Prec

What is a Precis?

A precise is like a miniature portrait of the passage: it retains the absolute essential points accompanied with the mood and tone of the author of the passage. The one aspect one must be careful about is that one should not add one's subjective interpretation or comments to the précis and should try to retain the original author's voice and opinions. As far as the writing style is concerned, one must ensure that one write clear and effective sentences (no rambling) and one's diction is flawless. Ultimately, it the coherence of the views that you presented in the précis that matter, and this can be achieved by making sure that one is precise and to the point in one's approach.

Unnecessarily long sentences or rambling thoughts are not required in précis writing, and one should make sure that one sifts from one point to another in a smooth matter. At the end of the day, the précis should make sense and be logical in its presentation.

While keeping the above in mind, you need to keep in mind what a precis is not. The following are some of things that should not be a part of or a reflection of the precis:

• simply a summary of a passage.

• simply an abstract of a passage.

• an outline of a passage.

• a mere selection of a few important sentences from a passage.

• a collection of disconnected facts and statements.

Features of a Good Precis

A good Precis:

is marked by clarity, brevity and precision.

is not just lifting of the sentences from the original. It should be written in the precis writer's own words.

is a miniature version of the original passage.

must have a logical order and be well-knit and well connected.

must have coherence; must use linking devices such as so, therefore, and, because further etc. and must follow the order of ideas of the original.

must have a title.

is written in reported speech.

must not contain any details not found in the original.

Do's in a précis:

Start your précis by highlighting the main idea of the passage and you should create contextual environment where you can place the necessary points.

Once the main idea is established in the précis, you can present the methods, points, facts etc. used by the author of the passage.

Compress and clarify a lengthy passage, article, or book, while retaining important concepts, key words, and important data.

Remove what is superfluous and retain the core essence of the work.

Always remember that mentions about history/writing about history should be advisably done in the past tense.

State the purpose of the research or piece of writing (why was it important to conduct this research or write on this topic?)

Don'ts in a précis:

Do not express your own opinion, wish, remark or criticism.

Do not insert any question in your précis. Its significance, if essential, may be expressed by a statement.

Do not use abbreviations or contractions.

Rules for Good Precis Writing

1. Decide Theme of the Passage: The main theme of the passage should be find out through careful reading and then main points and ordinary points are find out for giving importance. These things are essential for brief and clear presentation of precis.

2. No Reproduction of Important Sentences: The sentences of original passage cannot be used for precis-writing. Precis-writing is an art of remodeling of sentences without affecting main theme of the original passage.

3. Have Brevity and Clarity: Brevity is the soul of precis-writing. But, at the same time, clarity should not be given up. Mere deletion or addition of few words of original passage cannot be a precis-writing. Moreover, brevity should not create any ambiguous in the minds of the reader.

4. Reflects the Intelligence of the Precis-writer: The style of language and words used in the precis-writing indicate the intelligence of the precis writer. In other words, the precis-writing preserved the spirit of the original passage with different words and sentences.

5. Use Own Language: The precis-writer should use his/her own language for precis-writing. The writer should not retain any significant phrases or technical terms of the original passage. It means that the writer should use his/her own sentences for precis-writing.

6. Avoid Direct Speech and Use Indirect Speech: The precis-writing is presented in third person point of view. The text of the original passage is  presented in direct speech. Now, it is the duty of the precis-writer that he/she should present in indirect speech.

7. Inclusion of Statistical Information: If statistical information are included in the original passage, they can be used in the precis-writing for maintaining quality. If statistical information are excluded, it affects very purpose of precis-writing and convey different meaning.

8. Observe Proportion: Original passage is divided into many parts. Each part is dealt with according to importance but not according to length. In this way, objectives of precis-writing are achieved.

9. No Comments but Conclusion: The precis-writer need not give any comments over the original passage but should give conclusion. It means that the precis-writer need not evaluate the mind of the author but interpret the original passage in a meaningful way.

10. One third of Original Passage: It is the general practice that the length of precis-writing should be one third of original passage. If so, reader can get full information and do his/her job very effectively.