Experiment 1.3 Write a Précis of the following given passage within the required limit, state at the end of your precis, the number of words you have used. The passage contains 146 words. Today there are 3000 million people in the world. Fifty years ago only about 2000 million people lived in it. If earth's population were evenly distributed over its land surface, there would be about 550 persons to the square mile. But Earth has vast areas of forest, mountains and desert which are almost totally inhabited. On the other hand, it has great cities each with millions of people living in a few square miles, To feed the fast growing population of our earth, scientists and planners have to discover new ways to produce more, One possible way is to bring more land not under cultivation. This can be done only in places where there is lot of land not used for productive purposes. In many place there is no longer possible all the arable land is already cultivated. A second way is to make us of new types of seeds to produce more. Already a number of new strains of paddy and wheat hay been developed in different parts f the world. India is one of the countries where a lot of usef work has been done in the field of agriculture research. (146 words)
Answers
Answer:
Qualities of a Good Precis
Clarity: of language & ideas
Correctness: grammatical and information-wise
Coherence: logical with clear interconnection of ideas
Completeness: should cover all ideas and facts given in original passage
Conciseness: no unnecessary details. Sticking to the word limit is important.
Rules for Writing Précis
Own words: A précis should be written in your own words and the writer should avoid borrowing phrases from the original passage.
Remove rhetorical statements, ornamental language (metaphors, hyperbole etc).
Replace phrases with one words.
Make statements more direct. Ex. “His failure follows as a consequence of his indifference to his studies.” Can be replace with “He failed due to neglecting his studies”
Size:It is generally accepted practice to write 1/3rd of original passage unless otherwise mentioned. If the original passage has 300 words, the précis should not be more than 110 words in length.
Tense and Person: It should be written in the third person and past tense. In the case of universal truth the present tense should be used.
Indirect Speech: A précis should be written in indirect speech. If there is direct speech in the passage, it should be changed into indirect speech.
One Paragraph: write all précis in one paragraph only even if there are more than one in original passage.
No Omission: do no omit any fact/idea/information form original passage.
Title: Give it a relevant title. Doesn’t have to be much creative.