What's a Précis ?
The short form of a passage, paragraph or piece of writing in which the main word is stated is called précis.
Why Is It Needed?
The main purpose of reading a piece of writing is to understand its main word. So his ability to express his essence in a few words is also a part of understanding. For this, there are questions on précis writing in the exam. A good précis can be written if one understands the purport of something well and reads it in a concise, beautiful and accurate manner. Needless to say, the good marks are obtained in the test in this way.
Techniques of Good Précis-Writing
There is no benefit in memorizing a given passage or piece of writing. Because, most likely, it will not come to the test. The need is to learn and practice effective techniques for writing précis.
This article will give some strategies that students can apply in practice with 100% success.
1. At first read the given passage quickly and try to master what is being said in it. See the Speed Reading chapter in this author's book Effective Reading Skills for quick reading and reading comprehension skills. You have to read the passage within the specified time!
2. There are some words (key word), phrases or sentences in which the main statement of the passage is stated. Other sentences act as an ornament, a linker (of a sentence or paragraph), an opinion, an expression of an author's attitude, etc. So excluding these, the next time you read the passage, just mark the key-words with a pencil or marker.
3. For the third time just read the marked parts and retrieve the original statement. In this case, assign a title to the passage based on what is being said.
4. Now write the précis in short words in your own language. The precis may or may not contain any word / phrase / sentence of the original passage.
5. These techniques have been applied in the following examples. Read them and think about it according to the given NOTE. Notice how the stained parts are arranged, how the keynote is chosen from them. Notice the worked out passage very well and then do the exercises.
6. If you want to make the writing fantastic and effective, you need to know some of the mechanics of writing, in that case just knowing the language or grammar is not enough, it also needs the knowledge of literature and vocabulary.
Now notice the worked out passage very well and then do the exercises.
1.
A second problem for young bosses is finding peers. Contemporaries may be several levels lower and counterparts may be 20 years older. Peer support is helpful both personally and professionally, and the young high achiever makes a mistake if he places a high value on seerning self sufficient and has trouble seeking assistance. At the same time, some senior people may feel threatened by the younger person's rate of progress and be reluctant to assist anyone who seems to be advancing very well as it is.
Title: One Problem Faced by the Young Boss
Precis : One of the problems a young boss faces is that, as his peers are senior to him in age, and his contemporaries below him in rank or post, he rarely has the opportunity to mix friendly with anyone. As a result, he can hardly get peer support, a necessity for managers.
2.
Very few in this world have worked for a larger and worthier object, in a pure spirit of duty towards God and compassion for man. Persons like her never die but remain immortal in the tears of gratitude dropping from the agonised eyes of the world. How such persons of frail physique find the indefatigable energy to accomplish their herculian tasks will always remain a mystery.
Title: She will Remain Immortal For Ever
Precis: Although she had a frail physique, she worked so hard both. for God and for the good of mankind that she will always remain immortal in the grateful tears of people..
3.
A few days ago in a taxi in New York, the driver turned around (to
the risk of our lives) and said: Excuse me, are you Bertrand Russell? I saw that denial would be useless, so I admitted the fact. He then went on to say that in former days he had heard me lecture, but that belonged to his intellectual past. 'Now, he continued. I am a married man and have ceased to be a person.
This seemed a painful result of matrimony and naturally set me reflecting. Why should marriage, which ought to be the fulfilment of personality, be felt as quite the opposite? There was no suggestion that his marriage was unhappy; it was to marriage as such that he attributed this dire result. I never myself experienced any such result of being married, but I know that the taxi driver was putting into words what a great many people feel.
The reason lies partly in economics, partly in social custom. The latter, as being easier to set right, I will consider first.
The convention that husbands and wives should spend their leisure hours together is a bad one, No doubt my taxi driver's wife does not care for lectures and also does not like him to go to them without her. Many husbands and many wives will forgo their own pleasures out of jealousy of the pleasures that they imagine their partners as desiring. It is much more harmful to object to other people's pleasures than it is to be a trifle selfish in pursuing one's own, and a certain amount of social separateness of husband and wife is necessary if they are not to become dull and incapable of finding anything to say to each other. In this respect, however, a better convention is rapidly spreading.
The economic difficulty is more serious. An unmarried man can take liberties with his income that a married man cannot take. No doubt most unmarried men devote their leisure to mere amusement, including the search for a wife.
Title : The Problem of Marriage as Perceived by Some People.
Precis: Bertrand Russell, being introduced to a taxi driver, discovered that he (driver) believed that he was no more at liberty since he was married. Russell could understand that marriage, which ought to be the fulfillment of personality, was considered so-as a great many people consider it alike- because of the dire result of matrimony. He found out two reasons of this feeling of people- economics and social custom. Russell believes that people need not follow the tradition that husbands and wives should pass their leisure time together. Thus a feeling of dependency would be eliminated. Husbands and wives should have some amount of separateness, he contends. As for the economic reason, people after marriage can not spend their money as they wish. This make them feel that their personality is lost.
