How to Skim Through a Book

Опубликовал Admin
8-10-2016, 09:50
547
0
If you don't have much time and you need to determine whether a book is worth purchasing, borrowing, or reading, 'skimming skills' will aid you in the process.

Steps

  1. Read the Title - dead giveaway.
  2. Read the subtitle - some titles are ambiguous, but subtitles tend to shed more light.
  3. Read the preface - usually the writer(s) explain exactly what the book is about.
  4. Look at the Table of Contents - this will give you further information on the books subject structure and components.
  5. Read the Publisher's blurb - usually located in the back, some are found in the book's dust cover. This too is an excellent way to discover the gist of a book.
  6. Identify important chapters to read and less important chapters.
  7. Read the first and last lines of each paragraph to get a feel for the flow of argument and the topics of the chapter.

Tips

  • Reading topic sentences and concluding sentences only works if the title is professionally written non-fiction.
  • Some religious books index Scripture passages. This is called a "Scripture index."
  • Finally, you may want to consult books which will help you develop active reading skills, a classic one would be "How to Read A Book" by Adler and Van Doren.
  • Take notes, since you are not reading you will need these notes to help you remember.
  • Check out the "Index" of a book. This will give you somewhat of a bird's view of subjects and amount of space the writer devotes to each topic. This is called a "subject index."
  • Some books even offer an index of authors the writer refers to in the book. This is called an "author index."

Warnings

  • Publisher blurbs are often written by a marketing department and so although seldom inaccurate, they may bear little or no resemblance to the material, veracity, accuracy or approach the book takes to the material.
Теги:
Information
Users of Guests are not allowed to comment this publication.