Skimming and Scanning - 4 Strategies | Speed Reading Lounge (2024)

8 skimming and scanning techniques to extract information quickly

One of the most efficient techniques to read fast is skimming and scanning. Previewing a text, document or book allows you to grasp the broader picture, get the author’s main idea and sketch important concepts.

This technique is a big time saver: think of all the books on your list and imagine being able to extract the key information without having to read the whole book. Previewing is easy to learn and can be combined with other speed reading techniques.

Learning outcome – This tutorial will teach you the concept of skimming and scanning practices to get you started today. It also contains useful resources such as articles, exercises, worksheets or videos. The main goal is to apply skimming and scanning methods to expand knowledge quickly and immediately put it into practice.

Skimming and Scanning – Meaning and Definition

What is scanning?

Scanning is a technique to trigger and extract key information and ideas such as names, numbers, specific facts. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page, identifying specific words and phrases to find a particular answer or grasp the basic main idea. You can also use it to determine whether a new resource will answer your questions or not. This activity probably takes about 5-10 minutes.

What is skimming?

Skimming will focus on understanding the main idea and concept. It works best with non-fiction material. You won’t read anything. You read only what is important to you. You may stop for interesting facts but then quickly continue to skim the book.

Skimming is like browsing a new travel book or moving your finger over a map of a city you wish to travel to. At first, you may spot pictures, read selected snippets of information or identify general areas, landmarks, or highlights. You want to know the bigger picture first before exploring a location in detail. These practices will teach your brain to understand, comprehend and remember a lot faster.

What is previewing?

Previewing is the overall process of gathering information that includes both skimming and scanning as its most proven techniques. It is, furthermore, all about answering these five ‘W’ questions: Who, Where, What, When, Why. Who relates to people involved. Where relates to the location. What refers to the general idea/topic. When is about the time of an event. Why refers to reasons, analysis. Write down all key facts to remember them later.

Skimming and Scanning – Benefits

Key ideas – Now you know the basic definitions of what skimming and scanning are, let’s look at what is in for you when you actually apply the techniques to skim a book. The biggest benefit is certainly understanding the key ideas of a book to decide whether it will actually deliver the information you are after.

Expand knowledge – The second one is the fact that you can use skimming to significantly expand your knowledge without going super deep or reading the whole book. How? The most important learning outcomes can be condensed into the synopsis, chapter summaries, tables or excerpt boxes. Look out for these structures and you will be able to learn a lot within a very short amount of time.

Books are tools – Experienced readers know the main points of the material before they actually start reading. They also use the book as a tool to jot down the key learning outcomes. This approach will also grow your confidence to either skip the book in front of you or to go deep, and also know which level of depth is necessary.

Pace – While skimming and scanning is certainly a fast reading method, I would like you to not judge or use it for the sake of speed alone. Yes, it allows you to go through books quickly, but you won’t get anything out of it if you do not put the new knowledge into practice. To enjoy the power of pace, ingrain information into your daily routine straight away. Make it a part of your life. This way, you can learn a lot just through skimming and scanning.

How to Skim and Scan? Best Practice.

You can choose from four major strategies. I will explain them in more detail below.

There is also a fifth technique called novel previewing and is taught by Ron Cole, but this skimming method is different from the steps explained in this post.

To skim and scan a book apply these steps.

• Preview the content page
• Read the title
• Read the back of the book
• Read the index
• Scan for images
• Look for letters in “bold”
• Read the chapter names and headlines
• Read first sentence of paragraphs
• Try spotting tables and graphs
• Spot ‘conclusion’ or ‘summary’ sections
• Jot down key information

Also, look for “thematic sentences”. These are key sentences containing a summary of a chapter and will give you an overview of the key learnings of a lengthy section.

4 Skimming and Scanning Strategies

Having outlined the steps above let’s get a bit deeper into the major steps separately.

1. Previewing Key Sentences

These sentences can be found at the very beginning of a paragraph, section or chapter. They will often give you a good idea about their context. How does it work?

One idea – Each paragraph usually delivers one idea, though paragraphs may often relate to each other. Once you understand the central idea behind each paragraph block you will quickly get the gist of it. This may aid you in understanding the whole chapter a lot faster.

Find key idea – You can also use a different approach – just look for the applicable information that you require and skip the rest. Another tactic is to read the first and the last sentence of longer paragraphs which may give you a more relevant summary and enable you to pick up the central idea.

Practice – According to my experience, this works like a charm. I never read all the sentences or even the whole chapter. I constantly shift to the following chapter only skimming and scanning the most interesting bits and bites. In the beginning, I found it difficult to remember information, but after a while, it became easier for me to do so. Skim as little as possible and as much as necessary.

2. Scanning Names and Numbers

Numbers and names are present in every text and they narrate details about people, places and concepts. There is no order of getting that information in a text during previewing. However, I often look for the main facts by understanding where and when the story takes place or how many people are involved.

