सार लेखन: क्या छोड़ें, क्या रखें, कितने शब्दों में
You are attempting the precis item of the Prabodh paper. The instruction sheet reads: सार एक-तिहाई शब्दों में लिखें, उपयुक्त शीर्षक दें, आँकड़े यथावत् रखें, उदाहरण छोड़ें, तथा मूल के वाक्य ज्यों-के-त्यों न लिखें. The passage to be condensed runs to about 150 words and moves in four steps: a claim that digital collections widen access, a dated launch anecdote about Delhi in 2005, a Kerala survey showing digital rooms lying idle where infrastructure was weak, and a conclusion that technology is meaningful only when tied to local conditions and the core service. You have 20 minutes. A classmate plans to keep every number, including 2005, and to copy the final sentence as the precis because it already sounds like a conclusion.
1. The source passage is: पिछले दो दशकों में सार्वजनिक पुस्तकालयों का स्वरूप बदला है। 2005 में दिल्ली के एक पुस्तकालय में पहला डिजिटल कक्ष खुला, तब किसी ने नहीं सोचा था कि दस वर्षों में सदस्यता दोगुनी हो जाएगी। डिजिटल संग्रह ने वह सुविधा दी जो अलमारियाँ नहीं दे सकतीं - एक ही पाठ अनेक पाठक एक साथ पढ़ सकते हैं, दृष्टिबाधित पाठक स्क्रीन-रीडर से सुन सकते हैं, और दूरस्थ गाँवों तक सेवा पहुँचती है। परंतु केरल के तीन जिलों में किए गए सर्वेक्षण से पता चला कि जहाँ बिजली और इंटरनेट का ढाँचा कमजोर था, वहाँ डिजिटल कक्ष खाली पड़े रहे और मुद्रित पुस्तकों की माँग घटी नहीं। दूसरी ओर, जिन पुस्तकालयों ने मुद्रित और डिजिटल दोनों संग्रह साथ रखे, उनमें सदस्यता और पठन-काल दोनों बढ़े। निष्कर्ष स्पष्ट है: तकनीक अपने आप में समाधान नहीं, वह तभी सार्थक होती है जब मूल सेवा और स्थानीय परिस्थिति से जुड़ी हो। Write the precis with a title, within one-third of the source length.
Read the worked answer
Title: डिजिटल पुस्तकालय: सशर्त लाभ
Precis (46 words):
डिजिटल संग्रह ने पुस्तकालय-सेवा की पहुँच बढ़ाई है, पर वह स्वयं समाधान नहीं है; जहाँ अधोसंरचना कमजोर थी, वहाँ डिजिटल कक्ष उपेक्षित रहे और मुद्रित पुस्तकों की माँग बनी रही। मुद्रित और डिजिटल संग्रह साथ रखने से सदस्यता तथा पठन-काल बढ़े। अतः तकनीक स्थानीय परिस्थिति और मूल सेवा से जुड़कर ही सार्थक होती है।
Checks against the instruction sheet:
- Length. 46 words against a source of roughly 150; one-third is about 50, so the precis sits inside the limit rather than at the edge.
- Figures. दोगुनी and 2005 are dropped because no figures fix the argument; what survives is the claim and its qualification. If the passage had carried a figure that proved the point (for example a membership count before and after), that figure would have been retained even at the cost of an argument word.
- Example. The screen-reader and distant-village illustrations are compressed into one phrase, पहुँच बढ़ाई, and the Delhi launch is gone entirely.
- Wording. No sentence of the source reappears; निष्कर्ष स्पष्ट है is discarded as metadiscourse, and the content of the conclusion is restated in third person.
2. Explain what you dropped and what you kept, and why 2005 and केरल के तीन जिले were treated differently even though both are numbers.
Read the worked answer
Kept: the access claim, the counter-evidence from Kerala, the combined-collection finding, and the conditional conclusion. These are the four moves of the argument; drop any one and the passage no longer says what it said.
Dropped: the launch anecdote, the screen-reader and village illustrations, दस वर्षों में दोगुनी, and निष्कर्ष स्पष्ट है as a phrase. They illustrate or announce; they do not carry the argument.
Why the two numbers differ:
- 2005 is a date of an event. It marks when a first room opened. Nothing in the argument depends on the year being 2005 rather than 2004; it is chronology, and chronology is dispensable unless the passage is about a sequence of causes.
- केरल के तीन जिले is the provenance of evidence. The counter-claim would be unsupported without it, so केरल is retained as the source of the survey. The numeral तीन is genuinely optional - it specifies scope but not weight - which is why I compressed it to केरल rather than to a bare claim.
Rule to carry into the exam: retain numbers that prove, drop numbers that merely date or decorate. A precis that keeps every figure usually exceeds the limit and flattens the argument into a list.
3. Assess the classmate's plan to copy the final sentence as the precis body. What rule is broken, and how much of the word budget does the copied sentence consume?
Read the worked answer
The plan breaks two rules at once, and the arithmetic shows why it cannot be rescued.
- Verbatim lifting. The instruction sheet says मूल के वाक्य ज्यों-के-त्यों न लिखें. A copied sentence is scored as transcription; it demonstrates that the candidate located the conclusion, not that he understood the passage.
- Budget. The sentence निष्कर्ष स्पष्ट है: तकनीक अपने आप में समाधान नहीं, वह तभी सार्थक होती है जब मूल सेवा और स्थानीय परिस्थिति से जुड़ी हो runs to about 24 words - nearly half of the roughly 50 allowed. Spending half the budget on one lifted sentence leaves no room for the evidence that makes the conclusion a conclusion.
- Metadiscourse. निष्कर्ष स्पष्ट है is the author talking about the passage, not part of the argument; it is the first thing a precis writer deletes.
Repair: state the conclusion in third person in about 12 words, as in अतः तकनीक स्थानीय परिस्थिति और मूल सेवा से जुड़कर ही सार्थक होती है, and use the saved words for the Kerala counter-evidence - that evidence is what distinguishes a precis from a paraphrase of the last line.