Précis Writing

What is a Précis?

A précis is like a miniature portrait of the passage: it retains the absolute essential points accompanied with the mood and tone of the author of the passage. The one aspect one must be careful about is that one should not add one’s subjective interpretation or comments to the précis and should try to retain the original author’s voice and opinions. As far as the writing style is concerned, one must ensure that one write clear and effective sentences (no rambling) and one’s diction is flawless. Ultimately, it is the coherence of the views that you presented in the précis that matter, and this can be achieved by making sure that one is precise and to the point in one’s approach. Unnecessarily long sentences or rambling thoughts are not required in précis writing, and one should make sure that one sifts from one point to another in a smooth matter. At the end of the day, the précis should make sense and be logical in its presentation.

What a précis is not:

Simply a summary of a passage.
Simply an abstract of a passage.
An outline of a passage.
A mere selection of a few important sentences from a passage.
A collection of disconnected facts and statements.

A good Précis:

is marked by clarity, brevity and precision.
is not just lifting of the sentences from the original. It should be written in the précis writer’s own words.
is a miniature version of the original passage.
must have a logical order and be well-knit and well connected.
must have coherence; must use linking devices such as so, therefore, and, because further etc. and must follow the order of ideas of the original.
must have a title.
is written in reported (indirect) speech.
must not contain any details not found in the original.

Do’s in a précis:

Start your précis by highlighting the main idea of the passage and you should create contextual environment where you can place the necessary points. Once the main idea is established in the précis, you can present the methods, points, facts etc. used by the author of the passage.

Compress and clarify a lengthy passage, article, or book, while retaining important concepts, key words, and important data.

Remove what is superfluous and retain the core essence of the work.

Always remember that mentions about history/writing about history should be advisably done in the past tense.

State the purpose of the research or piece of writing (why was it important to conduct this research or write on this topic?)

Don’ts in a précis:

Do not express your own opinion, wish, remark or criticism.

Do not insert any question in your précis. Its significance, if essential, may be expressed by a statement.

Do not use abbreviations or contractions.

Do not be jerky. This suggests that most probably, you have not understood the sense of the passage properly.

Precis in the making

When one is writing a précis, one should take care of a few essential points. The first thing is that one needs to convey the general idea of the argument with absolute clarity. The second thing that you need to do is to make sure that all the important points of the original passage are included in the precis. Lastly, make sure that the language of the précis is clear, crisp and concise, and follows the rule for correct diction.

The following rules are general guidelines you should follow while writing a précis:

Closely read the passage, and identify the central idea of the passage. It is vital to identify the general idea of the passage and incorporate it in one’s précis.

Look-out for the total number of words. If the number is not provided, quickly calculate the number using approximations.

In order to understand the passage clearly, make sure that you read the passage closely, and give it a couple of reads before you start writing the précis.

Highlight the most important points in the passage, and make notes. Leave out all non-essential information from the précis.

Provide an apt heading to your précis.

Note making is an essential task for writing précis. You should try to arrange the points in most logical order, and ensure the order of thought is the same as the original.

The three grammatical rules you need to follow while writing a précis are: write it in third person, indirect form and appropriate past tense.

It is advisable to provide designations of officials rather than names and titles. In case the official designation is not provided, you can use the personal name. kindly be consistent with the pattern you adopt.

Make sure you review your rough draft, remove the chinks and ensure that you have made no language related errors.

Before writing your précis, make sure you have a glance over the original to make sure you have not missed anything.

Finally, a wise policy would be a count the words of your précis and put them down in a bracket at the end.

Writing a Précis of a given passage.

