Scanning and skimming are two important processes in the way of review of literature. Scanning’s is a process which deals with the cursory look at the title of the book, article, research paper etc.
By looking at the contents, index, preface, foreword, bibliography etc., the investigator can have first hand information whether the book contains any relevant material or not. In most of the cases titles seems to be very attractive but the material lying in found irrelevant.
Going through the whole book or the whole issue of the reference material is a time consuming task. Hence the investigator first scans literature from irrelevant to relevant form.
Skimming is the process to remove floating matter from the unwieldy quantum of information. In this reference are collected, abstracting is done and critical thinking is applied.
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This enables the reader to read between lines, analyse the meaning and add his own critical commentaries to the ideas and those of others.