Strategic Reading Strategy: Methodical Skimming

Many UW students find skimming a great way to get an understanding of what an article is about quickly by being able to identify different keywords and parts of an article.

Remember, many academic and scholarly articles have a basic structure, making skimming articles a great skill to practice. Here's a common method for skimming articles:

• First read the article’s abstract, introduction and conclusion. Often this will be sufficient for a brief understanding of the main purpose. 
• Skim through the middle of the article and look for a statement of research methodology, and any visuals presented. What are the method(s) for collecting evidence or answering the article’s research question? 
• Does the article appear to be useful for your research? If yes, go back and skim the other parts of the article quickly, skipping any equations, figures and tables. 

Discipline-specific vocabulary: When is it worth it to look it up? 

It’s common to encounter new vocabulary, theories, and names in academic writing. Here’s how to avoid getting tripped up by new words!

• Before you look a word up, is the word essential for your understanding of context and main argument? 
• Is this word appearing multiple times in the article? Where does it appear? If it’s present in the abstract or introduction, it’s likely worth looking up. If you can understand the main argument without knowing the word, you can skip it for efficiency.

Adapted from Organizations & Markets Links to an external site.