Use skimming, for gist and organization, and scanning, for specific facts or keywords, as distinct, fast strategies for research reading.
Not all reading should be slow and careful -- when you are researching, you often need to move FAST to find out if a source is even useful before reading it closely. Two tools help: skimming and scanning.
Skimming means reading quickly to get the general idea and structure -- read the title, headings, first sentence of each paragraph, and any bold words, then move on. Scanning means running your eyes down the page hunting for ONE specific thing -- a name, a date, a number -- without reading every word.
Mastery looks like: They can skim a text headings and structure to predict its content and scan efficiently for a specific fact, using each strategy at the appropriate moment.
Common stumbles: Skimming or scanning too slowly, essentially just reading normally, which defeats the speed purpose of these strategies.