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I've always been a skimmer. With most writing, a good portion of the words can be skipped without missing much content. The web hasn't changed this for me. I di
by jqm 12y ago
I've always been a skimmer. With most writing, a good portion of the words can be skipped without missing much content. The web hasn't changed this for me. I did it before with print books including fiction for entertainment.
Sometime when the subject matter is deep or densely packed I have to make myself slow down. Usually this isn't the case though.
- veidr 12y agoI read a lot of fiction... (checks kindle) looks like about 100 books a year. I definitely start skimming when the story isn't engaging enough. Roughly speaking, I think the better a book is, the less I tend to skim. A truly great novel I will read at probably 10% of the speed of a bad one. (If it's really bad, of course, I stop reading and throw it away.. that's probably the case with 20% of the novels I start). With most nonfiction, technical books, etc., it is different -- I skim as much as I can while still extracting the info/knowledge I am trying to get out of it.
- emodendroket 12y agoDepends on the book but I've definitely found some dense technical books (mostly textbooks) have to be read much slower than my normal speed for real comprehension.