Skimming and Scanning

You're skimming a book called "Plant Life" to see if it would be a good source for you research paper on how flowers grow.

Where would you look to see if it has the info you need?

• the title

• the cover

• the table of contents

• the first paragraph

It's time to pick a book for silent reading time. You have a stack of novels in front of you. What is the best thing to look at to decide if the book will interest you?

• the title

• the first sentence or paragraph

• the list of chapters

• the index

You're interested in learning more about dogs, but you don't want a boring book full of text.

What is the best part of the book to look at to see if it will interest you?

• the title

• the cover

• the table of contents

• the pictures

You're skimming a newspaper to find the comics section.

What is the best thing to look at to find the section you want?

• the section headings

• the pictures

• the title

• the index

You're reading a short story and want to quickly determine what it is about.

What is the best thing to look at?

• the title

• the first and last sentence of each paragraph

• dialogues

• the author

You're reading a chapter in your textbook to prepare for a test.

What is the best thing to look for to find the most important information quickly?

• the bold words

• charts

• picture captions

• the first sentence of each paragraph

You're playing a game and want to know how the winner is determined, so you open the instructions, but they are long.

What is the best thing to look at to quickly find what you're looking for?

• the pictures

• the first sentence of each paragraph

• the headings

• the numbered lists

You're writing a research paper about a particular general during the Civil War, but the book you have on the Civil War is huge.

What is the best thing to look at to quickly find what you need?

• the index

• the first and last sentence of each paragraph

• bold words

• the title

You're reading a book about flies. You want to know how each type of fly compares to the others.

While scanning the book, you should focus on:

• pictures and charts

• bold words

• the index

• the title

You're browsing the Help Wanted ads to find a job. The job must pay at least $10/hour.

When scanning the job ads, what should you look at in each ad before reading the rest of the ad?

• the $ amount

• the contact number

• the heading

• the first sentence