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If you don't have much time and you need to determine whether a book is worth purchasing, borrowing, or reading, 'skimming skills' will aid you in the process.
Steps
Read the Title - dead giveaway.
Read the subtitle - some titles are ambiguous, but subtitles tend to shed more light.
Read the preface - usually the writer(s) explain exactly what the book is about.
Look at the Table of Contents - this will give you further information on the books subject structure and components.
Read the Publisher's blurb - usually located in the back, some are found in the book's dust cover. This too is an excellent way to discover the gist of a book.
Identify important chapters to read and less important chapters.
Read the first and last lines of each paragraph to get a feel for the flow of argument and the topics of the chapter.Advertisement
Expert Q&A
Tips
- Reading topic sentences and concluding sentences only works if the title is professionally written non-fiction.Thanks
- Some religious books index Scripture passages. This is called a "Scripture index."Thanks
- Finally, you may want to consult books which will help you develop active reading skills, a classic one would be "How to Read A Book" by Adler and Van Doren.Thanks
Warnings
- Publisher blurbs are often written by a marketing department and so although seldom inaccurate, they may bear little or no resemblance to the material, veracity, accuracy or approach the book takes to the material.Thanks
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