Billy and Paul's Chapter 3 summary

This chapter was all about reading and writing. It explained to the reader effective ways to get the most out of a document efficiently and effectively. Everywhere in the workplace reading can be categorized into four overlapping categories. These categories are reading to assess, reading to learn, reading to learn what to do, and reading what to do. As a writer one should imagine themselves as a member of the audience that will be reading the document you are creating. As a reader there are three things that need to be done before carefully reading a document. These three things are skim, scan, and predict. Skimming is reading through a document very quickly. This allows the reader to get a sense about what is most important in the document and where it is located. Scanning is running your eyes down a page to look for specific information. This allows you to identify key terms to you. Predicting takes place during the skimming and scanning process. In predicting you anticipate what the text will can contain and formulate questions that can be answered by more careful reading.
Abstracts are a document feature that is the most important part of a technical report. When looking at an abstract finding the objective, methodology, results, and conclusions can decrease your reading time, and increase your comprehension of the document.
Another way to get the most out of a document is for a reader to generate questions to help themselves understand a document. Knowledge questions emphasize the recall of specifics. Comprehension questions require responses that incorporate knowledge as well as understanding. Application questions require specific applications or principles of theories. Analysis questions emphasize the separation of objects, mechanisms, systems, organisms, operations, or ideas into constituent parts, clearly establishing the relationship between these parts. Finally, synthesis questions expect the reader to focus on organizing or structuring the parts to form a unique whole.