Precis Writing

What the official syllabus says

Main Written Examination, Paper I: English and English Essay. The aim of the paper is to test the candidate's ability to read and understand serious discursive prose, and to express his ideas: clearly and correctly in English. The pattern of questions would be broadly as follows:

• (i) Precis Writing.

Topics in detail

What a precis is

• A short, clear restatement of the essential ideas of a passage in the writer's own words
• Different from a summary of one's own views, a paraphrase (which keeps the length) and notes (which are not continuous prose)
• Written as one connected paragraph, normally with a title
• Length: the question usually sets a limit; where it does not, about one-third of the original is the common convention

Reading the passage

• Reading the whole passage at least twice before writing
• Finding the central theme and the author's line of argument
• Marking the key points and the links between them (cause, contrast, result)
• Leaving out examples, illustrations, repetitions, quotations and figures of speech unless essential

Writing the precis

• Using one's own words rather than lifting sentences from the passage
• Keeping the author's point of view; adding no opinion or comment
• Writing in the third person and, usually, in indirect (reported) speech
• Replacing long phrases with single words and lists with a general term
• Keeping the order of ideas logical, which need not be the passage's order
• Making the paragraph read smoothly with linking words
• Choosing a short title that states the central idea
• Counting words and stating the count if the question asks for it

Common mistakes

• Going well over or under the word limit
• Missing a key point while keeping minor details
• Copying phrases or whole sentences from the passage
• Changing the meaning or the emphasis of the original
• Starting with "The author says…" in every sentence

Practice material

• Editorials and opinion pieces on economy, governance, society and environment
• Speeches and reports of a discursive nature
• Passages of 300 to 600 words, reduced to the set length within a fixed time

Overlaps

The Hindi paper also has precis writing: see Hindi and Hindi Essay. Picking out the central idea of a passage is the same skill as in the CSAT's comprehension questions.