4.
All the higher animals have methods of expressing pleasure, but human beings alone express pleasure when they do not feel it. This is called politeness and is reckoned among the virtues. One of the most disconcerting things about infants is that they only smile when the are pleased. They stare at visitors with round grave eyes, and when the visitors try to amuse them, they display astonishment at the foolish antics al adults But as soon as possible, their parents teach them to seem pleased by the company of people to whom they are utterly indifferent.
In oriental countries polite smiling has been carried to much greater lengths than among ourselves. In Japan, until 1868, a social superior had the right to kill a social inferior if he failed for an instant to keep smiling while in the great man's presence. In the family, the wife had to smile in the presence of her husband and the children in the presence of their parents. This was what made the Japanese appear to Western travellers such a cheerful people; it was a case of survival of the fittest.
But it is not always a smile that is demanded by politeness in the presence of social superiors. In Korea, for example, subjects having audience of the Emperor were expected to tremble visibly as long as his eye was upon them to show their realisation of the fact that he could put them to death if he chose. In like manner, in England a well-trained butler never smiles in the presence of his employers however ridiculous may be the things that happen to them. English politeness is not, however, in all respects similar to that of that of the far East. In China, guests at a banquet used to be expected to smack their lips loudly while eating and to display, at the conclusion of the feast, the most unmistakable signs of having overeaten.
Title: Actual and affected smile..
Precis: All highler animals express their pleasure when they are actually pleased. Man also expresses pleasure, but he can, and sometimes has to, express pleasure, by smiling, when they are not actually pleased, In Japan, for example, people had to smile before the king or big-guns of the society. Wives had to keep smiling before other family members. In Korea, people had not just to smile-but to visibly tremble before the emperor to express esteem. Whereas in England a well-trained butler never smiles before his employers in any case. In China people at a feat were required to eat making sounds showing that they were contented. Man sometimes is manipulated by situations.
5.
Wise managers look far beyond the immediate horizon. They try to visualise in terms of money the savings which this additional expenditure will bring them in the future. This additional expenditure might lead to a better quality product, which would mean higher sales. Additional expenditure might result in fewer breakdowns: this in its turn would lead to a saving on maintenance costs and also to a higher volume of out-turn. Additional expenditure might lead to greater speed in work. Another advantage of additional expenditure may be less frustration and nervous strain; very important factors, but factors which cannot be measured in terms of money.
Title: A Wise Manager Speuds More to Save Other Expeuses.
Precis: Since wise managers look far beyond the immediate horizon, they feel the need to spend more to minimize undesirable expenses of maintenance cost, frustration, machine breakdowns, and to maximize product quality assurance, sales and work-speed.
6.
Much Of Your Past Success was due to obeying sensible rules, But you'll be surprised how many of us are slaves to procedures. It's amazing the emphasis put by so many people on following rules to the letter. Of course, we must have rules and regulations if our show is to run properly. but there is no need to be completely hidebound by them. Surely the main thing is to turn out more products of better and better quality at cheaper and cheaper costs. If you find procedures getting out of hand. take steps straightaway to get the rules changed. Do not be a slave to them.
Title: Sometimes Rules Should be Broken or Changed. Precis: Rules are a key to success, but being a slave to them is not necessary. They must be changed if necessary to turn out more products of better quality-at cheaper costs.
7.
THREE is a story of two men- one young and one old who were travelling by train. When the train stopped at a station, the old man asked the young man. What is the name of this station? The young man looked out, saw the name-board right opposite the window and replied This is Kharagpur Station, can you not read that board?" The old man peered out and muttered, "No", "Well, I think I can do something about 1, said the young man. "I am an optician". So no opened his brief-case and took out several pairs of spectacles. The old man tried them one after another, but still could not read the name-board. This is indeed an interesting case", said the optician, "however, since you are also going to Calcutta, you better come to my consulting room on Park Street tomorrow and I shall see how I can get you to read". "That is indeed kind of you" said the man, "but in all fairness L must tell you I never learnt to read!
Title: The Story of an Optician and an Old Man.
Precis: While journeying in a train, a young optician was asked by an old man what the name of a station was. The young man read the name from the nameboard but the old man said it was not that. At this the young man, seeing that the old man had made a mistake, thought he had problems with his eyesight. So he offered him a number of pairs of spectacles, but still the old man could not read. Then the optician asked him to see him at his consulting room in Calcutta for the treatment of his eyes. At this the old man thanked him for his generosity and said that he never learnt to read.
8.
