GUIDELINES FOR WRITING A

PRECIS
Read the text and write down in one sentence what it
is about (suitable title / heading)
Read again. Describe each paragraph in one sentence
Number the paragraphs. Put together paragraphs
having identical / common ideas
Count number of words in the text
Write the first draft of prcis
Length of prcis to be one-third of the original text
Own words (brief and crisp)
No omission of main ideas
No additional information to be added
 No opinion, comment or critical analysis to be added
unless asked
No distortion / alteration of facts and figures
Should appear as if it is an original text (clear and
readable)
Sentences to be well knit (not a series of disjointed
sentences / jerky)
Direct speech to be changed into indirect speech
First and second person to be changed into third
person
Discard unnecessary details and overlapping of
information / repetition
Revolve around one central theme / idea
Prcis is preferably in one paragraph
Re-write draft and count words
Compare the draft with original text
Finalise the prcis and write down the number of
words at the bottom
EXERCISE: 1
Years ago, it is said, a rich gentleman from a
country with a warm climate was taken to see
the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race in London.
In this race, eight students from each of these
two Universities row a race of four and a
quarter miles on the River Thames. It is hard
work, especially when a Strong wind is blowing
and the water is rough. The rich man asked his
host how much the race cost to run. 'About a
thousand pounds,' was the answer. The visitor
made some rapid mental calculations and then
said, 'I could get sixteen coolies to row it for
you for three hundred pounds.'
 Behind this story lie centuries of different habits and
traditions: the tradition in cold climates usually
sanctifies hard work for its own sake: to the Mediaeval
English mind, for instance, idleness was sinful; and
even in Elizabethan times about 350 years ago, people
were publicly flogged for this crime. In warm damp
countries on the contrary, the tradition of
contemplation is usually the dominant one: there is no
merit in hard work for its own sake, and plenty in the
life of meditation.
 This difference stems partly from the
conditions under which people have to live in
these places: where the climate is warm and
damp, life is easy and the soil provides Man's
basic needs with little effort on his part. But
where the climate is rigorous, it is a hard battle
to provide food and shelter. In warm climates,
relatively little food is needed to keep the body
going, little if any clothing is really necessary,
and the slightest shelter from the elements of
nature is sufficient. In cold climates, on the
contrary, a relatively large intake of calories is
necessary to keep the body warm, heavy
clothing is essential, and dwellings have to
provide considerable protection from wind, rain,
frost and snow.
 Where little is needed, hard work is unnecessary;
where much is needed, it is absolutely essential. It is
therefore a mistake to despise dwellers in cold climates
for being slaves to the mania for work; and equally
wrong to despise dwellers in warm climates for enjoying
the leisure that Mother Nature has given them.
Words 369, Prcis 123 words approx
Exercise No. 2
When I speak of 'taste' here, I do not mean the sensation we get from an object when we
put it in our mouth, but the taste that we are referring to when we say, for example, She
dresses tastefully. In other words, the taste I am speaking of is the ability to distinguish
between what is attractive to the eye in matters of clothing, decorating, furnishing and so on,
and what is unattractive. Of course there may be differences of opinion with regard to the
attractiveness or otherwise of a suit of clothes, or the appearance of a room. But it is customary
to speak of a person as having taste if the style he chooses in clothes and furniture-and so on
is not too violent, avoids clashing colours and designs, and wins general approval from those
people who show a concern for such matters. Notice that we distinguish between tasteful and
tasty! The latter refers to things that we eat, and means that they taste well in our mouths.
The former is the one that we apply to attractive patterns and designs such as we have been
speaking of.
Sometimes we do not speak of people as ' having taste' or not having taste, but of
things being in good taste or being in bad taste. When we speak of a room as being
tastefully designed or designed in good taste, we mean the same thing. But, we more
commonly use the phrase in bad taste to refer to words and deeds of a certain kind. If people
are unable to choose between matching colours and clashing colours, most commonly we say
that they lack taste. But if they do or say things that we do not consider decent or fitting to
the situation they are in, we say that they have acted in bad taste. For instance, if a man says
to a girl who is not very pretty, I don't like girls who are not pretty', we may say that the remark
is in bad taste-it may make the girl unhappy, and need never have been said. Or again, if a
person plays a joke on a man with a bad leg, and makes the man fall down, we say that the
joke was in bad tasteit showed an indifference to the man's misfortune.
This difference in our choice of words seems to tell us something about the way we think.
By saying that people who make an unsatisfactory choice of colours arid design lack taste, we
seem to imply that they are incapable of making a better choice and cannot be blamed for it.
But our use of the phrase in BAD taste to describe words and jokes like those mentioned
above, suggests that we consider that all people can distinguish between suitable and
unsuitable actions in regard to other persons, if they want to. They have the necessary faculty,-
the necessary taste, but they have not used it properly, and their wrong choice of words or
deeds can and should be blamed.
It is another question whether these implicit assumptions about human nature are
correct or not.
(524 words)
Exercise No. 3

Never maintain argument with heat and clamour, though you think or
know yourself to be in the right: but give your opinion modestly and
coolly, which is the only way to convince; and, if that does not do, try to
change the conversation, by saying, with good-humour, 'We shall hardly
convince one another; nor is it necessary that we should, so let us talk or
something else.' Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed
in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in one company, may
be, and often is, highly improper in another.
The jokes, which may do very well in one company, will seem flat and
tedious, when related in another. The particular character, the habits, the
terminology of one company, may give credit to a word, or a gesture,
which would have none at all if divested of those accidental
circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and fond of something
that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances,
repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either insipid, or, it may be,
offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this
silly preamble: 'I will tell you an excellent thing'; or, 'the best thing in the
world.' This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed,
make the relator of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like a fool.
If you would particularly gain the affection and friendship of particular
people, whether men or women, endeavour to find out their predominant
excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing weakness, which
everybody has; and do justice to the one, and something more than
justice to the other. Men have various objects in which they may excel, or
at least would be thought to excel; and. though they love to hear justice
done to them, where they know that they excel, yet they are most and
best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are
doubtful whether they do or not.

(337 words)
Exercise No. 4

The great Roman orator, Cicero, in his celebrated treatise on Friendship,

remarks with truth that it increases happiness and diminishes misery by the
doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief. When we do well it is
delightful to have friends who are so proud of our success that they receive
as much pleasure from it as we do ourselves. For the friendless man the
attainment of wealth, power, and honour is of little value. Such possessions
contribute to our happiness most by enabling us to do good to others but if
all those whom we are able to benefit a strangers, we take far less pleasure
in our beneficence than if it were exerted on behalf of friends whose
happiness is as dear to us as our own. Further, when we do our duty in spite
of temptation, the mental satisfaction obtained from the approval of our
consciences is heightened by the praise of our friends; for their judgement is
as it were a second conscience, encouraging us in good and deterring us
from evil. Our amusements have little zest and soon pall upon us if we
engage in them in solitude, or with uncongenial companions, for whom we
can feel no affection. Thus in every case our joys are rendered more intense
and more permanent by being shared with friends.
It is equally true that, as Cicero points out, friendship diminishes our
misery by enabling us to share the burden of it with others. When fortune
has inflicted a heavy unavoidable blow upon us, our grief is alleviated by
friendly condolence, and by the thought that as long as friends are left to us
life is still worth living.
But many misfortunes which threaten us are not inevitable and in
escaping such misfortunes, the advice and active assistance of our friends
may be invaluable. The friendless man stands alone, exposed, without
protection to his enemies and to the blows of fortune; but whoever has loyal
friends is thereby provided with a strong defence against the worst that
fortune can do to him. (349 words)