Skipping pages?

ReacherCreature

Hello folks,

Just wondering what're your thoughts on skipping pages? Do you do it? Is it necessary for your style?

In reading through non-fiction work I've found myself skipping some pages or a chapter that I wouldn't have a huge amount of interest in it. However this isn't a common occurrence as I usually persist with the work.

Mods, not sure if this has been covered recently, had a quick look but nothing came up in the last few pages.

Red Hand

No, I don't. If something doesn't grab me by page 20 of a book, I abandon it, but if something is not that interesting halfway through, I'll slog through it.

Black Swan

I normally read fiction relatively fast, without skipping pages.

This approach changes when reading something highly conceptual, like theory, philosophy, or peer-reviewed scholarly journals. For example, awhile back I was reading The Gift of Death by Jacques Derrida, and found that if I attempted to understand each paragraph as it occurred in order, reading page-by-page in linear fashion, at times I would get bogged down in a detail, and miss the larger meaning of a chapter.

Now I tend to first read the chapter introduction (or journal article abstract), then skip back to the chapter summary, before returning to where I skipped earlier after the introduction. I then breeze through the chapter body, not allowing any particular detail to stall me, merely noting (*) that detail in the margin, before zipping to the end. Often, after doing this, the larger context of the chapter or article elucidates the detail I did not understand when first encountering it. If not, then consulting comparative sources (e.g., web searches) often helps.

After saying all this, there was a time when I would skip most of the pages of a story. A couple years back during a 4-year programme held across the pond, in addition to my course of study (i.e., major), I was required to take several classes to fulfill the general education requirement for the degree.

One such class was fictional literature, and the syllabus called for reading about six assigned short stories from an anthology as homework before class, and then upon entering class, the professor would randomly select one of the six stories, and expect us to write a summary essay in 20 minutes.

Rather than read the assignments before class, I would arrive completely unprepared. When the randomly selected story was announced, I would first read the first two pages of the story, then roughly approximate where the the middle two pages of the story occurred, read those, then flip back and read the final two pages of the story. I would then write upon any idea that struck my imagination, supporting it with only the 6 pages read, skipping the remaining pages entirely. I always got top grades on my essays, often with comments by the professor as to the uniqueness of my story interpretation.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Denerick

Yes, I had to do it in University. I would usually have a reading backlist of around 8-10 books that I had to read in relatively intense detail while also conducting primary research in archives and diaries/letters. Its quite intense. The only way you can through it in such a short space of time is to get a copybook and skim to the relevant sections to take notes. You can understand an historians POV from reading maybe 10% of the book.

That said, when I wan't pressed for time I would always read the book in a linear fashion, cover to cover. Other times I would read whole chapters at a time, moving on to different books. This was mainly because my historical interests are quite fickle, one week I may be interested in mid 18th century French cultural history, next I might be obsessed with the anarchy of King Stephen's Kingdom of England.

And they say the age of the generalist is dead

ReacherCreature

Denerick wrote: »

Yes, I had to do it in University. I would usually have a reading backlist of around 8-10 books that I had to read in relatively intense detail while also conducting primary research in archives and diaries/letters. Its quite intense. The only way you can through it in such a short space of time is to get a copybook and skim to the relevant sections to take notes. You can understand an historians POV from reading maybe 10% of the book.

And they say the age of the generalist is dead

I can sympathise with this. But isn't there a difference? At University level you're not really expected to read the books fully are you? When researching it would be unimaginable for me to read the book; I simply do not have the time so instead I extract the information from the book(s) but wouldn't count it as read.

Maybe your style's different to mine.

Although my college style of quickly skimming a page for information has leaked to my normal-out-of-college style of reading. I'm reading too quick and forgetting what's in the paragraphs. Then when something that's blatantly predictable/obvious happens and I didn't see it, I look like an idiot!

Anyways, thanks for the contributions folks, interesting replies.