Use a pencil – One of the best ways of scanning for this sort of information is to move your finger or pointer across the page (you can use serpentine style or zigzag) you will notice that you will quickly remember a number or a few names. After that just read the whole text so that you can get a complete picture.

3. Scanning Trigger Words

Paul Scheele taught me this technique when I read his book “Photo Reading”. The concept is to preview a text while keeping a lookout for important keywords and jot them down. Mainly you will spot nouns or compounds. Trigger words usually include numbers, names, places and key sentences.

Semantic triggers – This scanning tactic can be used to quickly find answers but to also judge whether the material contains enough in-depth data to answer your research and learning objects. Often you will need to identify semantic keywords or phrases to ensure the material has the right angle or context you require.

4. Reading the Title

Headlines – Reading the title, the content, and the back of the book or text is probably the first thing we do with new material. Many trigger words are automatically revealed through this method. For example, if the title says “Guide to memory techniques” it is unlikely to find information about ‘web design’ in that book, chapter or section.

Sub-headlines -There are also chapter titles, sub-headlines or titles of tables and graphs that reveal a lot of useful information. These are helpful structures and anchor points you can use to attach your own notes in order to easily review them later.

Skim and Scan – The Framework

We now know the most important concepts and steps of skimming and scanning. Let’s zoom out a bit and see how we can implement those steps into a framework that will allow you to organize your reading systematically.

Categorize – Remember, the goal is to get the key data from a book before going through it in detail. You also want to decide whether the material is suitable or useless to reach your goals. According to the author of the “Become a Learning Machine” course, you should label books as to be either Microwave or Oven. Yes, I know, that’s weird. But think of Microwave as a fast way to prepare food, and oven as a slow one.

Microwave – These are books, materials or documents that contain technical information, explanations, guidelines or instructions. You are usually not interested in the art of writing here but in the information that will enable you to apply instructions to a real-world problem to solve it. Many non-fiction books fall into this category, and you use them as tools and references you can come back to regularly.

Oven – Baking takes time so does digesting the actual food. This also applies to books that require slow reading and processing to understand their message deeply. Biographies, success stories or life experiences fall into this category. Skimming and scanning help understand the main ideas, but you wish to go deep and read slowly to get the most out of it.

Try it – Pick a few books from your shelf and skim through the table of contents and summaries, then decide in which category it would belong. Remember, books are tools, so do not hesitate to jot down key notes or highlight important parts. It will make it easier to review the material later on.

4 Levels – Another approach you may try is the one Mortimer Adler outlines in his work “How to read a book”. He identifies four levels of reading: Elementary, Inspectional, Analytical and Syntopical Reading. Each level goes into more detail. You decide how deep. Skimming and scanning refer to Elementary and Inspectional Reading.

Skimming and Scanning – 5 Exercises, Assignments

Here are 5 assignments allowing you to put the knowledge of this tutorial into practice. It provides exercises to help you skim and scan, summarize and recall information.

1. Summaries. Pick a non-fiction book from your shelf or library that offers some value to you. Read the synopsis, table of contents and chapter summaries. Write down or articulate in one or two sentences the main concept and learning outcome. Could you apply some of the knowledge immediately? Label it as microwave or oven.

2. Key sentence. Use the same or another book you like and read the first sentences or a few paragraphs of a shortish chapter. Now try recalling the main ideas and if possible, think of a suitable call-to-action to ingrain it immediately. Go easy here and practice with easy-to-understand first. Go wild later.

3. Names and numbers. Choose any article containing lots of facts and look for numbers and names in it. When you find a fact or a name, pause for a few seconds and recognize it. You can say the word out loud if you wish. Now start going through the entire material and see if the facts you just found during skimming and scanning reveal themselves as you read.

4. Trigger words. Choose a number of different articles or books. When you have the articles or books ready, start reading the titles, content, back of the book if required and headlines. Simply write down the trigger words and try to stop at words that interest you. Write these words down too, and let them become your trigger words.

5. Taking notes. Get used to taking notes when going through a book. They are tools. Jot down key ideas next to the text in addition to underlining key phrases. Summarize the main idea and write it next to the chapter’s title. Add any info to the chapter summaries. Goal: Review quickly after weeks, even years.

Skimming and Scanning – Summary, Conclusion

I hope I could deliver the key principles of best skimming and scanning strategies and spark some enthusiasm to actually try it as well. To me, previewing is a powerful method to quickly reach the low-hanging fruit, which I can enjoy immediately.

Bottom line – Learning isn’t about memorizing, extracting information quickly, it is about ingraining the knowledge deeply so it becomes part of your life. Skimming and scanning is one useful technique to extract that knowledge quickly and build strong call-to-action orders.

Freedom – Making skimming books or essays a habit will also strengthen your ability to say ‘No’, which is the confidence to dismiss and skip types of material as it does not provide any value or enough information to help achieve your goals.

Additional resources

How to read chunks of words.
Speed reading software
SlideShare

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