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The need for speed

I had a few minutes of fun today checking my reading speed on this site. Probably a not very accurate test, but it does check your understanding of the text you've just read, by questioning you on aspects of it at the end of your reading time. I got 100% accuracy each time I tried it, and a very fast reading speed each time. I wanted to average out my speed, but there were only 3 sample texts, and repeating them wouldn't be very accurate, so I had to settle for the average of the 3 texts: 754 words per minute.That seems to put me above "college professors", and below "high-scoring college students" (ok - that seems slightly back-to-front, but hey-ho!) on their scale. 

Now, although I'm actually generally a very fast reader anyway, I think that years of doing legal research has actually trained me to be a more accurate skim reader. I may not necessarily understand the details of what I get asked to research (I'm not a lawyer, so the esoteric points that they may want to find out more about are quite often entirely new areas for me), but I can usually pick out the relevant material from the content quite quickly.  I don't have time to read everything I'm looking through in-depth, but in the process of skimming, I end up assimilating some basic information about the topic too. It means I can retain or discard materials quickly, and collate only the relevant stuff to pass on to the enquirer. Of course, it also means I can get a response together more quickly than if I had to read every item in full...and everyone is happy when they get a reply to their query fast!

And the best bit? I only have to do the skimming - the really hard bit, when you have to read the whole thing, and interpret how that relates to a specific situation, is down to the enquirer to do. And *that* is why I would never want to be a lawyer - too much thinking involved!  ;) 
 

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Michael said…
Back when I was an undergrad, I (rather stupidly) bought myself a speed reading book (obviously in the hopes of reading it to improve my speed reading). Humph - so much for that!!!

Ironically, I never read it. It's still sitting on the bookshelf at my parents' house!
29 May 2012 at 11:04
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