Skimming Tips

[RootBeerBert]

You guys got any tips for skimming textbook chapters? I've got 8 chapters/320+ pgs of a history textbook plus corresponding paragraph questions to do for summer work. Since I’m starting a bit late and am a chronic procrastinator I know with absolute certainty I can’t just read it so does anyone know what I can do to effectively skim through it?

 

[SailusGebel]

Nothing.

 

[RootBeerBert]

Nothing.

;-;

 

[Syringe]

Is this an online textbook? Nothing beats Ctrl+F and searching key words.

 

[RobBanks]

If you are unfortunate enough to be working with a physical book, well...
There's no secret formula.

Just try to do the classic diagonal run (read only the first and last sentence of each paragraph as fast as possible) and pray you come across the information you need. This can also screw you over sometimes, though.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Get some not-really-fast-but-not-really-slow-beat music and find a rhythm that fits your reading speed. Sounds weird, but I can't explain it better. The kind of music you don't actively listen to because it fades to the background.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

Find the key words or key points and read about those. Ignore the rest. If you see fluff words the. Pass over it. They only care about the technical stuff like dates, names, and their actions. Sometimes though, the fluff can be funny.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

First, encourage people to pay in cash. Never skim tips when they pay by credit card. Unfortunately, most businesses put tip jars in front of cameras, so never just steal it directly. Instead, get a roll of nickles and switch them out for quarters while pretending to "make change" for a vending machine.

If you are the type to bus tables, switch out 5s for 1s. It's next to impossible to tell what denomination money is from a distance.

If you are the owner, just lie and skim off the top, but do it at random and a random percentage each time. People get caught when they have a detectable pattern. Occasionally put extra money into the tips just to confuse anyone who is trying to catch you.

 

[RootBeerBert]

Is this an online textbook? Nothing beats Ctrl+F and searching key words.

Nope, physical.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Take a random page. Take a paragraph with odd words. Copy it letter for letter into Google inside quotations. Add .pdf.

Search.

If you find the pdf copy online, copy paste the chapters you have to read into text edit.

Use the tts feature as it has no size limit, unlike most online tts programs.

Listen to the book every time you go to sleep.

 

[Cipiteca396]

You're starting way earlier than I did for summer homework.

Then again, I don't remember needing a textbook to do my summer work either. It was all review and stuff.

In the back of a physical book, you should find something called an 'Index'. This is a list of every word in the book, and every page those words appear on. If you're having trouble with a particular problem, you can try searching for relevant words in the Index.

But I'd suggest just reading the whole thing. That's what I used to do, and I'm only a shallow wreck of a person, so it can't go that bad~!

 

[greyblob]

chatgpt unironically
you can find a pdf copy of your book on zlibrary or something

 

[TheEldritchGod]

chatgpt unironically
you can find a pdf copy of your book on zlibrary or something

DO NOT USE CHATGPT TO WRITE ANY ANSWERS OR PAPERS.

Because the teachers are running anything suspect through ChatGPT and asking it if it wrote it. And it remembers everything.

 

[greyblob]

DO NOT USE CHATGPT TO WRITE ANY ANSWERS OR PAPERS.

Because the teachers are running anything suspect through ChatGPT and asking it if it wrote it. And it remembers everything.

he said skimming not writing. you can just ask it to summarize

 

[3guanoff]

If you got the questions, it is much easier. Is it one question per paragraph?
In any case, do "named" questions first. Is the question asking about so-and-so? Scan the paragraph for any mention of this person. (The same works for dates, places, and other distinct letter-number combinations).

- If there is no mention, move on to the next named question.
- Did you find the word? Then read the corresponding sentence as well as one before and as many after as necessary. Most of the time, that very sentence contains the answer to your question.

This way, you can get the easy ones out of the way first.

You could also check for an epub or OCR'd/searchable PDF version of the textbook. That way, you can let the search function do some of the work.

As for the other questions, you can try scanning for keywords.

 

[K5Rakitan]

DO NOT USE CHATGPT TO WRITE ANY ANSWERS OR PAPERS.

Because the teachers are running anything suspect through ChatGPT and asking it if it wrote it. And it remembers everything.

That is nasty. We're 8 billion monkeys with 2 billion computers, and the more years we do this shit, the more innocent kids are going to get screwed by the AI.

 

[greyblob]

DO NOT USE CHATGPT TO WRITE ANY ANSWERS OR PAPERS.

Because the teachers are running anything suspect through ChatGPT and asking it if it wrote it. And it remembers everything.

also this is wrong. chatgpt doesn't remember what it outputs

 

[TheEldritchGod]

also this is wrong. chatgpt doesn't remember what it outputs

Really? Facinating. Say... on an unrelated matter, have you thought of investing in Bridge Management?

 

[greyblob]

Really? Facinating. Say... on an unrelated matter, have you thought of investing in Bridge Management?

i feel like there's a joke here i don't understand

 

[TheEldritchGod]

i feel like there's a joke here i don't understand

I have a bridge to sell you. When you buy the Brooklyn bridge, you can then make it a toll bridge and make all your money back in no time.