Question

give a brief idea on the important point to be kept in mind while attempting precis writing

Answer 1

What is a Precis ?

A precise is like a miniature portrait of the passage: it retains the absolute essential points accompanied with the mood and tone of the author of the passage. The one aspect one must be careful about is that one should not add one’s subjective interpretation or comments to the précis and should try to retain the original author’s voice and opinions. As far as the writing style is concerned, one must ensure that one write clear and effective sentences (no rambling) and one’s diction is flawless. Ultimately, it the coherence of the views that you presented in the précis that matter, and this can be achieved by making sure that one is precise and to the point in one’s approach. Unnecessarily long sentences or rambling thoughts are not required in précis writing, and one should make sure that one sifts from one point to another in a smooth matter. At the end of the day, the précis should make sense and be logical in its presentation.

While keeping the above in mind, you need to keep in mind what a precis is not. The following are some of things that should not be a part of or a reflection of the precis:

simply a summary of a passage.simply an abstract of a passage.an outline of a passage.a mere selection of a few important sentences from a passage.a collection of disconnected facts and statements.

Answer 2

Precis writing is about compressing a passage. It entails expressing the passage in as few words as possible. It should not deduct or add anything to the idea present in the original passage. It differs from paraphrasing in that in paraphrasing you do not leave out any details and the paraphase could be     as long or even longer than the original while in precise writing you do not provide all the details.This means it is shorter but still expresses the main theme fully.

Tho