Assignment
A précis is an interpretive summary. Your analysis should be 250 words (about two paragraphs long). More than just offering a set of notes on the contents of a text, a précis will want the following:
In the first paragraph: Integrate the essay summary and the analysis.
In the context of Horace Miner's ethnographic essay, "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," the task of your précis is to concisely recap the author's motives, main argument(s) and key supporting points, as well as the overall arc and most important turns of his narrative.
For illustrative purposes, anthropologists Smita Lahiri, Lilith Mahmud, and James Herron, offer two templates for sentences that discuss logical patterns:
"By examining the sources of _________, the author shows theconsequences of ____________." "In order to ____________, the text shows the interrelationship between ________ and ____________."
Possible categories of information might include the following: characteristics of events, groups, or subgroups; stages in an event or process; limitations, restrictions, or other constraints upon the research process.
In your second paragraph: Provide a critical analysis and interpretation of the author's work.
Here, you will draw out the implications of the text (backed up by page references, as usual) and advance your own assertions or questions about it.
In setting up the narrative (or argument) in a specific way, what has the author asserted, overlooked, or brushed aside? What can the reader take away from the essay?