Skimming

Skimming is a strategic, selective reading method in

which you focus on the main ideas of a text. When
skimming, deliberately skip text that provides details,
stories, data, or other elaboration. Instead of closely
reading every word, focus on the introduction, chapter
summaries, first and last sentences of paragraphs, bold
words, and text features. Skimming is extracting the
essence of the author’s main messages rather than the
finer points.
We need the “big picture” or “main points” when
we’re reading even if we’re going to do a more
detailed reading of the text. In these cases, skimming
helps us understand the overall points of the text and
its relevance to your course without bogging us down.
Types of Skimming:

Preview
Skimming

Overview

Review
 Defination:
Looking through the text before starting to read and
focus on headings, illustrations, captions, highlighted
Preview items, end of chapter summaries, etc. These features give
us an idea of the main concepts of the text and what we
should focus on while skimming.

We use overview skimming to peruse the reading

Overview material more thoroughly than we do in a preview, as we
may not intend to read the material at a later time.

Our purpose with review skimming is to re-familiarise

Review ourselves with material you have previously read
thoroughly or skimmed.
Methods Of All Types:
Preview Method: Reading the first and last sentences of
paragraphs, first and last paragraphs of major sections, and
introductions and summaries of chapters. We can call this
summarizing the main ideas. An example of preview is to
look at an art exhibit before the exhibit is open to the
public.
Overview Method: It’s as same as we do in preview
skimming but in addition, as we alternately read and skim,
we alert ourselves to the structure and content of the
material through an awareness of paragraph patterns,
thought transitions, and clue words.  For Example - When
one reads the text only in order to understand then he can
pass a thesis statement, in one or two lines.
Review Method: We prepare ourselves by trying to
remember as many of the ideas and details clearly. It may
be that we already have a good grasp of the main ideas and
will be stopping primarily to note significant details -
names, places, terms, etc. As an example we can ask and
write down questions that we have as we read the text
and/or questions that we would ask a class if we were the
instructor. 
Scanning:
Scanning is reading a text quickly in order to find
specific information, e.g. figures or names. It can be
contrasted with skimming, which is reading quickly to
get a general idea of meaning.

Functions Of Scanning:
1. Helps to refresh what one have read.
2. Helps in having accuracy in terms of finding.
3.Helps to give more focus on lexis than general
meaning and to ignore irrelevant information.
4.Helps to answer some of the questions which ask for
True/False or to discover facts.
5. Helps to look out for specific information.
6. Helps to find particular information by looking over
the whole text.
7. Give more focus on the form the words as the
reader knows what he or she looking for.