Hey everyone! I hope you’re thriving. I have covid again and would never advocate working while sick. I’m a hypocrite! No, I actually just feel this crushing responsibility to you all that you get something out of this course this semester so I wanted to keep us moving along since we’re quickly getting towards the end.
So I want to share this tip/trick that I thought of last semester, the mostly unacknowledge tool of “skimming” or “scanning” as a teachable reading technique.
It’s something I’ve done in shame, in “I’m cheating” or “I’m not paying attention to the author” or “I’m skimming this and what if I miss something important and draw the wrong conclusion”
Still to this day, many years into my academic career, I typically pick up a book or an article and read it from start to finish (aka I don’t get as much reading done as I’d like). My grandmother taught me to be a reader and she was very strict about reading cover to cover and never starting a new book before you finish the one you’re reading.
I wish I had known that wasn’t an *actual* rule in the world and instead just her preference. My reading trajectory would’ve probably been much less stressful.
So now, for those of you who have never been given this gift, I’m going to tell you that skimming and scanning are acceptable and even promoted reading strategies for getting through lots of different texts.
I tried to find a procedure for scanning/skimming that I liked, but they’re all sort of bland and say the same thing. This link was the clearest, simplest, version I could find after an evening of searching. It comes from the University of North Carolina’s Learning Center and it outlines strategies for academic reading.
Full disclosure: I started thinking about scanning/skimming because the article I want you to read on electronic miniaturization is 22 pages (with sources). The article stays on our topic of thinking about disability and technologies that can/should be inclusive. It’s also interesting because it gives a history of how this type of electronic miniaturization was created by disabled people to support their desire for hearing aids.
Please skim/scan the article attached and tell me something new that you find both from the technique of skimming/scanning and about electronic miniaturization.
Enjoy the day!
Although skimming texts is typically frowned upon, it is a rather convenient way to understand the main points of an article. I find skimming to be quite effective, because even after reading an article, the information is more likely to be overwhelming to the point where almost nothing is learned, in fact, this often happens to me. I enjoyed that there were multiple skimming strategies, and I mostly leaned towards the beginnings & endings and wheat vs. chaff strategies, because they seemed to work the best for me. I learned that skimming is a strategic approach, and must be treated as a way of actively engaging with the main points of a text, in order for it to have a positive outcome.
From reading the article about electronic miniaturization I learned that hearing aids and WWII were the two main circumstances that prompted the development of more efficient and feasible technology circuit-wise. The impacts of circuit development extended into the realm of telephones, long-distance communication and wearable technology. Ultimately, the integrated circuit was developed initially for usage in hearing aids, but its application has continued to expand into various industries.
Skimming/scanning: I noticed that at the beginning of the article, I still took my time going through each paragraph and trying to grasp very miniscule detail of the article. However, as I finished reading one-third of the way, I was unknowingly resorting to the tips and techniques of the shared article from UNC Chapel Hill. For example, I started focusing on the start and end of the paragraphs more as it contained the main idea of said paragraph most of the time. Annotating the article helped retain a lot of the article’s content as well. More specifically, highlighting important information in yellow and talking points in green helped me read the article with purpose of both answering this module but also understanding more about the role of hearing aids in miniaturization in general. Therefore, I came to realize that skimming becomes a lot simpler when there is an intended goal for that reading, as it helps focus in key elements that help meet that goal.
Electronic miniaturization: The articles sheds light on how the development of hearing aids was crucial in furthering miniaturization of gadgets and technology. The miniaturization in hearing aids was closely tied to telephones and communication devices, as well as military radios and more. Often, companies would note the successes of innovations to hearing aids as the devices tried to improve in several areas – portability, invisibility, use of battery power, etc. Additionally, an interesting element the article also delves into is how the hearing aid is showcased as an impediment to the hard of hearing community throughout history, leading to many of the upgrades to the devices that were advertised to help the community socially integrate. Namely, for hearing aids, a key reason regarding to why the device got smaller, besides portability, was because many felt uncomfortable in having an obvious device that broadcasted their needs for accessibility to the whole world. The terminology of the “eyeglass aid” added to this notion as well.
Although skimming texts is often disapproved of by my high school teachers, it is a very handy technique to grasp an article’s major idea. I think skimming to be quite successful since, even after reading an article, the information is more likely to be overwhelming, to the point where nearly nothing is learned and then the reader starts zoning out.
Hearing aids and WWII were the two main reasons that spurred the development of more efficient and viable technology circuit-wise, according to the article about electronic miniaturization. Circuit creation had ramifications in the areas of telephones, long-distance communication, and wearable technologies.