How to Flip Through a Textbook When There Is No Time to Read
I was both a student and an instructor and I totally understand. Textbooks are dry and difficult to read. But if you don’t have time to read the entire chapter properly , there’s actually a better solution than just glancing at the first paragraph a few times.
Get out those Trapper Keepers and sharpen your # 2 pencils – it’s a week back to school ! Going far beyond the classroom, we offer you ingenious tricks and ideas on how to get started with your routine, brush up on old skills, or learn something new this fall.
We’re talking about strategic skimming. It works better in some subjects than in others, but especially well for sciences such as biology. Grab the nearest textbook and flip through the chapter that you put off reading. Does it have many sections, each with its own heading? Charts and graphs? Best illustrations and diagrams with captions explaining what they are all about?
Next time you’re late for class, try this: Open a chapter, but don’t read the normal-sized text. Instead, read the subject headings, try to understand what these diagrams are trying to tell you, and pretend that these large, multi-piece diagrams are the only thing you really need to understand.
If you need hints from the text here and there, read them. (The headings for these sections will help you find the right place; also try reading the first line of each paragraph for orientation.) By the time you finish this exercise – go ahead and call it something exciting, like “power skimming” – you really have a pretty good general idea of what the hell is this chapter about.
This is a lie? No. Because if you are a diligent student, you can go back and read the text itself, and now that you have seen what important parts will be in it, it will make a lot more sense.
And if you are not a diligent student, then during the lecture you will be a little less lost than your classmates who did not open the book at all. Do you know how many times, as an instructor, I have asked a quiz question that was answered verbatim at the end of the chapter in a subheading ? A lot, okay? You’d be surprised how many people are wrong.
But listen, at least now you won’t be one of them.