Sample Passage:

There is an enemy beneath our feet – an enemy more deadly for his complete impartiality. He recognizes no national boundaries, no political parties. Everyone in the world is threatened by him. The enemy is the earth itself. When an earthquake strikes, the world trembles. The power of a quake is greater than anything man himself can produce. But today scientists are directing a great deal of their effort into finding some way of combating earthquakes, and it is possible that at some time in the near future mankind will have discovered a means of protecting itself from earthquakes. An earthquake strikes without warning. When it does, its power is immense. If it strikes a modern city, the damage it causes is as great as if it has struck a primitive village. Gas mains burst, explosions are caused and fires are started. Underground railways are wrecked. Buildings collapse, bridges fall, dams burst, and gaping crevices appear in busy streets. If the quake strikes at sea, and huge tidal waves sweep inland. If it strikes in mountain regions, avalanches roar down into the valley. Consider the terrifying statistics from the past 1755: Lisbon, capital of Portugal – the city destroyed entirely and 450 killed. 1970: Peru: 50,000 killed. In 1968 an earthquake struck Alaska. As this is a relatively unpopulated part, only a few people were killed. But it is likely that this was one of the most powerful quakes ever to have hit the world. Geologists estimate that during the tremors, the whole of the state moved over 80 feet farther west into the Pacific Ocean. Imagine the power of something that can move an entire subcontinent! This is the problem that the scientists face. They are dealing with forces so immense that man cannot hope to resist them. All that can be done is to try to pinpoint just where the earthquake will strike and work from there. At least some precautionary measures can then be taken to save lives and some of the property. (330 Words)’

Based on the above paragraph, we-arrive at the following theme sentences for the four paragraphs:

Earthquake – the deadly enemy of mankind.

Damage caused by an earthquake in general.

Damage caused by an earthquake-in particular,

What can the scientists do?

The above four theme sentences can be developed into the following outline:

Earthquake – the deadly enemy of mankind.

Earthquake strikes all without a distinction of national boundary or political affiliation.

The power of a quake is greater than that of a man-made weapon of destruction.

Scientists are trying to find out means to combat earthquakes; they will find some way to protect themselves from earthquakes.

Damage caused by an earthquake in general:

Strikes without warning.

Modern city when struck reduced to a primitive village.

Damage caused by an earthquake in particular.

Quake strikes plains, seas and mountains causing all round destruction.

In 1755, Lisbon destroyed, 450 killed.

In 1970, Peru struck, 50,000 killed.

What can the scientists do?

In 1968, Alaska hit, subcontinent moved 80 feet into the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists cannot resist the powerful earthquake.

They can predict the place of origin of the quake so that precaution can be taken to save man & property.

Based on the above outline, we can make the following rough draft:

Earthquake- The Great Destroyer

Earthquake is the deadly enemy of mankind. Earthquake strikes all without a distinction of nationality or political affiliation. The power of a quake is greater than that of any man-made weapon of destruction. An earthquake strikes mankind without a warning. A modern city when struck is reduced to a rubble. A quake strikes plains, seas and mountains causing all round destruction. The quake struck Lisbon in 1755 killing 450; Peru in 1970 killing 50,000; Alaska in 1968 moving it 80 feet into the Pacific Ocean. Scientists are trying to find out means to combat earthquakes and they are able to predict at least where the earthquake will hit so that precaution can be taken to save man and property from destruction. As the number of words in the rough draft is more than required we shall have to reduce it further without reducing the ideas.

The final draft would look as follows:

Earthquake – The Great Destroyer

Earthquake is the mankind’s deadly enemy. Earthquake strikes all without a distinction of nationality or political affiliation. The power of a quake is greater than that of any man-made weapon of destruction. An earthquake strikes mankind without a warning. A modern city when struck is reduced -to a nibble. A quake strikes plains, seas and mountains causing all round destruction. The quake struck Lisbon in 1755 killing 450; Peru in 1970 killing 50,000; Alaska in 1968 moving it 80 feet into the Pacific Ocean. Scientists are trying to find out means to combat earthquakes, to predict the origin of the quake so that precaution can be taken to save man and property from destruction. (115 words)

Reference: https://gdpi.hitbullseye.com

Exercise:

Write the precis of the following paragraphs (in about one-third) and give an appropriate title to each.

