All depends on this first reading. For if you once get into the way of writing your précis or even making notes ‘as you go along’, you will never grasp the subject as a whole. And the result will be that your précis will lack balance. Either you will write too much about the first half and skimp the rest, or you will write a great deal about the picturesque points that appeal to you, and leave out things that really matter.
When you have read it carefully through, and got the whole story in your mind, run through it quickly a second time marking the passages you mean to use. For the purposes of this book the best plan will be to underline in pencil those passages which will have to be used with little alteration, and to put a wavy line against those which cannot be left out altogether, but must be greatly condensed.
Last, work up all the marked passages into a short continuous ‘story’.
Rule I.—Start your Précis with a title.
This title must not be of the imaginative kind that would suit a story, such as ‘A Misunderstanding’, or ‘The Adventures of a Red Cross Man’. It must be a clear and concise statement of what the précis is about. Thus: “Précis of the correspondence between the British Government and Dr. Wilson, President of the United States, concerning contraband of war”. And if dates are given you should add, “between Feb. 18, 1915, and Oct., 1916”.
Rule II.—Every Précis must be written in the form of REPORTED SPEECH.
This rule is so important that it is impossible to write a précis till it is thoroughly understood. It will be necessary to explain what is meant by ‘reported speech’, and to practise a few examples.
“Reported Speech”
Suppose you say to somebody, “I can’t be bothered, as I am busy writing a précis!” you are using a form which is called Direct speech. And suppose the person you were addressing goes away and says to somebody else, “So-and-so said he couldn’t be bothered, as he was busy writing a précis”, he is reporting what you said. In other words, he has turned your ‘direct speech’ into ‘reported speech’.
Notice what has happened. You are no longer the person speaking, but the person spoken about: therefore ‘I’ becomes ‘he’. Also you are no longer speaking: what you said is now ‘in the past’; therefore ‘can’t’ becomes ‘could not’ and ‘am’ becomes ‘was’.