Page 294 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

English - II

Notes not essential to the meaning. You may find that there are repetitions or what are called redundant
expressions. You may find illustrations which are not necessary to the meaning. Or you may
find that there are stylistic effects, such as exaggeration or expansion or bombast or lack of restraint,
which have to be removed.
4. No additional matter should be inserted by way of personal comment or historical explanation.
5. All superfluous details such as long quotations or lengthy enumerations, added merely to illustrate
the argument, must be omitted.
6. When the process of selection and elimination is completed, proceed to weave the various ideas
into a concise and lucid narrative. To do this effectively requires considerable experience in the
use of felicitous and comprehensive words.
7. Now, you also see whether the points are arranged in the best possible way in the passage before
you. For it is the arrangement which gives point or emphasis to what you want to say.
8. Before you begin to write, you must remember that you are going to translate the ideas and the
spirit. Every writer has his own style, and your own style too is different from that of the writer
of the passage. You will be tempted to reproduce the style as well as the matter, but if you do
reproduce the whole phrase in your precis, you are not likely to score high marks. Further, your
precis will not be lucid unless the principle of continuity is observed. It is not sufficient that the
sentences should express the ideas of different sections as briefly as possible, but they must also
follow each other in logical sequence, and welded together by means of suitable connectives into
a vigorous and organic whole.
10. In the competitive examinations, the incidents of the passage given for making a precis refer to
the past and therefore, the past tense should be used throughout. It is advisable to use third
person unless it is found that the form of the original extract does not admit of its being converted
into indirect speech.
11. A precis is always in indirect form of speech except in very rare cases where it is necessary to
incorporate a few words in the precis in their original form so that the meaning is not distorted.
12. Finally, the cardinal requirements of a good precis may be summed up in three words: clarity,
coherence and brevity.
Title: A title must be assigned to a precis whether asked or not. Fielden says, “Title shall be, in effect,
a precis of the precis.” The title of a precis should give the central idea of the precis. It should not
exceed five or six words. A precis title neither contains a verb nor forms a question.
22.1. Solved Examples

Some solved precis of the passages have been given below. Read these passages and evaluate their skills.
Example: 1
It is physically impossible for a well-educated or brave man to make money the chief object of his
thoughts, just as it is for him to make his dinner the principal object of them. All healthy people like
their dinners, but their dinner is not the main object of their lives. So, all healthy-minded people like
making money—ought to like it and enjoy the sensation of winning it; is something better than
money. A good soldier, for instance, mainly wishes to do his fighting well. He is glad of his pay—
very properly so, and justly grumbles when you keep him ten years without it—still his main notion of
life is to win battles, not to be paid for winning them. So with clergymen. The clergyman’s object is
essentially to baptize and preach, not to be paid for preaching. So with doctors. They like fees no
doubt— ought to like them; yet if they are brave and well-educated, the entire object of their lives is
not fees. They, on the whole, desire to cure the sick, and, if they are good doctors, and the choice were
fairly put to them, would rather cure their patient and lose their fee than kill him and get it. And so
with all the other brave and rightly trained men; their work is first, their fee second—very important
always, but still second. (233 words)
Key-words
Grumble : show dissatisfaction
Notion : idea, belief, opinion

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