Scanning as a kind of reading

Scanning It is a quickly reading a text to get the gist of it. Scanning is a technique that often use when looking up a word in the telephone book or dictionary. The students search for key words or ideas. Scanning involves moving eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when the reader first find a resource to determine whether it will answer the questions. Once you’ve scanned the document, you might go back and skim it. When scanning, the students look for the author’s use of organizers such as numbers, letters, steps, or the words, first, second, or next. They look for words that are bold faced, italics, or in a different font size, style, or color. Sometimes the author will put key ideas in the margin. It's useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to you: -the introduction or preface of a book -the first or last paragraphs of chapters -the concluding chapter of a book.

Skimming as a kind of reading

Skimming is sometimes referred to as gist reading. Skimming may help in order to know what the text is about at its most basic level. You might typically do this with a magazine or newspaper and would help you mentally and quickly shortlist those articles which you might consider for a deeper read. You might typically skim to search for a name in a telephone directory.Skimming is one of the tools you can use to read more in less time. Skimming refers to looking only for the general or main ideas, and works best with non-fiction (or factual) material. With skimming, your overall understanding is reduced because you don’t read everything. You read only what is important to your purpose. Skimming takes place while reading and allows you to look for details in addition to the main ideas.