Précis Writing Tips and Example

Précis is an originally French noun, properly spelled with an acute accent, meaning a concise
summary. Precise is an English adjective meaning "clearly expressed, brief and to the point."

Qualities of a good précis:

Correctness, brevity, conciseness, coherence and completeness are the best qualities of good
précis writing. These terms are explained as follows.

Here we are presenting you a few writing tips and an example on Précis Writing.

Précis Writing: Writing a précis means making an intelligent summary of a long passage. To
write a précis one should have a clear understanding of the passage: only then one is able to
include all the essential points, tips and tricks of essay examples in the précis.

Title:
Title should be concise, short and suitable which should express the subject.

Some general considerations:

1. Learn to shorten your words, text of written work, useful writing tips, essential thoughts,
ideas or fact.
2. It is generally accepted that a précis should be a third of the passage given. If the original
passage has 300 words, the précis should not be more than 110 words in length.
3. A précis should be in the language of the précis-writer. The original passage is not to be
reduced in length by just removing unimportant or unnecessary sentences and by reproducing
the rest as the précis. It should be a brief gist or summary of the passage expressed in the
writer’s own words.
4. A précis should be full i.e. it should contain all the essential thoughts, ideas or fact in the
original passage. It should not contain repetitions or observations that are not relevant to the
main theme of the original.
5. A précis is always written in Reported Speech. The passage given may be a speech made
by a person in Direct Speech, but the précis is to be in Reported Speech or the Third Person
or in the Past tense.

Techniques of Précis – Writing

There three kinds of work to be done in producing a clear and successful précis. They are (1)
Reading, (2) Writing and (3) Revision.

1. Reading
Read the passage carefully
If one reading is not enough to give you a general idea of its meaning, then read it second
time. As you read, find out the subject or the theme of the passage and what is said about the
subject.
It will be a good thing if you find out the lead or the topic sentence. The lead sentence will
help you to see the subject clearly. It will also help you to think of a title.
Now comes the process of selection. The writer of the précis writing passages has to decide
what facts or ideas in the passage are essential and what are of secondary or no importance.
Taking the main ideas of the passages as your point of reference, it should not be too difficult
to write out the important points in the original in a corner of your writing work sheet.

2. Writing
You should first prepare a draft of the précis, keeping in mind, the need to reduce the original
to one-third its length. The main thoughts expressed in the passage, the ideas it contains, the
opinions presented and the conclusion arrived at should figure in the rough draft.
Unimportant things like the names of people and places and dates should not figure in it.
It may so happen that your first draft is too long or that it sounds rather jerky. Shorten it if
necessary and write out a careful second draft. Sometimes you may need to work out three or
even four drafts, but with reasonable care and concentration, you should normally succeed in
producing good précis writing by the second draft.

3. Revision
When you have made your second (or final) draft, carefully revise it before writing out the
fair copy. Look for any mistakes or slips in grammar or spelling and correct them. Don’t
forget to give your précis a title.

Write a précis of the following passage to one-third of its length and also give a suitable
title-
Today there are 3000 million people in the world. Fifty years ago only about 2000 million
people lived in it. If earth’s population were evenly distributed over its land surface, there
would be about 550 persons to the square mile. But Earth has vast areas of forest, mountains
and desert which are almost totally inhabited. On the other hand, it has great cities each with
millions of people living in a few square miles.
To feed the fast growing population of our earth, scientists and planners have to discover new
ways to produce more. One possible way is to bring more land not under cultivation. This can
be done only in places where there is lot of land not used for productive purposes. In many
places there is no longer possible all the arable land is already cultivated. A second way is to
make use of new types of seeds to produce more. Already a number of new strains of paddy
and wheat have been developed in different parts f the world. India is one of the countries
where a lot of useful work has been done in the field of agriculture research.

Title: World Population and Food Production

Précis: During the last fifty years, the world population has increased from 2000 to 3000
million. It is unevenly distributed with millions of people living in a few big cities. Scientists
in India and abroad are, therefore, busy with agriculture research to find out new methods of
increased food production to feed them all and they have already developed many new strains
of paddy and wheat.