Skimming involves quickly reading a document to understand its general idea by reading things like the table of contents, opening and closing sentences of paragraphs, and headings. Scanning is also a quick read but to find a specific piece of information by looking for keywords, bold or italicized text, or larger font sizes. Both skimming and scanning can be used to get the overall subject and tone of a long report, find cars within a price range in the classifieds, or locate particular data in an accounting report.

1. Skimming-
quick
reading to
get the
general
idea.

2. To skim:
Read the table of
contents.
Read the opening/closing
sentences of paragraphs.
Read heading/subheadings.

3. Scanning-
quick reading
to find a
specific
piece of
information.

4. To scan:
Look for keywords
related to your topic.
Look for bold print and italics.
Look for words in larger
font size.

5. 1. You quickly go through a twenty-page report in
a few minutes, and determine the overall
subject, tone, and a few key points.
2. You open the classified section of a newspaper,
find the automobile section, and then mark a
few cars within your price range.
3. You flip through an accounting report to find a
particular set of data.
4. You pick up the newspaper in the doctor's
office, thumb through the first few pages, and
gather the gist of the events happening in the
world.