Misers are generally characterized as men without honor or without humanity, who live only to accumulate, and to this passion scarifies who live only to accumulate, and to this passion sacrifices the most of the joy of abundance, banish every pleasure and make imaginary wants real necessities. But few, very few, correspond to this exaggerated picture; perhaps there is not one in whom all these circumstances are found united. Instead of this we find the sober and the industrious branded by the vain and the idle with the odious appellation: men who by frugality and the idle with the obvious appellation; men who by frugality and labour, raise themselves above their equals and contribute their share of industry to the common stock. Whatever the vain or the ignorant may say, well where it for society had we more of this character among us. In general with these avaricious men we seldom lose in our dealings; but too frequently in our commerce with prodigality.

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Men and women are of equal rank but they are not identical. They are be peerless pair being supplementary to one another, each helps the other so that without one the existence of the other cannot be conceived and, therefore it follows as a necessary corollary from these facts that anything that will impair the status of either of them will involve the equal ruin of them both. In framing any scheme of women’s education this cardinal truth must be constantly kept in mind. Man is supreme in the outward activities of a married air and therefore it is in the fitness of things that he should have a greater knowledge thereof. On the other hand, noise life is entirely the sphere of woman and, therefore in domestic affairs, in the upbringing and education of children, woman ought to have more knowledge Not that knowledge should be divided into water tight compartment’s or that so that some branches of knowledge should be closed to anyone, but unless courses of instruction are based on discriminating appreciation of these basic principles, the fullest life of man and woman cannot be developed. Among the manifold misfortunes that may befall humanity, the loss of health is one of the severest. All the joys which life can give cannot outweigh the sufferings of the sick. Among the manifold misfortunes that may befall humanity, the loss of health is one of the severest. All the joys which life can give cannot outweigh the sufferings of the sick.

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Among the manifold misfortunes that may befall humanity, the loss of health is one of the severest. All the joys which life can give cannot outweigh the sufferings of the sick. Give the sick man everything and leave him sufferings a d he will feel that half the world is lost to him. Lay him on a soft silken couch; he will nevertheless be under the pressure of his suffering while the miserable beggar, blessed with health, sleeps sweetly on the hard ground. Spend his table with dainty meals and choice drinks, and he will thrust back the hand that proffers them and every the poor man that thoroughly enjoys his dry crush Surround him with the pomp of kings, let his chair be a throne and his crutch a world saving scepter, he will look with contemptuous eye on marble, on gold and on purple and would deem himself happy, could he enjoy, even was it under a thatched roof, health of the meanest of his servants.

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Machines have, in fact, become the salves of modern life. They do more and more work that human beings do not want to do themselves. Think for a moment of the extent to which machines do work for you. You wake, perhaps, to the hoot of a siren by a machine in a neighboring factory. You wash in water brought to you by the aid of machinery, heated by machinery and placed in basins for your convenience by a machine. You eat your breakfast quickly cooked for you by machinery, go to school in machines made for saving leg labour. And if you are lucky to be in a very modern school, you enjoy cinema where a machine teaches you or you listen to lessons broadcast by one of the most wonderful machines. So dependent has man become on machines that a certain writer imagines a time when machines will have acquired a will of their own and become the master of men, doomed once more to slavery.

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Certain people consciously or unconsciously cherish the desire that some part of their work and of their accomplishment will outlive their own individual life. The influence which they have exercised on the world in which they lived, the concern which they have built up, the books which they have written, the work they have laid as a part of some scientific edifice, whose completion they themselves will not live to see all such things inspire the people that some aspect of themselves will outlast their own personal existence, the artist bequeaths his pictures, the scholar his contribution of knowledge while poets and composers are primarily concerned that posterity shall take pleasure in their creations. Statesmen envisage that particular agreement in whose development they themselves had played a crucial part will preserve their names for future generations. People are not unconcerned for their posthumous reputation. Many an old person is distinctly preoccupied with this question and keeps a zealous watch to ensure that his achievement are properly quoted and recorded.

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Several times in the history of the world particular countries and cities or even small groups of people have attained a high degree of civilization. Yet none of these civilizations, important they were, have lasted and one of the reasons why they did not least was that they were confined to a very few people. They were like little oasis of civilization on deserts of barbarism. Now it is no good being civilized if everybody round about you is barbarous, or rather it is some good but it is very risky. For the barbarians are always liable to break in on you, and with their greater numbers and rude vigor scatter your civilization to the winds. Over and over again in history comparatively civilized people dwelling in cities have been conquered in this way by barbarians coming down from the hills and burning and killing and destroying whatever they found in the plains.

