INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY
HS -107
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Lecture 5 on 7-1-22
So far and today…
 Completed
Unit I – Basic Language Efficiency 1
Unit II - Basic Language Efficiency 2
- Writing Skills
- Types of Writing
- Paragraph Writing
- Paraphrasing
 Today
– Summarising
- Precis Writing
- Paragraph Reading
Writing Skills
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Summarising
Summarizing is defined as taking a lot of information and creating a condensed version
that covers the main points. An example of summarizing is writing a three or four-
sentence description that touches upon the main points of a long book. The purpose of
summarizing is to briefly present the key points of a theory or work in order to provide
context for your argument/thesis. You might summarize a whole research paper or
conversation in a single paragraph, for example, or with a series of bullet points, using
your own words and style. People often summarize when the original material is long,
or to emphasize key facts or points.

Steps one can follow to write a good summary:

Step 1: Reading the text.
Step 2: Breaking the text down into sections.
Step 3: Identifying the key points in each section.
Step 4: Writing the summary.
Step 5: Checking and revising the summary against the article.
Summarising: Examples
Movie
A Beautiful Mind tells the life story of John Nash, a Nobel Prize winner who
struggled through most of his adult life with schizophrenia.

Novel
The Hunger Games is a 2008 dystopian novel by the American writer Suzanne
Collins. It is written in the voice of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the
future, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. The Capitol, a highly
advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The
Hunger Games is an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from
each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to
compete in a televised battle royale to the death.
Precis Writing
Precis Writing is a summary. It is an exercise of compression. A precis writing is a
gist of any passage in as few words as possible. A precis should mention all
important details of the original paragraph so that anyone who is reading it is
able to understand the idea of the original passage.
Difference Between Summary and Precis: The key difference between summary
and precis is that a precis consists of a heading or a title while a summary does
not.
Tips that can help with Precis writing:
Make the precis one-third of the original passage in size
Before writing your precis, make a list of the important points you want your
precis to cover
Try to retain any statistics or figures mentioned in the passage in your precis
Always use indirect speech in your precis
Precis Writing: Example
ORIGINAL TEXT (INDIAN SUMMER: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE END OF AN EMPIRE BY ALEX VON
TUNZELMANN, PG 277)
On 28 July, Mountbatten held a reception at which he, Patel and V.P. Menon joined forces to bully the
princes. The Maharajas stood around nervously to watch this daunting triumvirate at work. Mountbatten
would not be able to provide Patel with a completely full basket of apples, but it is striking that he
managed to secure as many as he did.
Most of the princes would disappear quietly into estate management or gin palaces, as they pleased. But an
impressive number of exceptions ran for office in the new democratic India. Whatever may be said about
Mountbatten’s tactics or the machinations of Patel, their achievement remains remarkable. Between them,
and in less than a year, it may be argued that these two men achieved a larger India, more closely
integrated, than had 90 years of the British Raj, 180 years of the Mughal Empire, or 130 years of Ashoka and
the Maurya rulers.
PRECIS WRITING SAMPLE:
Title/Heading: The Triumphant Trio
Mountbatten held a reception with the purpose of bullying the princes in tandem with Patel and V.P.
Menon. As the princes speculated, Mountbatten went about persuading them, providing Patel with far more
accessions than he should have been able to.
Many princes became irrelevant after accession, but some ran for office in independent India. But between
themselves, Mountbatten and Patel achieved something remarkable, constituting an India at the time of
independence that was greater and more closely integrated than ever before.