SCANNING TO DETERMINE SPECIFIC MEANING AND

INFORMATION

Scanning is the process of quickly covering a great deal of text with the goal of
locating a particular term, fact, or other piece of information. It is also the next level
after skimming. Scanning is slower than skimming because its own purpose requires a
particular focus.

Important to remember the following things when scanning:

1. Keep in mind what you are looking for. If your mind is focused on the term or
detailed, your eyes will typically follow suit and focus on it more than the
surrounding words.
2. Anticipate the part of the text than the term or detail is likely to appear in- with
other facts, as part of a graphic organizer, grouped with other numerical data,
and so on. Similarly, note that the number of times you will need to scan will
depend on the length and structure of the text itself. This is where skimming
before scanning comes in handy.
3. When you find the term or detail, read the containing sentence carefully. This will
help you determine the you have indeed found it properly.

Scanning text

You can use the scanning technique to look up a phone number, read through the small
ads in a newspaper, or for browsing television schedules, timetables, lists, catalogues
or webpages for information. For these tasks you don’t need to read or understand
every word.

Scanning is also useful when you don’t have time to read very word. This could be
when you’re studying or looking for specific information from a book or article and need
to find it quickly.
TIPS: BETTER SCANNING

o Don’t try to read every word, instead let your eyes move quickly across the page
until you find what you’re looking for.
o Use clues on the page, such as headings and titles, to help you
o In a dictionary or phone book, use the header words to help you scan. You can
find these in bold type at the top of each page.
o If you’re reading for study, start by thinking up or writing down some questions
that you want to answer. Doing this can focus your mind and help you find the
facts or information that you need more easily.
o Many texts list things in alphabetical order from A to Z. these include everyday
materials such as the phone book or indexes to books and catalogues.
o There are many ways to practice scanning skills. try looking up a favorite recipe
in the index of a cookbook, search for a plumber in your local yellow pages or
scan webpages on the internet to find specific information.
 Example

The battle for Westeros may be won or lost on the back of a lime green
mechanical bull.

That’s what it looks like on a January Monday in Belfast, as Game of

Thrones films its seventh season here. Certainly no one believes the
dragons that have thrilled viewers of HBO’s hit series exist in any real
sense. And yet it’s still somewhat surprising to see the British actor Emilia
Clarke, who plays exiled queen Daenerys, straddling the “buck” on a
soundstage at Titanic Studios, a film complex named after this city’s other
famously massive export.

The machine under Clarke looks like a big pommel horse and moves in
sync with a computer animation of what will become a dragon. Clarke
doesn’t talk much between takes. Over and over, a wind gun blasts her
with just enough force to make me worry about the integrity of her ash
blond wig. (Its particular color is the result of 2½ months’ worth of testing
and seven prototypes, according to the show’s hair designer.) Over and
over, Clarke stares down at a masking-tape mark on the floor the instant
episode director Alan Taylor shouts, “Now!” Nearby, several visual-effects
supervisors watch on monitors.

Clarke and I talk in her trailer before she heads to the soundstage, at the
beginning of what is to be a long week inhabiting a now iconic character.
Behind the scenes it’s more toil than triumph, though. The show’s first
season ended with Daenerys’ hatching three baby dragons, each the size
of a Pomeranian. They’ve since grown to the size of a 747. “I’m 5-ft.-
nothing, I’m a little girl,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Emilia, climb those stairs,
get on that huge thing, we’ll harness you in, and then you’ll go crazy.’ And
you’re like, ‘Hey, everybody! Now who’s shorty?!’”

She has reason to feel powerful. On July 16, Clarke and the rest of the
cast will begin bringing Thronesin for a landing with the first of its final 13
episodes (seven to air this summer, six to come later). Thrones, a scrappy
upstart launched by two TV novices in 2011, will finish its run as the
biggest and most popular show in the world. An average of more than 23
million Americans watched each episode last season when platforms like
streaming and video on demand are accounted for. And since it’s the most
pirated show ever, millions more watch it in ways unaccounted
for. Thrones, which holds the record for most Emmys ever won by a
prime-time series, airs in more than 170 countries. It’s the farthest-
reaching show out there—not to mention the most obsessed-about.

People talk about living in a golden age of TV ushered in by hit dramas

like The Sopranos, Mad Menand Breaking Bad. All had precisely honed
insights about the nature of humanity and of evil that remade expectations
of what TV could do. But that period ended around the time Breaking
Bad went off the air in 2013. We’re in what came next: an unprecedented
glut of programming, with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and
Hulu jumping into an ever-more-crowded fray. Now, there’s a prestige
show for every conceivable viewer, which means smaller audiences and
fewer truly original stories.

Except for Thrones, which merges the psychological complexity of the

best TV with old-school Hollywood grandeur. You liked shows with one
antihero? Well, Thrones has five Tony Sopranos building their empires on
blood, five Walter Whites discovering just how far they’ll go to win, five
Don Drapers unapologetic in their narcissism. Oh, and they’re all living out
their drama against the most breathtaking vistas not of this world.

The phenomenon is fueled by a massive worldwide apparatus that, in a

typical 10-episode season, generates the equivalent of five big-budget,
feature-length movies. Even as the series has grown in every conceivable
way over the years—it shoots around the globe; each episode now boasts
a budget of at least $10 million—it remains animated by one simple
question: Who will win the game in the end? And if Thrones has taught us
anything, it’s that every reign has to end sometime.