Introduction

Colleges and universities promote the students’ overall growth by instilling in them the skills required for the job market and the ones needed for living a smooth life. After conducting lectures for 3-4 hours every day, they assign 2-3 assignments, which are written according to specific rubrics that also state which format or style is to be used. They teach the students that just having content on a topic is not enough. One also must know how to arrange and structure the information in an organised manner so that it becomes easily understandable. One of the types of assignments that are commonly assigned in educational institutions is Precis writing. Thus, students must know what it is and the ideal way it can be written. This piece will give you details regarding the same. Hence, keep on reading it till the end to attain mastery in writing Precis.

What is Precis Writing?

In today’s world, where people are flooded by information from all corners, it becomes difficult for everybody to invest a lot of time in consuming pieces that are long and not easily comprehensible. A Precis, which is the summary or gist of a long piece, is written for these people. It must be noted that indeed it is true that precis summarises or only provides information in a precise manner. However, it must contain all the key points. Hence, that is why precis writing is an art as it is not easy to condense the information of a long piece but still retaining all the relevant points. However, you must not be worried as this art can be taught, and this write-up aims to do the same.

Some people tend to confuse precis writing with paraphrasing. Although paraphrasing also involves summarisation. However, while paraphrasing, you are to include all the points, but this is not the case with precis writing, in which you are only supposed to focus on the main points.

Tips to keep in mind while attempting precis writing

• Find the topic or theme of the original text

The only way to avoid missing out on any important points is to read the original text twice or thrice to understand the topic on which it is written and the underlying theme. Once you get an idea about this, include only those points in your precis which are relevant to your theme and leave all the other ones.

• Always write precis in your words

Indeed, precis involves summarising the main points from the text given. However, you must understand that those points cannot be directly taken. To put it simply, you have to reconstruct those points in your own words, but the original ones’ essence must not be lost while doing that.

• Keep the precis short and concise

A precis indeed consists of all the significant points from the original text. However, that does not mean that you elaborate on those points so much that the precis becomes too long. It must be noted that precis writing is intended to be short, and the professor will definitely deduct a lot of your marks if this rule is not followed strictly.

• Choose your vocabulary wisely

The students sometimes complain that the word-limit gets exceeded when they attempt to include all the main points. This would not happen with you ever again while attempting precis writing if you choose your vocabulary wisely. A simple example of this would be that instead of saying ‘she is extremely kind,’ just say ‘she is generous.’ This simple activity will help you stick to the word-limit. Also, you would not have to miss any point which must be included in the precis.

• Do not miss facts and numbers

Whenever any argument is backed by facts and numbers, its credibility increases multi-fold. Opinions of people are open to disagreement. However, everybody has to agree on a fact or when data is presented. Thus, while writing precis, never misses any of the data from the original text as numbers speak for themselves. This way, you will be able to save some words for other necessary points.

• Always keep the one-third rule in your mind

While writing a precis, always keep that it should ideally be one-third of the text provided. By doing this, you can avoid losing those marks which are deducted for exceeding the word limit.

How to write precis writing/ Format of precis writing

Now that you are aware of all the rules, we can focus on the format of a precis which is indeed very simple.

• Just keep in mind that although it is a small piece that consists of just one paragraph, it should not only be a random collection of essential points. In other words, the points should be arranged in a manner that the precis seems coherent.
• It must have a beginning, middle, and end. However, you must accommodate all of this in just a single paragraph.

As stated earlier, the format of a precis is not that complex. Hence, this is all about it.

Example: 

It is always said that having theoretical and practical knowledge is better than just having the former one. Hence, now that you have learned all the precis writing rules, carefully look at the example given below to understand how to apply them.

Question-

Travel writing is indeed the most interesting and challenging genre in literature. History has seen many famous poets pouring their heart out in the form of poems, sometimes expressing their longing to go back to their hometown or to visit a place they always desired to and at other times, sharing their travel experiences with the world. It is assumed that due to technological development, population increase and climate change, the experiences of the people, travelling in contemporary times, are not as beautiful as what our previous generations experienced. However, the world still has several picturesque and peaceful places yet left to be explored and written about, which are bound to offer delight to our eyes, hearts, and souls. Hence, travel writing is seeing brilliant pieces of poems written almost every day.

Answer-

Several great travel writers have written brilliant poems in the past. Due to the advent of modernization and pollution, people have wrongly assumed that all the beautiful places have now become dull. Thus, travel poems capturing the loveliness of a place cannot be written anymore. However, this is a false argument as contemporary times have also seen some of the greatest travel poems ever written.

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