How to Write a Substance of a Prose Piece

WRITING SUBSTANCE AND ADDING CRITICAL NOTE

The substance: After you have got the question paper, · Read the given text as lightly as you read a newspaper item at first. Do not try to look for meaning. Then leave it and proceed to write other question. · After writing the question come back to it and read it for the second time. This time, be careful to understand what the passage is all about. · Again leave it and write the other questions. · After finishing all the questions come back to the passage. This time, try hard to understand the central idea of the passage. Underline the relevant portions. Just before writing, · Chalk out a rough first draft of the substance you are to write on the left page of the script. · Leave out the examples. If the examples represent certain ideas, take only the ideas. · Leave out the ornamental expressions. Try to transform those into simple and straightforward ones. · Leave out the explanatory sentences or parts of those. · Transform the circumlocutions into simple expressions. · Leave out the direct speeches. Should those be at all necessary, transform those into indirect ones. · The substance should be simple as well as abstract. · Be coherent, and maintain the logical chain of the ideas. · Your substance should be approximately one third of the original text. · Try to write your answer in your own language as far as possible. Writing the final answer, · On the right page of the script write down final answer. · Here once again rectify and reshuffle your points. · Do not overwrite here. · Write down your answer clearly. Critical Note: · Once again go back to the rough page and prepare the first draft there as before. · Try to mark out what type of a discourse the given passage is—philosophical, scientific, literary, reflective, realistic, satirical, humorous, journalistic, historical, critical etc. If the piece is a poem, try to mark out what type of poem it is—that is, whether it is a symbolic poem or allegorical poem or philosophical poem etc. · After doing this you may start your critical note thus: “The text is an instance of (critical) discourse.” · As you have already understood the central theme, write down what the text is all about. For instance, you may write down: “Here the writer discusses the place of literature in the present-day society”. · Then try to understand how the writer develops his arguments. First of all, every writer depends on examples to develop his/her arguments. So mark out the examples and write down the next sentence: “ The writer develops his points by presenting the examples of the award-winning novels published in 2004.” · Some times a writer may provide statistics to explicate something. In that case, mark out how the writer uses the statistics. · Some times certain writer quotes comments or remarks of famous author in order to place authority behind what they say. If you find any writer doing this, you may write down: “ He/she cites no less an authority than Dr. Johnson to establish his point that as long as civilization exists man will continue reading literature.” Then write down whether the language of the text is complicated or lucid or very much rhetorical. For instance, you may say: “The language of the writer is, however, highly rhetorical. He/she uses ornamental expression whenever he/she finds occasions.”