Precis Writing

Precis (pray-see, pl. pray-seez) writing is a basic and very useful skill. It has been
variously referred to as 'abbreviation', 'subtraction', 'abstract', 'summary', and
'condensation'. The French gave it the name 'precis' - the pruning away of all that
is inessential.

Reading for comprehension and Precis writing

 Nouns
 Italics
 Statistics
 Repeated general words
 Topic Sentence
 Supporting Sentences
 Connectors/ Transitions
Reading and Understanding the Text
1. What is the purpose of this text—is the author trying to inform, describe, persuade,
explain, narrate, entertain, or amuse?
2. What is the author's attitude?
3. Does the author express a personal point of view, or is the text purely objective?
4. Is there a distinctive style or tone to the text?

Analyzing the Content

There are many possible types of structural development of texts—for example, the author
might recount:
a. a chronological sequence of events
b. describe a scene
c. compare or contrast ideas
d. make a general statement (and support it with particulars)
e. a combination of these and other approaches

Things to do: Things not to do:

 Third Person  Examples, illustrations, metaphors,
 Past Tense similes, personifications, idiomatic
 Single Paragraph (indention) language
 Use word-substitution  Commas, colons*
(industrialization, multi-lingual,  Direct narration
edibles, grocery, garments)  Comments, opinions, evaluations,
 1/3rd of the original critique
  Independently readable  Proverbs
 Cohesion, Coherence and Unity  Verb(s) in the title
 Make rough draft(s)  Copying from the original
 Title as a proper phrase (no block  Parenthesis
phrases)  Adjectives and Adjective phrases

Exercise Passage

One of our most difficult problems is what we call discipline and it is really very complex. You
see, society feels that it must control or discipline the citizen, shape his mind according to certain
religious, social, moral and economic patterns.

Now, is discipline necessary at all? Please listen carefully. Don't immediately say YES or NO.
Most of us feel, especially while we are young, that there should be no discipline, that we should
be allowed to do whatever we like and we think that is freedom. But merely to say that we
should be free and so on has very little meaning without understanding the whole problem of
discipline.

The keen athlete is disciplining himself the whole time, isn't he? His joy in playing games and
the very necessity to keep fit makes him go to bed early, refrain from smoking, eat the right food
and generally observe the rules of good health. His discipline and punctuality is not an
imposition but a natural outcome of his enjoyment of athletics.

Exercise Passage

The first and perhaps the greatest value of précis writing is the demand it makes upon us to read
comprehendingly, and thought fully. Newspapers, magazines, books surround us and thrust
themselves into our busy lives. SO overwhelmed are we by this avalanche of reading matter that
before we know it we become mere skimmers of the printed page. We glance from headline to
headline, from sporting column to cartoon. If a paragraph is long or dull, we skip it; if a sentence
is a bit involved, we lose the thought and let it go; if a word is unfamiliar, we dash on. Time is
precious. A hundred other things wait to be done. Books more books offer their honey for us to
sip.