If you are reading in an area new to you, it s important that you first form in your mind some framework of what the material is about. This is done by pre-reading or surveying. An awareness of paragraph structure can help you to identify the main point in a paragraph from the detail or supporting evidence. Generally, if you are reading a text which has no subheadings, you can survey this by reading only the first and last sentence in each paragraph. Either one of these is usually the topic sentence .
Topic sentences introduce or sum up the point expanded in the paragraph.
Look for key words and key phrases - Skim reading The skill here is to concentrate on vital words or phrases, without which the meaning would be lost, glossing over or ignoring the less important words or phrases. Sometimes sentences begin with firstly , secondly , finally - these are cues to important subpoints in an outline. Pre-reading and finding the topic sentence may be all that is required for background reading. For material that needs to be understood and recalled in detail, you could try the following method. It is called the SQ3R method .