Skimming speed increases across the later pages of multi-page texts¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1914 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Time per word in skimming decreased from first to third page of longer passages. → Whipple 1914

Evidence¶

Whipple 1914¶

Whipple, G. M., & Curtis, J. N. (1914). Preliminary Investigation of Skimming in Reading. The Journal of Educational Psychology. https://eric.ed.gov/?q=preliminary+investigation+of+skimming+in+reading

q2 · i? · causal · r1

Main experiments page-by-page comparison (Table 7) for the eight passages running over two pages. The article attributes the quickening in part to warming up and in part to increased ease of skipping as context piled up.

"By comparing the speed of skimming by pages, we find that it runs approximately 0.19 sec. per word for the first page, 0.17 sec. per word for the second page and 0.15 sec. per word in the third page"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Individual differences in skimming speed are large even among college-trained readers, with one observer skimming nearly three times the pace of another — related
• Skimming is the fastest of five reading modes, roughly 0.13-0.14 seconds per word versus 0.22-0.35 for normal and maximal silent and aloud reading — related
• Knowing that reproduction will be demanded slows reading rate across all readers and methods — related
• Forcing readers to skim at unusually high prescribed rates makes reproduction very poor and the process disagreeable — related