READING STRATEGIES Previewing Donesca

What is it? Previewing a text means that you get an idea of what it is about without actually reading the main body of the text.

When to use? to decide whether a book or journal is useful for your purpose to get a general sense of the article structure to help you locate relevant information to identify the sections of the text you may need to read and the sections you can omit

What should we focus on? Titles Section headings, subheadings Pictures (and picture captions) Bold-face and italicized print Graphics, diagrams, charts, maps Bulleted lists Sidebars Colors Symbols The way text is displayed Size of the fonts

Does it really help?? Most informational texts use a variety of visual, graphic and text features to organize information, highlight important ideas, illustrate key concepts, and provide additional information. When features recur in predictable patterns, they help the reader to find information and make connections. Readers who understand how to use these features spend less time unlocking the text, and have more energy to concentrate on the content.

In academic texts… Title and author details Abstract (if there is one) Parts that ‘jump out’ (main headings and sub headings, chapter summaries, highlighted text) Illustrations, graphs, tables or diagrams (and their captions) - they usually summarise the content of large portions of text