Stay on Top of Your Reading

 

By Richard G. Ensman Jr.

 

Thousands of pages of reading material are put in front of you each month. How can you manage to digest it all?

 

They just keep coming and coming: newspapers, magazines, professional journals, reports and stacks of other published material dumped on your desk each day. Most people can’t make a dent in such a pile, so they either read at random or discard much of it in frustration.

 

Don’t let it be that way for you. A few reading skills can help you plow through far more published material than you ever imagined.

 

Use the table of contents and index

 

When available, these allow you to pinpoint items you’d like to read, either by subject area or title.

 

Scan headlines and topic sentences

 

Look over the headings, which encapsulate the information that follows. More importantly, find the topic sentence, usually the first or second sentence of a paragraph.

 

Study the sidebars and illustrations

 

These typically explain key points, provide glossaries of terminology, or analyze the implications of the article’s content. If the illustrated material captivates you, read the text for more information.

 

Use the “skim-read-skim” method

 

When you must absorb a lot of information, first, scan the material, glancing at titles and topic sentences and highlighting with a pen. Then, go back and read the material. Lastly, skim the key points again to help you remember them.

 

When reading newspapers, concentrate on the first few paragraphs

 

Most news stories are written in the “inverted pyramid style,” with the key facts and conclusions contained in the first few paragraphs of the story.

 

Clip and read

 

Scan each periodical as it comes in and clip the articles with titles or headlines of special interest to you. Discard everything but the clipped material; read the clippings at your convenience.

 

Using these reading skills can vastly reduce the number of hours you spend reading — and leave you with more time for other priorities.

Vocabulary Focus

digest (v) [di5dVest] to read or hear new information and take the necessary time to understand it

make a dent (v) to slightly reduce a large amount of something

plow through (v) to continue doing something steadily, even if it is difficult

encapsulate (v) [in5kApsjuleit] to express or show concisely the most important facts about something

有效率地阅读

杨嘉倩  译

每个月都有数千页的资料等你去阅读。你该如何消化它们呢？   

 

报纸、杂志、专业期刊、报告和好几迭印刷品接踵而至，每天不断地堆到你的桌子上。大部分的人都没法减少这些堆积如山的资料。所以他们不是随便看看，就是沮丧地把大多数的资料扔掉。   

你大可不必如此。一些阅读技巧，可以帮助你费力啃完比你想象还多得多的出版物。    

善用目录和索引：若有目录及索引，你可借着浏览主题或题目准确地找到你想读的东西。   

扫视标题和主题句：浏览标题，因为它们能精确地归纳后续内容。更重要的是，找到主题句，通常在段落的头一两句找得到。   

仔细阅读边栏和图解：它们会解释重点、提供术语词汇表或分析文章内容的涵义。如果这些说明性的资料吸引你，就阅读正文以获得更多信息吧。   

使用“浏览─阅读─浏览”的方式：当你必须吸收大量的信息时，先扫视资料，快速瞥过题目和主题句，并用笔标出重点。然后回头阅读正文。最后再浏览重点以帮助你牢记。   

看报纸时，将注意力集中在前面几个段落：大部分的新闻报道都是用“倒金字塔”方式所写。这个书写方式将重要的事实与结论放在报道的前几段。   

剪辑再阅读：收到每份期刊时，先扫视并将你觉得题目或标题打动你的文章剪下，丢掉剩余的部分。有空时再阅读剪下的文章。   

运用这些阅读技巧可以大量削减你花在阅读的时间，并且给你更多时间做其它重要的事。

 

译注：scan与skim都有浏览之意，但scan是为了搜寻特定重要讯息，skim则是为了抓住内容大意。