Three ways to read
| English | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| skimming | 略读 | lüè dú |
| scanning | 查读 | chá dú |
| close reading | 精读 | jīng dú |
| topic sentence | 主题句 | zhǔ tí jù |
Reading every word is the slow way to fail
- An academic text is not read from the start at one speed. It is attacked with a technique chosen for a purpose.
- Three techniques, three purposes. Choosing wrongly wastes the hour you have.
- The technique is what is marked, not how many pages you got through.
Skim, scan, read closely
- Skimming 略读 is fast, for the general idea: title, first and last paragraph, first sentence of each paragraph between.
- Scanning 查读 hunts one item — a date, a figure, a name — ignoring everything else on the page.
- Close reading 精读 is slow reading of a short passage for exact meaning.
You need the year a study was published, and nothing else. Which technique?
Scanning hunts one item and ignores the rest of the page. It is the fastest correct answer here.
What do you actually read when you skim? Choose all that apply.
Footnotes are detail, and detail is what skimming deliberately skips.
Skim to decide whether a source is useful. Scan to find the number. Read closely to quote it. Most wasted reading time is close reading of a source that a two-minute skim would have rejected.
The topic sentence is a map
- A topic sentence 主题句 usually opens a paragraph and states what it is about.
- Reading only the topic sentences of a long text gives you its shape in a minute.
- If a paragraph has no topic sentence, that is itself information: it is probably narrative or evidence, not argument.
Reading only the topic sentences of a long article can give you its structure.
That is what a topic sentence is for. It states the paragraph's single idea.
You have one hour and six sources. Put the plan in order.
Writing the citation at the moment you copy is what prevents an accidental plagiarism later.
You have forty minutes and six sources for a report on urban transport.
Wrong: read source one closely. Forty minutes gone, one source, no idea whether the other five were better.
Right: skim all six in twelve minutes and rank them. Scan the best two for the figures you need. Close-read the one paragraph you will actually quote.
Same hour, six sources judged, one quotation secured.
You meet an unknown word in the middle of a paragraph. What is the best move?
Most unknown words turn out not to matter, and stopping breaks the thread of the argument.
Do not look up every unknown word while reading. It converts reading into dictionary work, and by the third lookup you have lost the thread of the argument. Mark the word, finish the paragraph, then decide whether it mattered.