Speed Reading - Knowing How Deeply to Study the Material
Where you only need the shallowest knowledge of the subject, you can skim the
material. This is done by reading only chapter headings, introductions and summaries.
If you need a moderate level of information on a subject, then you can scan the
text. Here you read the chapter introductions and summaries in detail, but may speed-read the contents of the
chapters – picking out and understanding key words and important concepts. At this level of looking at the
document, it is worth paying attention to diagrams and graphs.
Only when you need detailed knowledge of a subject is it worth studying the
text. Studying is skimming the material first to get an overview, and afterwards reading it in detail while seeing
how the information presented connects to the overall structure of the subject. An effective method of getting the
deepest level of understanding on a text is to use a formal method such as SQ3R .
Do you read every article of every magazine, or every chapter of every book? If
so, you're probably spending a lot of time reading stuff you don't need. Remember: You don't need to read all of
what you DO read. Be choosy. Select the chapters and articles that are important. Ignore the rest.
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