PRECIS WRITING

Ansa Ahsan

Steps to Follow

Read the passage carefully and try to understand it. In practice sessions you may consult a dictionary for the meanings of unfamiliar words and idioms, but in an examination you can only resort to deduction.

A second reading in necessary, and a third is often advisable for a deeper understanding of the material.

Steps to Follow

Summarize the passage in the form of headings or points. This enables you to draw out the main ideas of the passage and omit the less important details and merely illustrative material.

Read the passage again, as some of the details may be required to enable you to form complete sentences.

Steps to Follow

Turn over or put aside the book or sheet which contains the passage. Then write the précis, basing it on the points you have already extracted. The précis must be in complete sentences which follow one another in logical sequences, and as far as possible in your own words. Do not look at the passage as you write your précis.

Steps to Follow

A précis is usually written in reported speech, and therefore in the third person. Unless required, do not use the first pronoun “I” and “we”.

When you have completed the précis, and not before, study the passage again for the purpose of correcting any factual errors.

Sample Passage

Sir Winston Churchill, in his book The Gathering Storm, claimed the Second World War was far more tragic and much more far-reaching in its consequences than the First World War. He provides several reasons to support his contention….

Sample Passage

Although there was a great deal of slaughter in the First World War, most of the people who lost their lives were combatants: the soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought each other. There was also a great deal of financial waste. But western civilization was not badly affected….

Sample Passage

And the countries which have participated in the war remained to a large extent intact, and did not lose their separate identities. Both sides had generally observed the traditional laws of warfare. The countries which had won and those which had lost remained civilized states….

Sample Passage

And the countries which have participated in the war remained to a large extent intact, and did not lose their separate identities. Both sides had generally observed the traditional laws of warfare. The countries which had won and those which had lost remained civilized states…..

Sample Passage

The peace treaty which was signed was based on the principles of civilized behavior: its main fault lay in the enormous reparations which the losers were required to pay, and which could not in practice enforced. The League of Nations was formed in due course to try to maintain international peace and prevent another conflagration….

Sample Passage

In the Second World War, on the other hand, all rules of civilized behavior were cast aside. The crimes committed by the regime of Adolph Hitler exceeded in the wickedness and scale anything that had ever happened in history. For example, millions of people were thrown into concentration camps to die of starvation, disease or execution in the gas chambers….

Sample Passage

Beside these cruelties, the massacres of Genghis khan seem almost petty. The Germans started the bombardment of open cities from the air when the allied defenses were still weak, and the allies later retaliated on a scale twenty times as treat. The climax to this horrible practice was the complete destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs…

Sample Passage

The end of this most destructive war in history brought neither the restoration of civilized life nor lasting peace. Instead, the world was faced with greater problem than ever.

SUMMARY OF THE PASSAGE IN HEADINGS

Churchill: Second World War exceeded First in tragedy.

First World War

i. People killed were combatants.ii. Western civilization and warring countries

remained intact.iii. Laws of /warfare observed.iv. Peace treaty based on civilized principles.v. League of Nations formed to maintain peace.

SUMMARY OF THE PASSAGE IN HEADINGS

Second World War

i. Rules of civilized behavior ignored.ii. Crimes of Hitler’s regime greatest in history.iii. Bombing of open cities climaxed by atomic

bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.iv. Greater problems followed at the end of the

war.

IMPORTANT POINTS

Notice that a number of repetitions found in the passage have been eliminated in the above summary. As the author was trying to prove that the Second World War was much worse than the First.

Certain details regarding the First World War which do not support his contention have been omitted. Illustrative material, too, such as the mention of Genghis Khan’s massacres, has been ignored.

PRECIS BASED ON THE ABOVE HEADINGS

Sir Winston Churchill contended that the Second World War exceeded the First in tragedy. In the First World War the killing was confined to combatants. Western civilization and the warring nations remained intact at the end of the war, in which the laws of warfare were respected…

PRECIS BASED ON THE ABOVE HEADINGS

A peace treaty based on civilized principles was signed and the League of Nations was formed to prevent another war. During the Second World War the rules of civilized behavior were ignored; unprecedented crimes were committed by Hitler’s regime…

PRECIS BASED ON THE ABOVE HEADINGS

The horrible bombing of open cities was climaxed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The end of the war brought, not lasting peace, but far greater problems…

THE END