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We live in an age of great hurry and great speed. Men have lost their inward resources. They merely reflect. Like a set of mirrors, opinions which they get a little leisure, they turn to material diversions from outside rather than to inward resources. This internal vacuum is responsible for mental and nervous troubles. The cure for this is not so much treatment by medicine and surgery but a recovery of faith in the ultimate goodness, truth and the decency of things. If we are able to recover that faith, if we are able to live in this world with our consciousness centered in the intimacy of the spirit, many of the problems to which we are subject today may be overcome. Our people were regarded as aspiring after metaphysical insight, but we seem to forget that it never occurred to them to equate eternal life with either the surrender of the mind or the sacrifice of the body. When an Upanishad writer was asked to define what is meant by spiritual life. He gave the answer that it consists of the satisfaction of the mind, the abundance of tranquility of the spirit. Body, mind and spirit must be integrated and they must lead to a harmonious developed life. If we get that, we have life eternal.

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A keen sense of humor is the hall mark of culture. When a person can crack a joke on himself, he raises himself at one in the estimation of his friends. There are people who can throw jokes at others, but never take one thrown against themselves. This one way traffic is not really a high sense of good humor. It is the essence of hamper that there should be give and takes in the process good humor is often the test of tolerance. A fanatic is incapable of good humor. He is tearing others to pieces fearing of getting himself torn all the time. Good humor defeats itself. If there is malice in it, or is indulged in to hurt others. A joke should never hurt otherwise it is no joke at all. A joke should make the person who makes it and the person who has to take it, laugh together. That is why tolerance and culture are the sources of every good joke.

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Education ought to teach us how to be in love always and what to be in love with. The great things of history have been done by the great lovers, saints, men of science and artists, and the problem of civilization is to give every man a chance of being a saint, a man of science or an artist. But this problem cannot be solved unless men desire to be saints, men of science and artists. And if they are to desire that continuously they must be taught what it means to be these things. We think of the man of science, or the artist if not of the saint, as a being with peculiar gifts who exercises more precisely and incessantly perhaps, activities which we all ought to exercise. It is a commonplace belief that art has ebbed away out of our ordinary life, out of all the things which we use, and that it is practiced no longer recognize the aesthetic activity as an activity of the spirit and common to all men. We do not know that when a man makes anything he ought to make it beautiful for the sake of doing so, and that when a man buys anything he ought to demand beauty in it for the sake of that beauty in it for the sake of that beauty. We think of beauty if we think of it at all, as a mere source of pleasure, and therefore it means to us an ornament added to things for which we can pay extra as we choose. But neatly is not an ornament to life, or the things made by man. It is an essential part of both.

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The thing above all that a teacher should Endeavour to produce in his pupils if democracy is to survive, is the kind of tolerance that springs from an Endeavour to understand those who are different from ourselves. It is perhaps a natural impulse to view with horror and disgust all manners and customs different from those to such we are use. Ants and savages put strangers to death. And those who have never traveled either physically or mentally find it difficult to tolerate the queer ways and outlandish beliefs of other nationals and other times other sees and other political parties. This kind of ignorant intolerance is the antithesis of civilized outlook and is one of the gravest dangers to which cur over crowded world is exposed. The educational system, ought to be designed to correct it, but much too little is done in this direction at present. In every country nationalistic feeling is encouraged and school children are taught what they are only too ready to believe, that the inhabitants of other countries are morally and intellectually inferior to those of the country in which the school children happens to reside. In all this the teachers are not to blame. They are not free to teach as they would wish. It is they who know most intimately the needs of the young. It is they who through daily contact have come to care for them. But it is not they who decided what shall be taught or what the methods of instruction are to be.

