Step V: Skipping and Skimming

These two timesavers, skipping and skimming, grow directly out of pre-reading, and we had better start by defining them. Skipping means simply that, on the basis of pre-reading, you jump over large sections of material. When you skim you cast your eyes down a page of type without actually reading but looking for significant phrases or important facts to stop you. You saw in pre-reading that you skipped a great deal but still got the main drift. As an efficient reader you will often skip passages — to save time and because these have nothing new.  You will often skim for facts or ideas.

Of course untrained readers skip and skim too. But their trouble is that they do it in a haphazard manner — because they are not fully aware of the purpose for which they are read­ing. Their minds are not engaged, so even the parts they skim fail to produce information.

The trained reader, on the other hand, knows exactly why he is reading at all times. He concentrates on everything he looks at and is therefore alert to recognize whether it has value for him. He accepts skipping and skimming as the useful tools they are and makes them serve their proper purposes of saving time and helping him to find quickly some fact he is looking for.

In discussing skipping and skimming I am considering these skills almost entirely as they apply in reading informa­tion material. You will use them also in pleasure reading at times — when descriptive or expository passages seem over-long, when slow-moving action fails to hold your interest. But that is so much a matter of personal reaction and reading pref­erence that no generalizations apply. I will hazard a guess, nevertheless, that as your reading speed increases you will skip less and less when your purpose is straight enjoyment. Your reading will have become so effortless that skipping seems hardly worthwhile. Because you are concentrating and your mind is involved, sections that might have bored you before now seem to be filled with interest. You read them eagerly, en­joying the author's style.

But with information reading, skipping and skimming are necessary to carry you through the mass of material which engulfs you at times. Let's see now exactly how these two skills serve the efficient reader.

Skipping

Few people know how to skip with confidence because most people do not pre-read. Yet pre-reading is the guide, since it is the one way to acquaint yourself with what an article or book contains and therefore how much of it you ought to read. You are already doing considerable skipping as you pre-read. But you now know what a book or article has to offer. You have a good idea of the parts you should read thoroughly as well as those you can skip without much danger of missing anything.

Skipping is simply selection. When you are reading an article for a certain kind of information, and the author turns to a part of his subject which doesn't concern you — skip until he comes back. Unless tables of figures and statistics are worth remembering — skip confidently. You'll know where to find them for reference later. The author needed them to prove his point. But you needn't study them in detail if you are willing to take the author's word that his documentation is sound. Skip detailed technical explanations unless they apply to your own specialized field. Be alert for passages in which an author repeats for emphasis a point he has already made. He is "saying it in a different way," and the chances are you don't care.

To sum up, pre-reading provides a guide to parts of an article which you should skip. But a quick survey cannot always show up irrelevant passages which may also be skipped, even though you had planned on thorough reading. Skipping serves you best when, with the full concentration you have learned to apply, you are quick to scent paragraphs or whole sections which do not carry out their first promise and have no information that you care about having for your present reading purpose — or do not already know.

Shimming

Skimming is simply the process of casting your eyes quickly over an article. But again, unless you have a purpose, you will get very little benefit. There are just two reasons for skimming: 1. To find a specific piece of information which you know the article contains. 2. To hunt on the chance you will stumble on significant phrases or stray facts you can use. These have a way of jumping out at you in purposeful skimming. But you must know what you are looking for.

Skimming for a fact. You are looking for a fact — let's say it is the date of the 1960 Presidential election. You are reasonably sure it is somewhere in the article you have before you. You don't want to read the article. You just want that elusive date.

Here's how to find it quickly. Let your eyes travel down the page without actually reading, stopping twice on each line of type.  A good way to practice is to lay a pencil vertically on the center of the page or column. Let your eyes make two fixations at first on each line — one to the left and one to the right of the pencil.

Practice Skimming

When you're skimming for spe­cific information, either for a fact or for the answer to a question, don't let your attention wander. Keep in mind exactly what it is you are look­ing for. As you improve your skill you will find that the date, name or phrase jumps out of the page. And by the way, here's that date you were after — November 8, 1960.

Don't look directly at the type. Look just above it — at the white space between the lines. After you have followed this eye-swing pattern for a few lines, start letting your eyes make just one fixation on each line. Beginning with line 7, fixate to the left of the pencil, and on line 8 fixate to the right. Make these zig-zag fixations on succeeding lines until you find the date you were looking for.

When you are skimming for a specific fact, don't let your attention wander. Keep in mind exactly what it is you are looking for. As you improve your skill with practice you will find that the date, name or phrase actually seems to jump out of the page. And here, by the way, is that date you were after — November 8, 1960.

Skimming for chance facts and phrases. This second skim­ming technique is useful whenever you are doubtful that an article has anything to serve your purpose but want to make sure in the shortest possible time. You can use skimming dur­ing pre-reading, if you wish. When you begin to read first sentences of paragraphs only in pre-reading (see Chapter One), try skimming the remainder of the paragraphs quickly, looking for names, dates and significant phrases you may want to remember. Focus just above the lines of type and let your eyes zig-zag back and forth. What you need to see will jump out at you.

It will, that is, if you know what you are looking for. That is the important thing when you skim. Just as you must read with a purpose, so you must skim with a purpose. Otherwise, as your eyes wander down the page your mind will begin to wander too. You will keep your mind glued firmly to its task if you are concentrating and following the pre-reading pattern of reading the first sentence of every paragraph and skimming for facts and phrases in between.

The researchers I mentioned in Chapter One will find skimming an invaluable skill to cultivate. It is a miraculous timesaver when you must look through a great many books and articles related to your subject but not necessarily directly con­cerned with the aspect you expect to write about. By skim­ming, along with pre-reading, the researcher can usually make up his mind quickly whether a particular item is worth pursu­ing. And skimming is a wonderful short cut in chasing down a fact or a date which is bound to be somewhere in a certain book chapter.

How to Test Yourself

As you begin the practice of skipping and skimming with a purpose you should test yourself frequently. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Pre-read an article, skipping parts and skimming the rest.
   
   
2. Write a one-paragraph summary of the author's theme and main ideas.
   
   
3. Go back and read the article thoroughly. Write a second brief summary, without looking at the first.

When you compare the two, do you find that you put down vital facts the second time which show that your first summary was inadequate or even incorrect? If this happens, you are not yet sufficiently skillful at picking out important ideas when you skim, or not selective enough in what you choose to skip. This means you need more concentrated practice on these two skills until you are confident you have mastered them.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here….