Scanning and Skimming instead of Reading
At a click of a button in the web browser, you instantly see the keywords and the context of the web page or Google search results.
Jacob Nielsen provided a revealing study on How Users Read on the Web:
“People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.”
There are different methods of reading for different purposes.
The technique we choose depends on the reason for reading; for example, we can read for pleasure, for information, or to complete an assignment.
If we are appraising or reviewing, we may just skim a document. If we are searching for specific facts, we may scan for particular keywords. To get detailed information, we need to dig deeper into the text.
In effect, we adjust our reading speed and our focus depending on our purposes.
When reading large volumes of information, skimming and scanning may be more practical than deep reading.
Usually scanning is the first thing that we do when we select a source for review. It helps answer such questions as:
· Is this relevant to what I’m looking for?
· Will this give me the answers I’m looking for?
· Is there anything in this related to my interest?
In fact when we are scanning, we are zipping through the whole source, homing in on the important chunks. Scanning gives us a feel for the whole item; it works like a powerful filter and saves us time.
In practice, scanning is a particularly useful technique for reading web pages. For example, we scan Google search results rapidly checking for relevant keywords. We glance at the titles and summaries searching for phrases or keywords that relate to our search.
There is also a deeper rationale for scanning; when we scan, our minds are instantly matching the keywords with the purpose of our query. This instant contextualization is the main reason why scanning is a very effective filter for identifying the relevancy of information.
Context Organizer comes with built-in automatic scanning and skimming filters. At a click of the button in the web browser, Context Organizer instantly identifies the keywords and key sentences by relevance. That means that the users instantly know if the web page is important to them and what the focal points are.
Try out Context Organizer to help you with rapid scanning and reading.
Download Context Organizer today.
See the demos:
- Instant Keywords and Summaries for Google Searches with 1 click:
Context Organizer Google Search Summarization Demo
- Instant Keywords and Summaries for Web pages and documents with 1 click:
Context Organizer Web Pages demo Demo
- Turn web pages into MindManager maps with 1 click:
Context Organizer for MindManager Demo
Tags: Context, Context Organizer, keywords, scanning, skim reading, skimming
September 10th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.