How to Write a Precis: Tips for Writing a Well-Rounded Precis

Q: Question: Can I express my opinion regarding the original work in a precis?

Answer: Precis is brief, which means it must provide objective information and not include any opinion. You must be as close to the original text as possible when it comes to ideas and tone. Moreover, your precis is a reflection on the work written by the author and must not contain any subjective interpretations or expressions.

The experience of presenting complex information in a clear and understandable manner to others is a valuable skill in higher education as well as in your chosen profession. Here comes the role of precis writing. A precis is a concise, fully developed summary of a long piece of information. Moreover, it is designed to capture the spirit and tone of the source text while retaining its text without creating vague language or genre. Summaries help uncover the relevance of papers, speeches, and articles. In this blog by All Assignment Help, we will cover the basics of the precis structure and some tips for writing a well-rounded precis.

What is a Precis?

A precis comes under an annotation that defines a generalized abstract of a narration. Moreover, it decreases confusing aspects so that readers may comprehend the main intricacies and characteristics without any hassle. Furthermore, a summary can be vague but a precis is extremely structured and concentrates on how best to recreate the tone and points of the original work without any personal interpretation or additional content. It follows a logical progression in the order of points made by the source material and reenacts them as best as possible.

Additionally, this form of writing comes easily to students and writers who attend academic institutions or work in professional research-related fields where being brief, and direct is the key. However, you can seek guidance from an online assignment help service in case you find it difficult. Furthermore, it has every bit its significance in professions, schools, and colleges.

Also read: How to Write a Compelling Sociology Research Paper?

Characteristics of a Good Precis

The art of precis writing relies on both the content as well as the writing style of the original text. Important features of precis are given below:

Clarity and brevity: The precis should be clear, succinct, and brief. It conveys the spirit of the source text without unnecessary detail and verbosity, often reducing text length to less than one-third of the original.
Remain true to the original: A precis must preserve the same tone, meaning, and purpose as in its original form. Even when condensed, it should never compromise or misrepresent the thoughts of the original author.
An objective: A good precis is one in which no personal comments, interpretations or opinions should be there. The writer needs to give the actual ideas as they are, and one should remain neutral while presenting them.
Logical flow: A precis must adhere to the original text and should follow its structure. The proposals to support the thesis statement also should be listed in their order of appearance in the source, including the superordinate and subordinate proposals as needed. A precis must use the same headings used in the source below or above which they are placed.
Complete summary: A precis must include all key concepts and supporting elements contained in a source. Moreover, a number of keywords of the topic focused on means that the source here is complete.

Aspects discussed above should be included in the source, so precis may efficiently express a long writing piece by using those characteristics. However, if it seems like a complex thing to you, do not hesitate to ask online homework help for assistance.

Steps to Write a Precis

Now comes the writing part. You can follow these steps if you want to compose a good precis.

Step 1: Read the original text thoroughly

First, students should make sure they understand the material. Read the passage fully and look for any purposes, tones, and main arguments. Also, look at any supporting argument or evidence brought up by the author and the basic structure of the passage. If needed, read the passage more than once to understand.

Step 2: Highlight important points

Start highlighting all the key points within the material. This includes the thesis statement, theses or main arguments and the conclusions made by the writer. Do not highlight everything but just look at the necessary aspects and avoid minor details or examples.

Step 3: Outline the structure of the original text

Create a rough structure of the original text. Divide it into three parts – the introduction, the body, and the conclusion, and note the main goal of each part. Then write how you are going to organize your precis to correctly reflect the content. A properly created outline will save you a great deal of time in your subsequent work. Additionally, if writing a precis is keeping you occupied and your other academic responsibilities are suffering then you might have thoughts like Can I hire an expert to write my assignment? If so, you must delegate your work to experts so that you can concentrate on your precis.

Step 4: Write the first draft

With the help of the outline, write the precis of the text. Restate its main idea in one sentence. Then follow the original structure and present the key points in the same order but using your own words. You should try to keep the writer’s tone and purpose but simplify the language.

Step 5: Revise and edit

After you finish the precis, it is essential to reread it to ensure that it accomplishes the described goal. Review it for any logical, factual, or grammatical errors ensuring that the precis is logically addressed as one single whole and remains accurate in comparison to the original text. Additionally, it is necessary to be sure that the precis is concise and contains all essential points without irrelevant information that may make the review biased.

Also read: How to Write a Survey Paper: In-Detail Tips from Experts

Tips for Writing an Effective Precis

Writing an effective precis is a complex process that requires a person to be both skillful and attentive to all details. This way, they can create a work that conveys all important points of the review while considering the original writer’s tone and meaning. The following tips are designed to help you in this process:

Be objective

Your writing should be objective. Avoid using any personal ideas or interpretations as well as any kind of analysis. Do adhere to the first point and focus on the writer’s ideas rather than yours.

