Skimming is a technique for high-speed reading to get the general sense or main ideas of a passage or book quickly. When skimming, read the first paragraph carefully, then skim the second paragraph and beginning of subsequent paragraphs, looking for topic sentences. Skip over less important paragraphs. Read the last paragraph more carefully as it often summarizes the main idea. Guidelines for effective skimming include reading as fast as possible while keeping your purpose in mind, and being flexible in how much to skim depending on the passage and your purpose. Book reviews can be skimmed to learn about the book's subject and get hints about the reviewer's opinion.