TIPS FOR WRITING A GOOD PRECIS

What is a prcis?
A prcis is a concise and clear statement of the substance of a longer passage in a connected and
readable shape. A prcis must be accurate, brief and clear.
A prcis is in the prcis writer's own word and it is about one-third of the original.
Summary and abstract are two other words that convey the same idea as prcis.
Why Do We Need A Prcis?
These days, people have a variety of jobs to attend to, and they do not have enough time to go into
all the details. They just want to know the essential facts of a situation as briefly and clearly as
possible. To take some examples, a superior might like to know the main points of an article
published in a trade journal or a trade union leader may have to report what happened at a trade
union meeting. Each of these situations needs making a prcis.
Ten Golden Rules For Writing A Good Prcis:
1. Determine the theme if the passage very carefully: It is very important to find out the central idea
or the theme of the passage. Soon you will be analyzing the passage to separate the major points
from the minor ones, and the various points become major only in relation to the central or main
theme of the passage.
2. Precis is not the reproduction of important sentences: Don't from your precis by reproducing a few
sentences and deleting others. Precis writing is not the art of selection and deletion, it is the art of
remodelling.
3. Brevity is good but not at the cost of clarity: Brevity is the soul of precis writing. But brevity is not
to be achieved at the cost of clarity. If the addition or retention of a few words adds to the clarity of
your precis, they should be included by all means. Excessive economy, leading to ambiguity or
obscurity, must be avoided.
4. Your precis ought to be intelligible even to a person who has not read the original passage: This is
extremely important. He who is familiar with the original passage, of course, enjoys an additional
advantage. He is in a position to compare the two versions and find out how far you have faithfully
reproduced the facts or preserved the spirit of the original passage. But he who has not read the
original passage has to judge your performance only from what you have written.
5. Use your own language: Precis has to be written, as far as possible, in your own words. Precis
writing is a test as much of your comprehension as of your expression. Besides, while summarizing
the original ideas you will often find that language of the passage is more a hindrance than a help.
You cannot help retaining a few significant phrases or technical terms but be sure that sentence
structure is entirely your own.
6. Precis is always written in the third person: If the author has used the autobiographical form of
narration or description, you should change the form. You should begin your precis with 'The author
says...' Secondly, you should avoid the use of direct speech in your precis. The use of indirect
speech will make it more compact. Be careful of all the rules of indirect speech if the original
passage is in direct speech.

7. Use your discretion if the passage contains statistical information: If the statistical figures have
been included to corroborate certain generalised facts, you can safely omit them. But if the figures
are basic to the very understanding of the general drift of the passage, they have to be retained.
8. Observe Proportion: Your precis should be well proportioned. Each part of the original passage
should be dealt with according to its relative importance and not according to the space assigned to
it.
9. No comments please! You are not supposed to give any comments, appreciative or critical, on the
ideas expressed in the passage. Your job is to interpret faithfully and not to evaluate the mind of the
author. You are reproducing - briefly and relevantly - and not creating.
10. Reduce the passage to its one third: Unless otherwise indicated, you are supposed to reduce the
passage to one-third of its original length.