Focus on the core ideas

Your focus should be the text’s main points and its gist rather than all details, examples, and anecdotes. You should not omit them if they play the central role, of course, but in most cases, they are secondary, so they occupy less space in your precis.

Keep the original structure

Naturally, if the original was well-structured, then you should better follow it and restate it no matter what you feel about the logic of its parts and their sequence.

Use your own words

Even though you have the original text, your precis should be your own work that shows you can understand the information you learned. Instead of quoting the sentence, rewrite it from memory and then check whether it was close to what the author wrote.

Use third person

Though the original text might be in the first person, precis writing is preferred to be in the third person. This not only makes it more formal and impersonal, but this is essential to clear the hurdle of precis writing. The third party must also be made aware of the information.

Keep writer’s tone

While writing a precis it is essential for a person to bear in mind the writer’s tone, be it formal, persuasive, or descriptive. The tone should not be changed as it may change the meaning of the original passage.

Avoid quoting

Instead of making a string of quotes or copying the whole sentence, you must rewrite it using your own words. You cannot present a new fact in its original form and need to turn it into your own words, so do the same with old facts from your source.

If you follow these tips carefully, you can easily write a concise and accurate precis. Moreover, is the precis writing preventing you from completing other academic responsibilities like taking your online class? Are you also thinking of hiring someone to take your online class? If yes, then we can help. We provide you with experts who can take your classes on your behalf maintaining the integrity, morality, and privacy of your online class.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When you are writing a precis essay, you can make a lot of mistakes. Some common errors can affect the quality of your work significantly. The most common mistakes to avoid are:

Adding personal opinions or interpretations

Doing so will make correct precis rather unclear since this type of essay should only describe the thoughts of the author in other words but not in the more complex or unusual vocabulary. Moreover, writing from a personal point of view is a big no because precis is a descriptive essay, and you should not provide a critique or suggestion in this type of writing.

Including unnecessary details

Including minor details, examples, or partially unnecessary explanations in a precis can make it bad. A precis should present the core ideas and avoid repetition and all details that do not matter greatly.

Changing the author’s intent or tone

You may misrepresent the author’s text and change the tone or intent of their text. Remember whether the original tone was informal, persuasive, or descriptive, and follow this style. In addition, make sure you address all key arguments of the text.

Failing to capture the main ideas

It is quite a common mistake to summarize the article or the assignment too vaguely or to skip one of the most important points. Furthermore, precis is a shortened version of a test, so you may decide to rewrite several sections of the other author’s text too closely when they might as well be skipped.

Overusing quotations

A precis should be written in your own words. If you are only using quotations from the original text, that means you lack the understanding of the main message. Summarizing is about covering the main ideas while paraphrasing as much as possible and relying on quotations as little as possible.

Writing in the first person

A precis is always written in the third person. Your initial text may use the first person, but you should avoid using it in writing the summary. This will also help you maintain a formal, objective tone.

Not revising the precis

If you are writing the final draft and submitting it without reviewing it, there is a high possibility it contains mistakes. Even though it should be brief, a precis should discuss the main ideas and facts clearly and professionally. Make sure to review and edit your writing appropriately.

To write a well-structured and precise precis, you must avoid these mistakes. In addition to this, ask an expert to help you handle other academic work so that you can focus on writing a precis. For example, if you have an English class, just say, do my online English class for me and let the experts handle the business for you.

Conclusion

Writing a precis is a very important and necessary skill, which allows a person to interpret complicated information in a simpler form. To complete it, you must comprehend the idea of a provided text and put it down in a much shorter form but also without any judgments. Moreover, if you are skilled at attentive and focused reading, simplifying the text structure, and avoiding common faults, you can write an exact and accurate precis that portrays the text in a much shorter time.

Correctly completing this type of project in academic or professional life can hone one’s capacity to communicate a lot of information in the shortest amount of time without revealing anything. Regular practice will demonstrate just how useful this writing talent will be in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: How long a precis should be?
Answer: Precis is usually about one-third the length of the original text, but the length can vary. The important part is to preserve the main ideas and keep them as short as possible. Do not include any excessive details or wordy explanations. Instead, focus on the main points of the text, summarize its arguments, and state how the article is structured.

Question: Can I express my opinion regarding the original work in a precis?
Answer: Precis is a brief, which means it must provide objective information and not include any opinion. You must be as close to the original text as possible when it comes to ideas and tone. Moreover, your precis is a reflection on the work written by the author and must not contain any subjective interpretations or expressions.