Precis Writing: Examples, Format, and Rules on Precis Writing

Imagine summarizing a lengthy play like The Merchant of Venice in just 15-20 lines, focusing only on the key events and highlights. This is the essence of Precis Writing. Precis Writing is an essential skill in literature, widely used in exams like Bank, Government, and MBA entrance tests, as well as in school syllabi for class 8th and 9th. It involves condensing long texts into clear, concise summaries while retaining the core message.

In this guide, we’ll explore what Precis Writing is, provide examples with solutions, and offer tips and practice worksheets to help you sharpen your writing skills.

What is Precis Writing?

Precis Writing is the process of summarizing a passage or text into a concise form while keeping its key ideas and core message intact. It involves distilling the original content into a shorter version, eliminating unnecessary details without changing the main theme.

Here’s how Precis Writing works:

• Summarization: The goal is to capture the essential points and highlights of the passage. For example, when summarizing The Merchant of Venice, focus on key events and major plot points without adding your own opinions.
• Exclusion of Unnecessary Information: In Precis Writing, you must avoid including details that are not crucial to the central theme. Only the most important information should be retained.
• Objectivity: A good precis remains unbiased and sticks to the original tone and meaning of the passage. The essence should stay intact, without personal interpretations or unnecessary additions.

Key Tips for Precis Writing:

1. Understand the Text: Carefully read the passage to identify the main ideas and relevant details.
2. Condense Without Losing Meaning: Keep the summary as short as possible without altering the original message.
3. Practice Makes Perfect: With repeated practice, you will become more efficient in skimming through texts and summarizing them effectively.

Mastering Precis Writing requires a strong understanding of the text, the ability to identify key points, and the skill to express them in a shortened form.

The word Precis comes from the Latin ‘praecisus’ and the old French ‘précis’ which means abrupt, abridged, cut off, or shortened. The word Precis is pronounced with a silent ‘s’ (Pray-see).

Also Read: Story Writing

The Art of Precis Writing: Mastering Conciseness

Precis writing is an essential skill that involves summarizing a lengthy passage into its core ideas without altering its meaning or tone. It emphasizes brevity, clarity, and objectivity, making it a valuable tool for students, professionals, and writers. By stripping away unnecessary details and examples, a precis focuses on the main message, helping readers understand complex information quickly. This skill is particularly beneficial in academic and business settings, such as creating executive summaries, academic abstracts, or exam answers. Regular practice, combined with a keen understanding of the original text, can help you master this art of concise communication.

Key Rules for Writing an Impressive Precis

To write a compelling precis, always begin by reading the original text carefully to identify its main ideas and tone. Maintain objectivity—avoid adding personal views or opinions. Use your own words to rewrite the content, focusing on clarity and coherence. Ensure the precis is significantly shorter, typically one-third the length of the original, and avoid direct quotations unless necessary. Use a neutral tone that aligns with the original text’s style. Finally, revise your work to check for grammatical errors and ensure the summary flows logically, providing an accurate representation of the source material.

Precis Writing Format

There are various ways to structure a precis, leading to different formats. However, certain key elements are essential across all formats. Let’s review the general format outlined below.

Title of the Precis

Introduction of the Text (One-Sentence)

Overview of Main Arguments of the Passage

Brief Statement Concluding the Precis

Must Read: Report Writing

Precis Writing Examples

Precis Writing Examples are essential tools for understanding how to condense lengthy passages into clear, brief summaries. For example, consider this passage:

Original Passage:
“Global warming is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, and increasing sea levels are some of the key impacts that threaten the stability of ecosystems worldwide. Governments and organizations around the globe are working together to reduce emissions, promote renewable energy, and find innovative solutions to combat this environmental crisis.”

Precis Writing Examples:
“Global warming poses a significant threat, with rising temperatures and changing weather patterns impacting ecosystems. Global efforts are focused on reducing emissions and promoting renewable energy to address this crisis.”

This precis captures the key points of the original passage: the threat of global warming, its impacts, and the actions being taken to address it, while eliminating unnecessary details. Practicing with such precis writing examples helps you develop the skill of identifying main ideas and expressing them succinctly, making the writing process much more efficient.

Do’s and Don’ts of Precis Writing

Here are some Do’s listed below which one can follow in Precis Writing:

• Read all the text carefully and identify the main points.
• Focus on the main points of the given text and it is best to avoid adding any irrelevant information.
• Write a concise summary of the text which reflects all the main points of it.

Don’ts to be followed in Precis Writing

• Avoid including your personal opinion
• Re-write or summarize the entire text
• Avoid adding any superfluous details

How to Write a Precis?

Owing to the repeatedly mentioned importance of keeping a precis short, writing a precis requires you to carefully understand the points that will provide the necessary highlights of the content. It might sound easy, but comprehending a text and keeping its theme intact requires strong skills and a lot of brainstorming. Here are the steps that can easily help you compose a clear precis.

Understand the Text/Narrative

The main and the most crucial point is to read the text multiple times. It is possible that you might have missed some point or not have understood it. Reading it persistently can take you through some overlooked points and explain certain points in a better manner.

After perusing the text a few times, you will easily connect through the points and also form a mental outline of the content.

Highlight and Divide the Text

Divide the text into smaller parts and make sure you use a highlighter to highlight the main details for further reference. Create an order of the texts so that you line up each event and do not muddle up the points.

