1. Precise Writing
Wajid Hussain Khoso
M.A (English literature)
University of Sindh

2. Precise Writing
 The term Précis is derived from French word means “Precise” or
“Expressed Accurately”.
 It also means an “Abstract” or a “Gist” of a longer passage.
 It is an exercise in “Compression
 It helps to compress the idea presented in a long passage .
 It is simple saying huge ideas in short words
 Short possible words

3. Points to remember
 It must be 1/3 of Paragraph
 Different from original one
 It is quite different from just paraphrasing .
 A paraphrase must reproduce not only the substance of a passage but also
its details.
 It may be longer than the original passage.
 Where as Précis is shorter than the original passage. It only includes
main theme. Must be one third of the Original words of Passage.

4. Features of Good precis
 is marked by clarity, brevity and precision.
 is not just lifting of the sentences from the original. It should be written in
the precis writer's own words.
 is a miniature version of the original passage.
 must have a logical order and be well-knit and well connected.
 must have coherence; must use linking devices such as so, therefore, and,
because further etc. and must follow the
 order of ideas of the original.
 must have a title.
 is written in reported speech.
 must not contain any details not found in the original

5. WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT DO ..!
 Do not express your own opinion, wish, remark or criticism.
 Do not insert any question in your précis. Its significance, if essential, may
be expressed by a statement.
 Do not use abbreviations or contractions
 No need to use
 Examples
 Illustrations
 Your own thoughts
 Quotations

6. General Guidelines :
 The following rules are general guidelines you should follow while writing a
précis:
 Closely read the passage, and identify the central idea of the passage. It is vital
to identify the general idea of the passage and incorporate it in one’s précis.
 Look-out for the total number of words. If the number is not provided, quickly
calculate the number using approximations.
 In order to understand the passage clearly, make sure that you read the
passage closely, and give it a couple of reads before you start writing the
précis.
 Highlight the most important points in the passage, and make notes. Leave out
all non-essential information from the précis.
 Provide an apt heading to your précis.
 Note making is an essential task for writing précis. You should try to arrange
the points in most logical order, and ensure the order of thought is the same
as the original.
 The three grammatical rules you need to follow while writing a précis are: write
it in third person, indirect form and appropriate past tens

7. Cont….
 Make sure you review your rough draft, remove the chinks and ensure that
you have made no language related errors.
 Before writing your précis, make sure you have a glance over the original
to make sure you have not missed anything.
 Finally, a wise policy would be a count the words of your precis and put
them down in a bracket at the end

8. Example
 The test of a great book is whether we want to read it only
once or more than once. Any book which we want to read the
second time even more than we wanted to read it the first
time is really a great book .Every additional reading will help
us understand it better and we will find new beautifies in it .A
book that a person of education and good taste does not care
to read more than once is very probably not worth much.

9. Solution …
here yOu go…
 Title ..?
 The taste of a Good Book
 Precis : A good book is one to which we turn again and again to discover
new beauties but if we do not turn to again it must be a bad one .

10. How to give title
 Social media
Importance/effect of social media
 It must convey clear idea and connected to main idea
 After solving precise because then it would be thoroughly in your mind
 Select from your three four titles

11. Lets Practice
 Lets Practice

12. Practice :
 When we survey our lives and efforts we soon observe that almost the whole
of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human
beings. We notice that whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We
eat food that others have produced, wear clothes that others have made, live
in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs
has been passed on to us by other people though the medium of a language
which others have created. Without language and mental capacities, we would
have been poor indeed comparable to higher animals.
We have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal knowledge over
the least to the fact of living in human society. The individual if left alone from
birth would remain primitive and beast like in his thoughts and feelings to a
degree that we can hardly imagine. The individual is what he is and has the
significance that he has, not much in virtue of the individuality, but rather as a
member of a great human community, which directs his material and spiritual
existence from the cradle to grave.

13.  Being social animals, human beings have their actions and desires bound
up with society. In matter of food, clothes, knowledge and belief they are
interdependent. They use language created by others. Without language
their mental power would not grow. They are superior to beast, because
they live in human society. An individual life left alone from birth would
grow utterly beast like. So human society and not individuality guides
man’s material and spiritual existence