When reading non-fiction, a lot of the time you are reading to find something out, to gain knowledge in a particular area. When it comes to speed reading, there are a few tricks you can use to reduce the time it takes to cover a specific topic, or find out what you want to know from a specific text or book. There are some simple steps to take which will help you to find out what you want from a text, and make the process of finding it a lot quicker.

Previewing the Non-Fiction Text

To start off with, all you need to do is preview the material you are going to read. If it's a book, look at the contents page, look at the different sections of the book listed their and decide which one is most relevant to the information you are looking for. Next, to get an overall idea of the topic, take a look at all of the titles and sub-headings in the text or chapter, and understand how they relate to what you are trying to find out. If the text you are searching is not very long, like a web-page for example, it is also useful to scan the text in between the headings to give you a more in-depth view to weather the section is relevent or not. Now you have a rough idea about what you are trying to find out, it's time to read the crucial information and find out whatever you are trying to find out.

Skim Reading

Now, because you are just trying to find something out or gain knowledge on a particular subject, you don't really need to pay attention to all of the filler text you'll find, it's the key facts and concepts you are looking for. While many non-fiction books can be entertaining in the way they are written, your aim is not to enjoy the book, but to take what you can from it, as quick as you can. To efficiently absorb what is written in the sections you have decided are most relevant for your puropose, you need to skim-read rather than read the text word for word. Skim-reading is an essential reading skill, it's where you glance at each line ,or chunk of the text, rather than reading it word for word, picking up as much information as you can. One thing to consider when skim-reading, is that because you cover the material a lot quicker than if you where reading the materail normally, might be worth skim reading of some sections more than once, to gain a more detailed knowledge of what you are searching for. This is still a lot quicker than reading everything word for word. If you need to read in further detail, it is worth noting that you'll find the most information at the beginning and end of the paragraphs, so as you're going for speed, those are the sections to concentrate on.

These techniques are not well suited to fiction text because the purpose of reading fiction is for enjoyment. Even if you do plan to thoughrouly read through a non-fiction book or text, the previewing technique is a useful technique to use so that you can relate all of the information together, and so that you can understand a little of what you are reading before you read through it completely.