Quote:
Originally Posted by San Sufi
Thanks for sparing some time to comment on my precis. Inshallah, I will try to rectify my mistakes.
Don't you think paraphrasing is unavoidable in precis? Moreover, in my view, it is only through interpretation that one is able to reduce the size of the paragraph. However, you are absolutely right in saying that one needs to be ultra cautious while interpreting actual meaning of the paragraph.
In my opinion, simply replacing words of actual paragraph with synonyms might render the precis boring.
I request you to please share your precis of same paragraph.
Thanks for sharing the literature.
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1) Paraphrasing is absolutely necessary but Precis does not merely mean lifting various sentences out of the original and putting them together after paraphrasing. If you merely do this, examiner has no way of knowing the you have understood the paragraph. That's why you have to provide transitions between the ideas you consider important, otherwise your precis will seem a combination of abrupt sentences.
2) In order to understand the scope of a piece of composition, we ought to know why examiners are asking the question about composition. For instance, you can ask three fundamental questions about a piece of composition: i) How is it written? ii) Why is it written? iii) What is written in it?
Essay writing will test you on the first question; you are gonna write a piece of composition. Comprehension is the answer to the "Why" question, hence your ability to interpret the passage. Precis writing is the answer to the third question i.e, you have to tell the examiner "what is written?".
So a precis portrays the original author's concept accurately, without adding personal bias, hence no interpretation.
3) There is no "one" good way to write a precis but a precis can be written in a number of ways. Using synonyms and condensing phrases is one of them, and I do not know what to say about rendering the precis boring. But still I will try: although sometimes the passage is from your area of interest; however, the passage given for precis and comprehension is not supposed to be entertaining but to provide you with text that is dense, tedious and difficult to understand. So do not worry about rendering the precis boring, and it is not your job to provide with an entertaining precis.
4) I have not done precis for this paragraph yet, but I will share with you whenever I get the chance.