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Diploma in Higher Education Studies

Finding information fast: scanning

HES 101 · English for Academic Purposes — Week 3 of 16

CourseHES 101
Week3 of 16
SemesterI
TutorOnline in the course chat

This week’s topics

Finding information fast: scanning

  1. Looking for names, dates, numbers and key words
  2. Using contents pages and indexes

What you will be able to do

  • 1.2 Apply skimming and scanning techniques to extract key information.

Activity

Scan a long text to answer ten quick questions against the clock.

Study materials

Further resources

  • College Success, ch. 5.1: The nature and types of reading · PDF · OpenStax (2020), reading for different purposes incl. scanning; pp. 138–140 · for registered students
  • College Success, ch. 5.2: Effective reading strategies (scanning) · PDF · OpenStax (2020); pp. 141–151 · for registered students
  • Perceptions of scientific research literature and strategies for reading papers · Open-access article · Hubbard & Dunbar (2017), PLOS ONE. How readers jump to the sections, figures and key words they need instead of reading every line. · for registered students
Materials marked “for registered students” open in the student portal, which is set up as soon as you receive final acceptance.
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Course plan
  • Week 1: How a non-fiction article is organised
  • Week 2: Reading for the main idea: skimming
  • Week 3: Finding information fast: scanning
  • Week 4: The parts of an academic article
  • Week 5: Formal and informal English
  • Week 6: Building a paragraph: the topic sentence
  • Week 7: Supporting your point with evidence and examples
  • Midterm: Midterm evaluation
  • Week 9: Linking ideas with connectives
  • Week 10: Listening to a short lecture
  • Week 11: Taking notes that work
  • Week 12: Summarising in your own words
  • Week 13: From lecture notes to a summary
  • Week 14: Checking and improving your writing
  • Week 15: Review and coursework completion
  • Final: Final assessment and submission
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