Precis

Composing a précis (PRAY-see) is a way to ensure that students have thoroughly understood and assimilated the assigned reading. A précis is definitely not your opinion or response to the article you have read, nor is it a mere summary using the words of the author. A précis is a well-crafted distillation of the article you have read, down to its core arguments, using your own words. It compresses and clarifies an article, it removes anything superfluous, and it keeps the essential concepts and key words. In fact, you must not copy a single sentence from the author. It’s fine to use the precise key words or terms that the author uses in order to make a very specific point, but never just regurgitate the author’s writing. You will adopt the point of view of the original author throughout. For example, you will not write: “the author argues that the Earth rotates about its axis as it circles around the Sun.” Rather, you should write: “the Earth rotates about its axis as it circles around the Sun.” You are the author! Once again, this is an analytical précis where you break down the article and reconstitute it in your own words from the perspective of the original author. The idea behind the précis is to establish how well you understand that author’s work, and how well you are able to restate the core arguments and the logical structure of the article.
The starting point is to carefully read the article. You might even have to go back and re- read at least a couple of times, if not more. As you read methodically, make sure that you identify the central idea of the article, the reason why the author wrote the article. Be an active, critical reader: you should be highlighting the key words, phrases, or sentences and you should constantly be asking questions to clarify what it is that the author is trying to say. If you see a word that you don’t understand, mark it and look it up in a good dictionary (Merriam-Webster Online at www.m-w.com is OK). Some of these words will be academic jargon that you have to figure out from the context or some source in the discipline. As you come across the main points of the article, underline them and keep a summary of them on a piece of paper. Next, organize these ideas into coherent, well-structured sentences and link them together in a précis that makes sense. The key here is to stick to the structure adopted by the original author.
Although, typically, a précis is expected to be about one-third the length of the original article, for purposes of our class we will limit the précis to a mere 3-4 pages. The précis should be double-spaced, it should have exactly one-inch margins, and use 12-point Times New Roman font. Make sure that you carefully check the précis for sppellingg and grammatical errors, and that the finished product is polished and represents your absolutely best effort.
This is not an easy task. You have to be a very active reader, thinking critically throughout, making very important decisions as to what is and what is not essential. Above all, you should strive for maximum clarity and reasonable brevity. The challenge is to be able to compress the entire article down to a mere 3-4 pages, all the while demonstrating complete mastery of the ideas and the logical structure expressed in it. The top of the first page should be in bold letters and should look as follows:

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