The Précis (II)

For your second assignment, you will continue to improve your précis-writing skills by summarizing one of three readings: Ian Watt, Ian Hacking, or Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt.

As with your first assignment, your précis should present an analytical summary of your chosen text. A successful précis not only captures the essence of what the chapter is about, but also demonstrates that you have achieved a command of the material you are summarizing—both because it is written in your own words and because it is able to anatomize the text to reveal and evaluate its structure and mechanics.

There are two primary areas on which you can focus in order to do this. The first is language: it is critical in this exercise, as in all academic writing, to quote from the text to support your claims. Even though the précis is meant to be a neutral summary of a text, remember that you need to convince your reader that you have captured it accurately. Using relevant and economical quotation will reinforce your work – negatively, by removing any doubt about the accuracy of your description; and positively, by quickly and effectively revealing important patterns in the text.

Secondly, ensure that you pay attention to the “silent” aspects of the text. Ask yourself questions like: how does the writing make its argument in ways that are not explicit? Why are there shifts in the essay in scale (from an example to a general statement, for example)? In tone or style? Do these shifts serve a purpose? What do individual examples do within a paragraph? In between two paragraphs? How do they contribute to the overarching argument? Asking these kinds of question should enable you to give a precise account of the essay’s mechanics, and reveal to the casual reader things that she didn’t see on a first pass through.

 

Style Guidelines:

• Length: between 250 and 450 words long
• Format: 12-point, double-spaced Times New Roman
• Student number at top of the page and in document name
• Paragraphs. Use standard-length indents for paragraph breaks. No line breaks. Eliminate the extra spacing that Microsoft Word automatically inserts by going to “Format,” then “Paragraph.” Tick off the “Don’t add space between paragraphs” box.

 

Please submit your précis by email by 12pm (noon) on Thursday 30 November 2023.