Create a Mind Map

Before constructing your precis, have a rough outline or a map with all the points you think are necessary. Read it and compare it to the text. You might want to add/omit certain points to make it more clear.

Make sure your outline follows the order of the text.

Writing your Precis

Begin drafting your precis by shortening the text with concise sentences and eliminating any redundant phrases. Keep track of the word count, ensuring it is one-fourth the length of the original text.

Here are four key points to consider while creating your precis:

• Add a suitable title for your precis which is in line with the content.
• It should be written in the third person.
• The text should be in an indirect form.
• Use appropriate past tense.

Review your Precis

Reread your precis multiple times and check for errors or grammatical mistakes. Compare it with the original text and check if both the compositions exhibit the same themes and convey the exact message.

In the end, add the number of words used in your precis in a bracket.

Check Out: Story Writing Format

Qualities of a Good Precis

What are the parameters to judge precis writing? The following are some attributes that describe a good precis.

• Accurate and Precise
• Clear and coherent
• Well connected
• Original
• A suitable title

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Uses of Precis Writing

Individuals frequently seek to review the key points of books, movies, meetings, articles, reports, news, and more. This is where precis writing becomes valuable, as it presents the main ideas to the audience without altering the content’s proportion, tone, or theme. Precis writing is particularly important in the following areas:

• Precis writing can be used to describe a chapter so that students get the gist of the basics.
• Precis writing is also used in companies for job descriptions, meeting highlights, etc.
• The use of precis writing is also seen in movies to describe the main events or plot of the film.
• Precis writing is also used in scientific reports and research to give the gist of its content.

Essential Rules for Good Precis Writing

After understanding how to write a precis, let’s look at a few tips that can help you ace your precis.

• Keep the text terse and up to the point.
• Use shorter words. For example, use ‘because’ instead of ‘owing to’, use ‘although’ instead of ‘in spite of the fact that, etc.
• Make sure your text is lucid to understand. Avoid using jargon and complex sentences.
• Retain the core of the text.
• Your text should be a miniature reflection of the original text and should state the correct facts and figures.

Precis Writing Samples With Answers

Here are a few precis writing samples with answers:

Sample 1

“The internet has revolutionized the way we communicate and access information. With the click of a button, we can connect with people around the world, share ideas, and stay informed about current events. This instant access to vast amounts of information has both positive and negative implications. On the positive side, it allows for unprecedented global connectivity and the democratization of knowledge. However, it also raises concerns about privacy, misinformation, and the potential for online abuse. As we navigate this digital age, it is essential to strike a balance between the benefits and challenges posed by the internet.”

Precis

“The internet’s transformative impact on communication and information retrieval is evident. Instant global connectivity and knowledge democratization are positive outcomes, yet concerns arise regarding privacy, misinformation, and online abuse. Striking a balance between the benefits and challenges of the digital age becomes crucial.”

Passage 2

The basic core of evolution – survival, and reproduction- has been proven over and over through our various behavioural patterns. Let’s retrograde and explore what are some exciting concepts that have been performed by humans before us and how did it occur.

Almost every organism has the tendency to react to certain stimuli for survival. This reaction to each and every situation has an evolutionary basis of adaptation. The study of human emotions dates back to the 19th century and psychologists have discovered many reasons for every emotion, yet these are just theories. The arousal of emotions and their assumed structures is said to occur due to repeated encounters with a situation followed by the adaptation of the encounter. Human emotions have been linked to adaptively regulate emotion-gathering mechanisms. The emotion of fear which is associated with ancient parts of the brain has presumably evolved among our pre-mammal ancestors while the emotion of a mother’s love called the ‘filial emotion’ has seen to evolve among early mammals. Various emotions work as manipulative strategies that favour survival. Feigning emotions by an accused person may help him be saved from the punishment. An exaggerated display of anger is also associated with manipulating or threatening someone.

Despite there being several emotions for various events, ironically the most interesting emotion is the emotion of disgust. Disgust is aroused when the body senses a danger to the immunity or the physiology of the human. The disgusted memory is associated with alerting the brain of a potentially dangerous substance. A few studies have shown that the encoding triggered in adaptive memory for problems is stronger than any other behaviour. This makes us instantly have a disgusted expression at the sight of something that makes us uncomfortable or uneasy. These expressions are also closely linked to self-protective communication.

Precis

Title: Human Evolution and Emotions
The emotions that humans express and react to stimuli in the environment have an evolutionary basis. Emotions are assumed to be a result of repeated encounters with a certain event.
According to evolution, emotions like fear, love, feigning, anger, and disgust are results of consistent reactions in particular situations. Some expressions are often built up or adapted as a form of self-protection.

Points to Avoid for Precis Writing

Precis writing can be complicated since you need to cut down all points that aren’t important. While keeping the tips in mind, avoid making the following mistakes while writing a precis.

• Do not elaborate a lot on a single point.
• Do not use your own interpretation, criticism, or assumption about the text.
• Do not copy sentences from the original text or use abbreviations.
• Do not break the flow of events and keep the text well connected.

Also Know: What is the Difference Between an Author and a Writer?

FAQs

Hope you are now well prepared to prepare a well-composed precis. Make sure you keep practicing which will help you learn new skills and help you become confident while writing. If you wish to learn creative writing, reach out to our experts at Leverage Edu who will find the best course that can equip you with the knowledge and skills. Sign up for a free session. You can call our Leverage Edu experts on 1800 572 000 to find out how the application process can be fast-tracked and streamlined!