The following exercise is again a study in contrasts, but in this case there are more than two.
You will have seen from the last exercise that the way to make your précis clear is to arrange all the topics in separate paragraphs.
We may put it in the form of a Rule:
Rule IV.—After you have stated your main subject in the ‘title’, arrange all the different topics in SEPARATE PARAGRAPHS; and whenever you can, make the ‘state of affairs’ clear in your first paragraph.
This rule applies to every précis you write. The best plan is to jot down in pencil Headings for all your paragraphs before you start writing your précis (three in short précis; four, five, or six, in longer précis). The length of each paragraph depends on the importance of the topic.
No. 5.—The Black Republic
Extract from the reminiscences of Commander Brown, R.N.
I have only once visited the Black Republic, and that was some years ago, when I was still a midshipman. I was in the Argo then, a curious old tub that has long since been scrapped. We had been cruising about the islands and enjoying ourselves hugely, when the captain received orders to bring certain pressure to bear upon the Black Republicans. I don’t know what the fuss was about; that didn’t concern me. What did interest me was the fact that we—myself and four other “snotties”—were allowed shore-leave for the afternoon.
A strange wild place the island looked as we approached it in the picket-boat: a huge tumbled mass of bare mountain peaks, for all the world like a crumpled newspaper thrown down on a blue carpet. It was beautiful too in this glare of the tropical sun, with its gleaming grey rocks and dark forest belt, and the straggling lines of white houses that backed the harbour.