It's time for another Musing Monday over at Just One More Page... and this weeks question is:When reading do you read every word? Do you ever skip chapters or skim over parts?
This is an interesting question, but also one that I'm not quite sure how to answer.
I do know that I would never ever skip a whole chapter, or even a whole page. If I don't like a book I am reading so much that I want to skip over parts of it, then I simply stop reading, rather than skipping through the book just to finish it.
There are also times when I'm reading a book that I am really into and dying to find out what happens next and my eyes will skip over large text blocks full of description to the dialogue on the next page, but then I usually rein myself back in and go back to reread what I missed.
As for skimming I don't think I do this, but I do read fairly quickly, so maybe there are times when I am not completely absorbing each and every word. Does that count as skimming? I don't think so, when I think of skimming something, I think of Men's Health Magazine.
My husband received a subscription to this magazine for Christmas, and since I cannot resist flipping through shiny magazine pages, I decided to take a look. Mostly it was like a women's magazine with fashion tips, diet tips, workout tips, and sex tips - all suggesting none too subtely that you need improvement. To be fair they also have the monthly Eat This, Not That article and I have to admit to being endlessly fascinated by information like: THE WORST DRINK ON THE PLANET!!! Not only do I love their use of hyperbole, but they also make comparisons of how many Krispy Kreme donuts or strips of bacon a food is equal to - as if these were some new kind of unit of measurement.
Okay, anyway, sorry for the detour - to get back to my original point, which was skimming, (it was skimming? right?) the other thing that Men's Health does is very helpfully highlight in yellow the main idea of all the articles throughout the magazine. So, with no effort at all you can easily skim through the magazine. I'm sure the writers of those articles must love knowing that out of the 1000 or so words that they wrote, most people won't bother to read more than the 50 highlighted ones.
Well, that is all from me on this topic. How about you? Do you skim or skip when you read?
