PRÉCIS WRITING
What Précis Means
A précis is the essence of a longer story of any kind. You take your story and ‘boil it down’, so as to get rid of all the parts that do not really matter; you then collect what is left, and put these points together in a short concise ‘summary’. But the result must not be a ‘list’ of important points, or a series of ‘jottings’. It must be the same story told clearly and readably, in a very much condensed form.
For instance, you may have to make a précis of a long pile of letters dealing with some particular subject; or perhaps the account of a trial; or a long report written by one individual. It doesn’t matter what the longer ‘story’ is. What you have to do is to read it through, extract all the parts that matter, and put them down in readable form.
The Object of these Exercises
Now précis writing is unlike free English composition. It is much more exact and scientific; and it must be written according to certain definite rules. It is no use trying to learn all the rules at once; you will learn them one by one, and without trouble, as you work through the following exercises.
These exercises are not the real Government Blue Books, reports, trials, &c., that you will have to tackle later on. They are all ‘made up’. But they are exactly like the real thing. The only difference is that they are much easier and shorter—and they are not so dull. And as they are the same sort of thing on a small scale, you should be able to deal with the real ones later on when you meet them.
How to tackle a Précis
All précis, whether easy or difficult, should be tackled in the same way. First read the whole thing through very carefully without writing any notes or underlining any passages.