Skimming is not a mere hit-or-miss procedure; it is a well-defined skill of reading. Because it is of supreme importance in efficient reading, this technique should be carefully "spelled out" step by step.
Skimming is merely a tool for the reader. Like any tool, it is to be employed when it is needed to accomplish a certain result. And the expert reader employs it frequently, but always purposefully. He realizes that, like any tool, skimming is a method of extracting ideas from the pages of print; it is a means to an end. Depending upon his purpose, the expert reader will decide how he will use the skimming technique.
Skimming may be an end in itself, or it may be only the first step in a chain reaction which will blast the reading structure wide apart so that the meaning will fall out more readily. It is frequently used to "soften up" the chapter or the article preparatory to the digesting of it more completely for facts or details. It is usually wise to skim any araticle first. Get over the entire article. See the parts in relation to the whole. Use the skimming technique as a means of sifting out that to which you need to give only cursory attention and that which you may wish to consider at greater length and with more care. Used inteligently, the technique of skimming is one of the most useful tools for "cracking" the printed pages.
Skimming is the master key to rapid and efficient reading. It is the first step toward laying hold in the most complete, orderly and systematic manner of the thought that is cloistered within the printed word.
Skimming implies a psychological attitude toward the material to be read. The reader must try to see whatever he is reading as an entity -- a whole in relation to its various parts. It means surveying, inspecting topographical features, and noting typographical aids.
In the area of reading improvement, as in any are of human behaviour, the truth remains that what one knows to do and what one does are sometimes vastly different things. And what one does is of the two by far the more important.
You will read better only when you practice and head that knowledge in which you have been instructed. Old ineffectual habits have bound you down and have hindred your progress. You will be liberated from your slow, laborious reading when new, free habits take the place of old ones.
