Page 151 - DENG401_Advance Communication Skills

Advanced Communication Skills

Notes suits your purpose, it is fast and efficient. This principle, of first establishing your purpose,
whether to get the focus or theme, or main ideas, or main facts or figures, or evidence, arguments
and examples, or relations, or methods, can prompt you to use a reading method that gets what
you want in the minimum time.

Styles of Reading

There are three styles of reading which we use in different situations:
Scanning: for a specific focus
The technique you use when you're looking up a name in the phone book: you move your eye
quickly over the page to find particular words or phrases that are relevant to the task you're
doing.
It's useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to you:

1. The introduction or preface of a book
2. The first or last paragraphs of chapters
3. The concluding chapter of a book.
Skimming: for getting the gist of something
The technique you use when you're going through a newspaper or magazine: you read quickly
to get the main points, and skip over the detail. It's useful to skim:
1. To preview a passage before you read it in detail
2. To refresh your understand of a passage after you've read it in detail.
Use skimming when you're trying to decide if a book in the library or book shop is right for
you.

Detailed Reading: for extracting information accurately
Where you read every word, and work to learn from the text.
In this careful reading, you may find it helpful to skim first, to get a general idea, but then go
back to read in detail. Use a dictionary to make sure you understand all the words used.
Survey-Skim

Glance over the main features of the piece, that is, the title, the headings, the lead and summary,
paragraphs, to get an overview of the piece, to find out what ideas, problems and questions that
are being discussed. In doing this, you should find the focus of the piece, that is, the central
theme or subject, what it is all about; and perhaps the perspective, that is, the approach or
manner in which the author treats the theme. This survey should be carried out in not more than
a minute or two.

Notes Compose questions that you aim to answer:
1. What do I already know about this topic? – in other words, activate prior knowledge.

2. Turn the first heading into a question; to which you will be seeking the answer
when you read.

Example: “What were ‘the effects of the Hundred Years’ War’?” – And you might
add “on democracy, or on the economy”? Or “What is ‘the impact of unions on wages’?”

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