What is the Difference Between Precis Writing and A Summary?

Before writing to attract the audience’s attention, a proper understanding of both terms is necessary. After exploring the definitions of these terms, you will find similarities among them.   However, they also have many differences. This article will tell you how these two terms differ from each other. This will be beneficial for better understanding.

Precis-Writing

The word Precis comes from the English word ‘Precise.’ The literal meaning of the word precise is ‘exact’. But ‘Precis’ refers to the act of summarising something. In Precis-Writing, the writer has to present a long passage within a few lines. The underlying meaning and concept of the main passage will remain the same though. Still, there are no strict rules and regulations for Precis-Writing.

Precis-Writing and its importance

These days, business tycoons do not have time to review lengthy sections in magazines and journals. But staying updated on current affairs is one necessity of their lives. A useful way to fulfil this need is that of Precis-Writing. The summarised form of a section can help the reader by decreasing the reading times. Precis-writing and headlines sections of news channels have the same purpose in a true sense. Both can let the viewer go through the main events in a few important points.

Some important aspects will help you in overviewing the essentials of Precis Writing. Things that may help you in precis writing are given as follows;

• The precis draft should not be longer than one-third of the relevant section.
• While presenting the essence of any article, a precis writer can use his words.
• You should avoid the use of original sentences as much as you can.
• As one of the essentials for this, you must use the past tense. Indirect speech can also be used within your final draft.
• The Precis writer must brainstorm separate titles for each Precis.
• You have to preserve original sequential orders in the Precis draft.

By learning these Precis Writing essentials, you may understand what the audience expects from you as a Precis Writer.

Summary

According to a coursework help firm, a summary is a short form of all the main points of the article. It aims to present a quick review of the text. Every dissertation or report contains this necessary section. This is where an author can sum up his own work. The summary helps other authors in ensuring their exclusion and inclusion lists.

Importance of Summary

Like Precis, the summary also has some essentials. A brief overview of the summary’s essentials is important. This is because they will help you in identifying the difference between Precis and summary.

The structure of a summary may vary depending on its purpose. Based on the purpose, the summary can be of two types. These are as follows;

• Summary of writer’s own work
• Summary of someone else’s work
• You need to read the whole paragraph, or text before presenting the final drafts.
• You need to isolate all important points from a text. Then you must use them artistically in your summary.
• In-text that is longer than ten pages, you need to sum up each paragraph into one or two lines. You can use all these sentences logically. This is for ensuring a good summary at the end.
• Try to exclude extensive ideas and details of a specific event. Again, the summary is the section where you need to sum up everything. You don’t need to introduce something new to it.
• When summarising others’ work, the writer can use his own voice. This is allowed for highlighting the main events in the text.

Summary

If you are summarizing someone else’s works, you must include the following things;

• Author’s/s’ name/s
• Title of the original work
• The main idea of the text
• Direct quotations
• Keywords
• Abbreviation list
• Phrases
• Author’s tag
• The main findings and outcomes
• A summary is an independent section. So, it must be current.
• If you are writing a summary of your work, you can follow this tip to save yourself from logical issues.

‘Before starting another paragraph, note the summary of the preceding paragraph into your notebook.’

This tip will increase the credibility of the summary. It will also help you in identifying any repetition of concepts within the whole text.

It is now time to point out common differences between both. These are given as follows;