Practical Learning Activity
Apply and improve your skills. After answering, use, ‘Show Answer.’*
Summarising
The following activities will involve writing Précis.
Here is a short example of a précis, or you can go straight to the Précis Activities
Précis Example
A précis is a concise summary of an excerpt of text done to capture the very essence of what the author is trying to say. Sometimes, just taking a few moments to think after you have read the passage can help you compose the précis well. This summary will inevitably have to leave out some minor details that are not essential, in order to only present what is necessary and central to the author’s message. Read the following example of a précis and then try it yourself.
The following excerpt is from: p209, Boutell, C.,The Handbook to English Heraldry, London, REEVES & TURNER, 1914
“The idea of a Crest, of some accessory specially designed to form its crowning adornment, appears inseparable from the existence and use of a Helm. The Warriors and Warrior Divinities of classic antiquity are represented to us, wearing head-pieces richly crested: and, in the Middle Ages, had no other Heraldry ever been devised, assuredly ornaments of some kind would have been placed on helms and basinets, and these insignia would have been held in high esteem and honour. Accordingly, about the time that Coat-Armour became hereditary, having been reduced to a system and accepted as an independent science, heraldic Crests began to be worn as honourable distinctions of the most exalted dignity by the medaeval chivalry.”
Suggested Précis of the Above Excerpt:
The idea of a Crest, which has a long history of being the crowning adornment of the helm, became a highly valued heraldic form which signified honour in medieval times.
Try it yourself here:
Précis Exercise 1 – see Précis Example
1) Read the excerpt. 2) Create a précis of two sentences long to summarise each of the paragraphs in the following text.
Kinds of Wireless Systems.–There are two distinct kinds of wireless systems and these are: the wireless telegraph system, and the wireless telephone system. The difference between the wireless telegraph and the wireless telephone is that the former transmits messages by means of a telegraph key, and the latter transmits conversation and music by means of a microphone transmitter. In other words, the same difference exists between them in this respect as between the Morse telegraph and the Bell telephone.
Parts of a Wireless System.–Every complete wireless station, whether telegraph or telephone, consists of three chief separate and distinct parts and these are: (a) the aerial wire system, or antenna as it is often called, (b) the transmitter, or sender, and (c) the receiver, or, more properly, the receptor. The aerial wire is precisely the same for either wireless telegraphy or wireless telephony. The transmitter of a wireless telegraph set generally uses a spark gap for setting up the electric oscillations, while usually for wireless telephony a vacuum tube is employed for this purpose. The receptor for wireless telegraphy and telephony is the same and may include either a crystal detector or a vacuum tube detector, as will be explained presently.
The Easiest Way to Start.–First of all you must obtain a government license to operate a sending set, but you do not need a license to put up and use a receiving set, though you are required by law to keep secret any messages which you may overhear. Since no license is needed for a receiving set the easiest way to break into the wireless game is to put up an aerial and hook up a receiving set to it; you can then listen-in and hear what is going on in the all-pervading ether around you, and you will soon find enough to make things highly entertaining.
Nearly all the big wireless companies have great stations fitted with powerful telephone transmitters and at given hours of the day and night they send out songs by popular singers, dance music by jazz orchestras, fashion talks by and for the ladies, agricultural reports, government weather forecasts and other interesting features. Then by simply shifting the slide on your tuning coil you can often tune-in someone who is sending Morse, that is, messages in the dot and dash code, or, perhaps a friend who has a wireless telephone transmitter and is talking. Of course, if you want to talk back you must have a wireless transmitter, either telegraphic or telephonic, and this is a much more expensive part of the apparatus than the receptor, both in its initial cost and in its operation. A wireless telegraph transmitter is less costly than a wireless telephone transmitter and it is a very good scheme for you to learn to send and receive telegraphic messages.
Excerpt from Chapter 1 Collins F.,The Radio Amateur’s Hand Book, 1922, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York. (Note: A. Frederick Collins, Inventor of the Wireless Telephone, 1899. Awarded Gold Medal for same, Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, 1909.)
Excerpt Two– Précis Exercise 2 – Select the Best Précis
1) Read the excerpt. 2) Select the best précis from the choices given.
Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him in various ways, with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all; and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour, Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley’s heart were entertained.
“If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,” said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, “and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.”
In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet’s visit, and sat about ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining, from an upper window, that he wore a blue coat and rode a black horse.
Source: Chapter 3, Austen J., Pride and Prejudice , 1813, T. Egerton, Whitehall.
Show Answer
c) Although no effort to extract information about Mr Bingley from Mr Bennet had succeeded, the second-hand report of Lady Lucas, which showed Mr Bingley in a favourable light, was accepted by Mrs Bennet and her five daughters. According to that report, Mr Bingley was agreeable, young, handsome, fond of dancing and available.
Show Answer
b) Upon his visit to the Bennet household, Mr Bingley had only met with Mr Bennet. However, the young ladies had the advantage of viewing Mr Bingley from an upper window of the house, and had observed that he wore a blue coat and rode a black horse.
Excerpt Three– Précis Exercise 3 – Select the Best Précis
1) Read the excerpt. 2) Select the best précis from the choices given.
An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards despatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently unable to accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that he might always be flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a number of ladies; but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing that, instead of twelve, he had brought only six with him from London, his five sisters and a cousin. And when the party entered the assembly-room, it consisted of only five altogether: Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man.
Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike: he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report, which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.
Show Answer
a) After Mr Bingley had deferred his dinner with the Bennets to go to town, Mrs Bennet feared that he would be unable to remain settled at Netherfield. Lady Lucas assured her that Mr Bingley had only gone to town to bring more people with him to the ball. He returned with a much smaller group than rumoured, much to the relief of the girls.
Show Answer
c) Mr Bingley was attractive and well-mannered, his sisters stylish, and his brother-in-law looked to be a gentleman. Darcy, his friend, though at first admired for his handsome countenance and wealth, was afterwards disliked because of his bad manners and prideful behaviour.
Source: Chapter 3, Austen J., Pride and Prejudice , 1813, T. Egerton, Whitehall.
Excerpt Four – Précis Exercise 4 – Excerpt from Howard Pyle’s, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, 1883*
1) Read the excerpt. 2) Create a précis of one to two sentences per paragraph to summarise each paragraph of the following text.
Little John and the Tanner of Blyth
ONE FINE DAY, not long after Little John had left abiding with the Sheriff and had come back, with his worship’s cook, to the merry greenwood, as has just been told, Robin Hood and a few chosen fellows of his band lay upon the soft sward beneath the greenwood tree where they dwelled. The day was warm and sultry, so that while most of the band were scattered through the forest upon this mission and upon that, these few stout fellows lay lazily beneath the shade of the tree, in the soft afternoon, passing jests among themselves and telling merry stories, with laughter and mirth.
All the air was laden with the bitter fragrance of the May, and all the bosky shades of the woodlands beyond rang with the sweet song of birds— the throstle cock, the cuckoo, and the wood pigeon—and with the song of birds mingled the cool sound of the gurgling brook that leaped out of the forest shades, and ran fretting amid its rough, gray stones across the sunlit open glade before the trysting tree. And a fair sight was that halfscore of tall, stout yeomen, all clad in Lincoln green, lying beneath the broad-spreading branches of the great oak tree, amid the quivering leaves of which the sunlight shivered and fell in dancing patches upon the grass.
Suddenly Robin Hood smote his knee.
“By Saint Dunstan,” quoth he, “I had nigh forgot that quarter-day cometh on apace, and yet no cloth of Lincoln green in all our store. It must be looked to, and that in quick season. Come, busk thee, Little John! Stir those lazy bones of thine, for thou must get thee straightway to our good gossip, the draper Hugh Longshanks of Ancaster. Bid him send us straightway twentyscore yards of fair cloth of Lincoln green; and mayhap the journey may take some of the fat from off thy bones, that thou hast gotten from lazy living at our dear Sheriff’s.”
*Sources for this page:
Pyle H, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, 1883, Scribners, U.S.A.
Austen J., Pride and Prejudice , 1813, T. Egerton, Whitehall.
Collins F.,The Radio Amateur’s Hand Book, 1922, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York.