Passage making or note making of a passage is an important skill that is required to do studies. The aim of making notes of a passage is to select the crucial information and then retain it. This process makes it less difficult for the students to refer to the crucial points in a passage later on. In exams, students will be asked to ‘make notes of the following passage’ or to ‘make a precis of the following passage’. After making notes, the students will be asked to make a summary of the passage given in the question.

Format of Note Making

While making notes, certain things should be mentioned in the data. The things to be mentioned and retained when the question of ‘make notes of the following passage’ comes up:

  1. The presence of headings and subheadings
  2. The presence of note-form
  3. The presence of symbols and abbreviations
  4. The presence of indentation and numbering

Common ways of making notes

There can be a few different methods of note making. Among these, the few that are used commonly have been mentioned below:

  1. The sentence method
  2. The mapping method
  3. The charting method
  4. The cornell method
  5. The outlining method

Importance of Note Making Passage and Summarising

The importance of ‘making notes of the following passage’ or making a precis of the following passage are given below:

  1. It helps you in revising your syllabus and data easily during exam time.
  2. The prolonged information and chapters in your syllabus transform into minuscule data of a manageable size.
  3. The process of understanding a concept becomes easier if the data is written without unnecessary information.
  4. Making notes of data highlights the keywords in a given passage or any sort of information. This further increases the readability of the notes.
  5. The process of remembering is accelerated with the presence of notes at our disposal. It becomes easier to reconstruct information and sentences later.
  6. While delivering a speech, giving a debate, revising a lecture, writing an essay, participating in a discussion, they come in handy.

Note Making Passage – Things to Remember

  • In the case of examples, only the important ones should be mentioned.
  • The prepositions and auxiliary verbs should be removed while making notes or summarising.
  • No full sentences should be mentioned. Try using a minimum amount of words for all the data.
  • Only the essential phrases and relevant data should be selected from the passage.
  • Maintaining appropriate identification and giving titles to notes is necessary.
  • Making at least four headings and subheadings is necessary.
  • Including at least four abbreviations in your notes is mandatory. To make it easier for the reader to understand your notes, make sure you add a full stop after your abbreviations. Another important thing to take care of while making notes is to make sure that the abbreviations are easily identifiable and common.
  • The abbreviations used in the notes should be put inside a box and written next to the notes you made.
  • Adhering to the word limit of the notes and summary is an utmost priority.

Make a Precis of The Following Passage

When the question ‘make a precis of the following passage’ comes in your exam. Follow the given steps to write a precis of the passage provided.

  1. The first step is to read the passage given in the paper. Read the passage critically and carefully. The idea of reading the passage is to understand the main idea, tone, style, and crux of the passage. Do not stop reading the passage even if you have difficulty understanding it.
  2. The second step while writing a precis is to reread the passage. This time, active reading should be done from your end. Do not forget to label any areas that you might want to use in your summary later. Along with labelling the areas, underline any and all of the key facts, keywords, and topic sentences with a pencil. The irrelevant information should be labelled as well so that it does not confuse you later. Now, try to clarify the points that you were unable to understand earlier.
  3. Now the third step is to start writing the precis. In this, write one sentence at a time. The details mentioned in the sentence should be of prime importance. It should not involve irrelevant information. The crux of all of the paragraphs should be written in one sentence, each appropriately.
  4. Writing a thesis sentence is of key importance in a perfectly written passage. It should involve the subject matter or the topic.
  5. After writing the article, look out for the accuracy of the author’s ideas and keywords. It should not be objective. Write what could be thought of as the author’s ideas. Make sure you reread your summary and correct all the ideas.
  6. After writing your precis, make sure you check the precis for grammar, style, and punctuation. In case of any errors, make the changes in your precis and rewrite the sentence if necessary.

Conclusion

A passage is a short segment of writing that has been extracted from a larger piece of art. In this article, we learnt about the workings of note-making of a passage. We learnt how to answer the questions in the form of ‘make notes of the following passage’ or to ‘make a precis of the following passage’. Other than that, the article includes the format of making notes and writing a summary. The things to remember while writing notes and summary are also given. The detailed working of both notes and summary is given in the article written above.