Précis Writing for American Schools - Methods of Abridging, Summarizing, Condensing, With Copious Exercises #234201

I of course realize that in some of our American schools we have done work which carries out the same general intent as that which directs the making of the précis: we have exercises in abridging, summarizing, abstract-making, and condensation. Indeed, recent questions Of the College Entrance Examination Board, especially the English Comprehensive Examinations, have taken the value of this work into strict account. Yet in practically none of our schools have we pursued this method systematically; it has all been sporadic, and limited pretty exclusively to the closing year of the secondary school, when many of our teachers have centred their attention upon the drill which prepares their pupils for the college entrance exami nations. And certainly in all these efforts we have evolved no accepted technique for the making of a satisfactory précis. In England, on the other hand, the composition courses are for the most part formulated with the idea that précis writing is sure to be one Of its integral parts. With that conception dominant, many good British textbooks on précis writing have been published and are in current use in English classes throughout Great Britain.