes on each page counts for something. No, the practice of skimming involves intentionally reading certain parts of a text, and intentionally skipping others — not partly reading everything.
When to skim and when to read
Here’s the bad news: not everything is skimmable. According to Anthony Metivier, PhD, CEO of Advanced Education Methodologies, a publishing company of science-based memory-improvement training books and courses, “Skimming is a strategy that only has substantial value for people who are already familiar with the topic the skimmed material belongs to.”
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You should also avoid skimming anything you find particularly challenging — that’s the stuff that requires your full attention. Also, skimming fiction and creative writing really defeats the purpose of the assignment.
So when should you skim?
When the choice is between skimming or skipping the assignment entirely. Ideally, when you skim, you’ll come back to the text later when time allows
When you’re researching a paper and you need to source specific pieces of information from a stack of books or papers
When the assignment involves nonfiction works like textbooks, journal articles or essays that are organized in a linear fashion with clearly labeled sections
Read this, not that
“The writer’s outline is typically found in the first few paragraphs,” says Marks Beale. “Then, an organized skim of each chapter will tell you the way the author has developed their ideas and the order of delivery.”
Read these sections:
The title of the book
Front and back flaps
Table of contents
The introduction
The conclusion
The first and last one to two paragraphs of each chapter
The first and last sentence of most paragraphs (more on that below)
Sections that you know will be relevant based on the class’s focus
Sections that seem important to the main argument of the assignment
Bolded and italicized words, and other keywords and phrases
Section titles, subtitles and headings
Photos, charts, graphs and pictures
For academic journals, the abstract and literature review
Sections on parts of the topic you don’t understand
Skip sections heavy on:
Details
Anecdotes
Stories
Elaboration
Tangents
Lengthy examples
Subjects you already have a good understanding of
Remember: Skimming doesn’t mean half-reading the text. It means fully reading the most relevant portions of the text and skipping the rest. Reading things like section introductions and headers will give you a better idea of what text to zero in on as you skim.
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Once you’ve skimmed the text, experts recommend re-reading the table of contents and reflecting on what you read. As executive coach Peter Bregman advises in the Harvard Business Review, “Take a few moments to relive the flow of the book, the arguments you considered, the stories you remember, the journey you went on with the author.”
A hot tip: Before you start skimming, google the author of the text to get a better handle on what it is you’re about to read. Knowing the author’s origins, academic background and/or personal ideology can help put the reading into a greater context.
Scanning for gold
“Scanning” is a distinct but similar way to quickly glean information from a text. If skimming is reading to get a general idea of the text, scanning is reading to locate specific facts. For instance, if you’re reading a book about the Vietnam War in order to write a paper about the use of chemical weapons, you can scan looking for particular words or phrase-search terms.
Scanning is like turning yourself into a human Command+F. When seeking out specific material, let your eyes inspect the page until you spot a relevant keyword. Then, read the surrounding material.
Skimming and scanning go hand in hand, says Marks Beale. “Once you’ve familiarized yourself with a writer’s outline and decided what parts you need more detail on, that’s when scanning for specific information is appropriate. [Once you’ve skimmed the text], you are more familiar with it, which increases your reading speed, focuses your attention, allows for increased comprehension and a higher chance of good retention.”
Define your purpose, annotate and write questions
While you’re skimming, use active reading strategies to help you efficiently store the information.
Before you start, set a purpose for your reading. Ask yourself, why did the professor assign this text? What does she want you to get out of it? You might not know, especially if it’s early in the semester, but keep these questions in mind as you skim. Annotating, or taking notes as you read, is another way to lock in the information you’re gathering. If you can, write in the margins of the book, or keep your laptop open to take down key points.
Finally, as you’re reading, write down a few solid questions to ask in class. Doing this will help you digest and keep you engaged when it’s time to discuss the assignment.
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