[nabs-l] skimming

[bookwormahb at earthlink.net]

Hi all,
There is a place for both skimming and reading word by word.
One major factor is time.  Antonio, I know how you feel.
I caught a bad cold some semesters and fell behind my peers and like you 
needed to catch up fast with hundreds of pages.

I will write more later.  I also use RFB a lot as my primary choice, just as 
you're doing.
Most say electronic text is faster/easier. For me its not.  I can speed up 
the audio speech. While I can listen to jaws fast, I can't learn well by 
speeding through it as I cannot take notes efficiently when I'm expending 
the energy to understand jaws at a faster speed.  I read email/internet 
stuff faster, but processing everything is not so essential then.

Antonio, I'll write more tips later.
As Sean said, skimming by paragraph in electronic text is a good idea. If 
you know the exact word and its spelling you can also search for it by 
Control F.

For RFB, I have not found a good solution. Here is a few thoughts.
1. If the reader starts describing graphs or tables/illustrations you don't 
need, skip to the next page.
2. If you're pressed for time, reading segments helps. I mean the first few 
pages. Then maybe five middle pages and the end of the chapter. Many books 
have a summary and list of key concepts or objectives.
Read those summaries; I find they well paraphrase main points.

Good luck.
Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Sean Whalen
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 2:47 PM
To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] skimming

Knowing what to read word by word and what to skim through is in itself a
important skill for success. Certainly, sometimes you need to read
everything that is written, and other times doing so would be an inefficient
use of time.



Electronic texts are, to me, vastly superior to audio recordings. Getting
print copies of books and articles and scanning them is worthwhile, and will
likely end up saving time even once you take scanning and conversion times
into account. Control down arrow to move by paragraph is my best friend when
simply trying to take in main points. Also, down and right arrow
respectively skip by paragraph and sentence when in say all mode. Even if
you are reading something in its entirety, e-texts are much quicker. Most
JAWS users can listen to content at speeds from 350 to over 600 words per
minute. The upper end of that range is significantly faster than most
sighted folks can read for full comprehension. In the one graduate level
class I took, I scanned all books and articles that were not already
available electronically, and in conversations with fellow students I came
to find out that I did more reading than most, and did it in less time. I
also did a substantial research paper which required skimming through
numerous articles to look for relevant material. So, I would suggest, have
somebody scan for you, or rip the binding off, run it through a high-speed
scanner, and convert with Open Book or the like. Trust me, you will end up
ahead of the game in terms of time spent and content absorbed.



Sean





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