In determining why change occurs, two rather general distinctions are useful, and others will appear as we go along. If the element or unit to which change is attributed is clearly identified, it may then be fairly easy to differentiate internal and external sources or causes. One outstanding advantage of the model of social system with which we are operating is that it permits us to inquire about internal or intrinsic or what Sorokin calls "immanent change" without violating orderly analysis. Of course, in a world that is evil in its complexity, simplifying dichotomies are likely to be plagued by mixed cases and by interaction between internal and external change, but the distinction may still be useful as a starting point. Another distinction, to be used with the same caution, is the one between "accidental" change-often more properly regarded as unplanned, unanticipated, and inevitable, but still explainable-and change deliberately instituted.
Nature rarely provides cases of single and isolated causes followed by single and isolated effects. Usually, causes have causes and effects haver effects which may in turn become causes in the next sequence. Though the search for total understanding is understandable, and indeed prompts the scholar's constant attempts to come ever closer to that goal, in many situations the scientist is fortunate to be able to demonstrate proximate causes for changes, let alone ultimate causes the necessary conditions to predict a sequence of events, let alone precisely sufficient conditions. A social scientist who finds this state of affairs unsatisfactory need not think his situation unique. He may contemplate the predicamen of the meteorologist, a physical scientist, and perhaps derive some measure of comfort from the fellowship of suffering.
Title: The causes and Nature of social change.
Precis: Social change occurs for various reasons, of them two are very clear. The sources of change are external and/or internal. This model of analyzing change has some merits/advantages. However. changes like "accidental ones need to be classified otherwise. Indeed, natural phenomena are very complex. Causes have other causes and effects have other effects. That is, the cause-effect relationship is very complex and interdependent. Research regarding these changes of society is a tough task, but not an impossible one.
9.
What is the soul? The history of this concept is a long one. The ancient Hebrews, one of the earliest peoples to formulate such a concept. took the soul to be whatever it was in a body which made at gline, made a living thing rather than a dead thing.
They used the Hebrew word for "breath" to refer to the soul, presumably because it is such an important sign of life. This animating force was believed to reside in the blood.
The early Greeks added a new feature. For them, the soul was separable from the body, something that could continue to exist when the body died. Death, for the Hebrews, had been nothing but the end of life and of the animating force, the soul. For the Greeks, death was merely the withdrawal of the animating force from the body. Some of the Greeks, for example the Pythagoreans (famous for their mathematical discoveries), believed that the soul, after withdrawing from one body. would enter another; that is called transmigration. The Pythagoreans believed that any body capable of life could serve as the home of a soul, and they believed that the humble bean was an especially receptive home for the soul. It must be said that their reasons for so honoring the bean were not very compelling: namely, that a germinating bean sprout looks like a human fetus, and that crushed bean seeds left in the sun smell like human seed.
Title: Ancient Theorizings about the Soul.
Precis: The question "What is the soul?" have made people think from very ancient times. The Hebrews believed that soul was the "breath While the early Greeks added a new element to it saying that the soul was separable from the body and did not die. Pythagorians went even further. They believed that one soul would enter another man when the man in whoms it was died. This they called transmigration. They even honored bean for its resemblance to some human things.
10.
What is the philosophy of religion? It was at one time generally understood to mean religious philosophizing in the sense of the philosophical defense of religious convictions. It was seen as continuing the work of "natural", distinguished from "revealed", theology. Its program was to demonstrate rationally the existence of God, thus preparing the way for the claims of revelation. But it seems better to call this endeavor "natural theology" and to term the wider philosophical defense of religious beliefs "apologetics." Then we may reserve the name: "philosophy of religion" for what (by analogy with philosophy of science, philosophy of art, etc.) is its proper meaning, namely, philosophical thinking about religion.
Philosophy of religion, then, is not an organ of religious teaching Indeed, it need not be undertaken from a religious standpoint at all. The atheist, the agnostic, and the person of faith all can and do philosophize about religion. Philosophy of religion is, accordingly, not a branch of theology (meaning by "theology" the systematic formulation of religious beliefs), but a branch of philosophy. It studies the concepts and belief systems of the religions as well as the prior phenomena of religious experience and the activities of worship and meditation on which these belief systems rest and out of which they have arisen.
Title : The Philosopy of Religion.
Precis: In former times the term "philosophy of religion" refered to philosophical defense and explanation of religious convictions. But now the view has changed. Now it means philosophical thinking about religion that is, studying the concepts and belief systems of the religions and the activities of worship and meditation. Indeed, it is not an organ of religious teaching, nor is it a branch of religion. Consequently, any man can and do philosophize about religion.
Related Searches:
Précis writing SlideShare
Precis writing example
Precis writing examples
Precis writing examples pdf
Precis Writing book
Precis writing on Books
Precis writing examples with Solutions PDF UPSC
Precis writing examples with Solutions PDF
