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READING FOR MAIN POINTS AND SPECIFIC INFORMATION
READING FOR MAIN POINTS
If this is the first advice sheet you use, you may also want to look at Improving your reading speed (R4). When you read for main points only, of course, you will increase your reading speed naturally.
It would be easier to locate main points in a reading article if you know what they are. A simple way is look at the title of the article. A good title should be able to summarize the theme of the article. When you read, try to identify all the points related to the theme or the title.
If the title does not tell explicitly what the content or theme is, then try to predict. This leaflet will give you some tips on helping you to locate main points, and the materials that you may use for practice.
Tips on locating main points
• Identify a purpose for your reading.
• List out several points you want to get from the article, and look for those points when you read.
• Look for any signposts in the article. They are hints to let you know whether the nearby text contains important information. When you see signposts such as "in other words", you may automatically skip this part since it is a paraphrase of a previously-mentioned point. Other signposts such as "another important point", "what is important is...", etc. are signals that tell you to read on.
• It's WRONG to assume that the first sentence of each paragraph summarizes the main idea of that paragraph.
• It's also WRONG to assume that each paragraph should contain one main idea. Some paragraphs may contain more than one main point. And in other cases, one main point is expressed in several paragraphs. (See Improving your reading speed.)
• Take graphics and layout as hints. Important words may be in bold or larger font size.
READING FOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION
The technique scanning or looking for specific information is very useful when you know exactly what you are looking for in a text. Since you have a very specific goal in mind, when you read, you only read the relevant part(s) and ignore the irrelevant.
Very much similar to reading for main points (R5), you could start by making a list of points you would like to locate in a text. The list will help you find the relevant points in the text. Now, before you do some practice, read the tips in the following section. You could use the list as an exercise for scanning. To do this, please follow the steps below:
1. Predict one or two tips that you think are relevant to scanning. You could either write them down or remember them.
2. Read and see if the following list contains your prediction.
3. Read the tip(s) that you have predicted correctly, and ignore the rest.
4. If you have done all of the above steps in 30 seconds, congratulations! You should be quite skillful in scanning and need not read on.
Tips on locating specific information
• Keep in mind what you want to locate in a text.
• Jot down on a piece of paper a few key words that are related to the topic you want to explore in a text. When you read, look for those key words. Slow down when you see them. After some practice, you could perform this 'anticipation-confirmation of anticipation' process mentally instead of actually writing the key words.
• DON'T read every word.
• Make use of headings. If you read a book, use the contents page or the index. If you read an article, make use of the headings and sub-headings to help you locate the information you want.
• Set a time limit for yourself. If you cannot find anything relevant after the set time, the text probably does not provide what you want.
• DON'T use a dictionary unless you are very sure the word in doubt is related to the information you are looking for.