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Almost every country in the world believes that it has some special dispensation from Providence, that it is of the chosen people or race and that others, whether they are good or bad, are somewhat inferior creatures. It is extraordinary now this kind of feeling persists in all nations of East as well as of the West without exception. The nations of the East are strongly entrenched in their own ideas and convictions and sometimes in their own sense of superiority about certain matters. Anyhow in the course of the last two or three hundred years, they have received many knocks on the head and they have been humiliated, and they have been debased and they have been humiliated, and they have been debased and they have been exploited. And so, in spite of their feeling that they were superior in many ways, they were forced to admit that they could be knocked about and exploited. To some extent, this brought a sense of realism to them. Three was also an attempt to escape from reality by saying that it was sad that we were not so advanced in material or technical things but that these were after all superficial things. Nevertheless we were superior in essential things, in spiritual things and moral values. I have no doubt that spiritual things and moral values are ultimately more important than other things, but the way one finds escape in the thought that one is spiritually superior simply because one is inferior in a material and physical sense, is surprising. It does not followed by any means. It is an escape from facing up the causes of one’s degradation.

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Discipline is of the utmost importance in student life. If the young students do not obey their superiors and go without discipline, they will be deprive do much of the training they should have at this period and in future they will never be able to extract obedience from other sin the society. Society will never accept them as persons fit for commanding and taking up any responsible positions in life. So it is the bounder. Duty of all the students to observe discipline in the preparatory stage of their life. A college without discipline can never impart suitable education to students. The rule of discipline in the playground and the battle field as well plays a very important role. A team without discipline may not fare well in spite of good players for want of mutual understanding and cooperation. In any army everyone from the rank of the general down to the ranks of an ordinary soldier must observe discipline. In case a soldier does not obey his immediate superior the army becomes a rabble quite unfit for the achievement of the common ends of war. At first sight it may appear to us that discipline takes away individual liberty. But on analysis it is found that it does not do so, for liberty is not license. We find disciplined liberty at the root of all kinds of human happiness.

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India has witnessed great expansion of educational opportunities since the attainment of independence. However, the disables children have not yet benefited in any substantial manner from the growth in educational facilities. Education of handicapped children, ultimately become more dependent and non productive. It is therefore believed that scarce national resources should not be wasted on them. Further, it has been our misconceived notion that the education of handicapped children requires highly specialized people and as such, it must essentially be very costly. Maybe, precisely for these wrong notions we have not been able to involve clinical and educational specialization programmers of training and education exclusively meant for handicapped children. It is encouraging to note that the new National Policy on Education has recommended the placement of such children in regular schools so as to provide them integrated education along with normal students. The integrated education will take care of the different needs of various categories and types of disabled children. The objective is to place the disabled children in ordinary schools for imparting education with the help of special teachers, aids and other resources. For fulfilling this objective an array of the necessary infrastructure by way of training of teachers, provision of equipment and book etc are some of the basic pre-requisition. Hopefully, the parents and their handicapped children will be greatly relieved when the latter are transferred to regular schools.

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The world today is divided into smokers and non-smokers. It is true that the smokers cause some nuisance to the non-smokers, but this nuisance is physical while the nuisance that the non-smokers cause the smokers is spiritual. There are of course, a lot of non smokers who don’t try to interface with the smokers and wives can be trained even to tolerate their husbands smoking in bed. That is the surest sign of a happy and successful marriage. It is sometimes assumed. However, that the non smokers are morally superior. But have missed one of their greatest pleasures of mankind. I am always scared and ill at ease when I enter a house in which there are no ash-trays. The room is apt to be too clean and orderly, the cushions are apt to be in their right placed and the people are apt to be correct and understood. And immediately I apt on the best behavior which means the same thing as the most think behaviors.

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One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room, but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticizing hedgerows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow room and few encumbrances. I like solitude when I do not give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude, nor do I ask for a friend in my retreat. The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect livery to think, feel, and do just as one pleases we go on a journey chiefly to be free of all inconveniences, to leave ourselves behind. It is because I want a little breathing space to music on different matters, that I absent myself from the town for a while without feeling at a loss. The moment I am left to myself, instead of a friend to exchange the same stale topics over again, let me have a trace with this sort of impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head and the green turf beneath my feet, a winging road before me and a three hour’s march to dinner and then to thinking.

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