When we are dealing with some listening texts, for example, a set of instructions or a waiter explaining what's in a dish, it's important that we understand nearly everything. If we miss something important we may make a serious mistake or get the wrong meal.

Typically, in a TV news programme, people will watch and listen quite casually until a key word or picture alerts them to an item of interest. Then they switch listening mode and pay more attention. Travel announcements are often dealt with this way. If we recognise that the announcement does not concern our journey, we just switch off until the next one comes along.

A TV soap opera or an anecdote might require some attention but as long as we get the gist of what's going on, it isn't usually necessary (or possible) to catch every word and every nuance.

Texts with very important information (instructions at work, information about finance and tax and so on) require this approach. We may even have to take notes!

Typically, on a news website, people will run their eyes across the links looking for a story that interests them and then access the text for a more detailed look at the information. Even when we are quite interested in a story, we still often won't read every word, preferring to skip to the important (for us) bits of the story.

Ignoring whole parts and just getting the gist is called...