Denerick

ReacherCreature wrote: »

I can sympathise with this. But isn't there a difference? At University level you're not really expected to read the books fully are you? When researching it would be unimaginable for me to read the book; I simply do not have the time so instead I extract the information from the book(s) but wouldn't count it as read.

Maybe your style's different to mine.

Although my college style of quickly skimming a page for information has leaked to my normal-out-of-college style of reading. I'm reading too quick and forgetting what's in the paragraphs. Then when something that's blatantly predictable/obvious happens and I didn't see it, I look like an idiot!

Anyways, thanks for the contributions folks, interesting replies.

In most cases you are right, but some courses (Such as historiography or courses with an angle that focuses on history writing) requires you to have an indepth understanding of various schools of thought. Its impossible to truly understand these intellectual movements without reading the whole blooming thing. The problem is that time or lack thereof is an issue.

kylith

I've only skipped the bloody singing in Lord of the Rings, and the fashion nonsense in American Psycho. I'm sure people will say it builds tone, but it's boring and has nothing to do with the plot.

dubdaymo

I have to admit I do skip pages of some books if I feel what I'm reading at that moment is boring and does not appear to be relevant. Unfortunately, later on in the read I sometimes find I have to go back and find out what happened in the skipped bit:o.

Permabear

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Denerick

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Haha... All I can say is that 'JSTOR' helped provide me with some pretty impressive final year essay bibliographies :P

Fragglefur

For textbooks then I guess I would read selectively (especially when writing a giant thesis), but if something really grabbed my attention then I might be tempted to read more, and maybe even look up primary resourses from cited material etc. However for novels I'd read the whole way (though on occasion have been tempted to read the last few pages first. Serious instant gratification problem I think :eek:)

ReacherCreature

Denerick wrote: »

Haha... All I can say is that 'JSTOR' helped provide me with some pretty impressive final year essay bibliographies :P

JSTOR is fantastic.

wilmer mclean

I never skip pages in books, I dont even generally ever put down a book, even if I dont like it. I just keep reading till im finished it. Though this has the terrible effect on my reading a couple of books a month and then slowing down to just one every six months when I make a bad pick!

Gneez

I'm reading through a series called the worldwar series, it's about an alien invasion during 1942 when world war II is in its height, I thought I was getting a military sci-fi series but the whole series reads like days of our lives for the jews, the author is a jew, most of the main characters are jews and they are all awesome dynamic people, everyone who is not a jew is a background character or belligerent fool and while some parts of the books are good, most notably the German panzer counter-attacks against the aliens using at first panzer IIIs and then later on tigers and panthers, the whole series reads like complete Pro jew propaganda, so while some parts are good I tend to completely skip the parts about poland and the guerilla movements in the east (all the guerrilla fighters are jews and the author points that out every practically every page) and I've started skipping the parts about the radar technicians who are making better radar (they all seem to be jews living in england)

So all in all in this series I've skipped about 20% of each book because quite frankly it's painful to read because it's so bias towards jews and keeps pointing out they are gods chosen people and oppressed by evil russians and evil germans and evil aliens and blah blah.

the west wing

I would never skip pages, however as I generally enjoy political/historical books I do sometimes find myself skimming over paragraphs that go into great technical detail about a certain policy I have no interest in or if there is a lot of statistics. I'm just not good with numbers!!:(

Asphyxia

wilmer mclean wrote: »

I never skip pages in books, I dont even generally ever put down a book, even if I dont like it. I just keep reading till im finished it.

I'm the exact same. I'd never skip a page in a book in case I missed something important. However if I was re-reading a book I might skip a few pages or a chapter!

wilmer mclean

Pocketfizz wrote: »

I'm the exact same. I'd never skip a page in a book in case I missed something important. However if I was re-reading a book I might skip a few pages or a chapter!

Really the only books I would skip pages in would be non fiction history books. Where I am only interested in certain episodes.