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What is a Precis — Principles and 20-Mark Technique

7 min read

A precis is a clear, compact restatement of a passage in about one-third of its original length, written in your own words while preserving the author's meaning, tone and emphasis. It is not a paraphrase, not a summary, and certainly not a quotation collage. In the CSS paper it carries 20 marks — roughly a fifth of the entire English paper — and is the single best paragraph for separating top scorers from the rest.

Precis

A condensed restatement of a passage, generally in one-third its original word count, that conveys the substance, sequence and balance of ideas in the writer's own words and in a coherent, well-titled form.

What a precis is not

  • It is not a list of bullet points.
  • It is not a string of direct quotations.
  • It is not your personal commentary or opinion on the passage.
  • It is not a "summary" written in the same words as the original.

The five rules of a good precis

  1. Brevity — about one-third the original length. If the passage has 360 words, your precis should be roughly 120.
  2. Faithfulness — say what the author said, in the same order and with the same weight given to each idea.
  3. Originality of language — re-express the ideas in your own words. Lifting phrases from the passage loses marks.
  4. Coherence — the precis must read as a unified paragraph, not a disjointed list.
  5. A suitable title — short, accurate, and captures the central idea. Usually a noun phrase, not a sentence.
Key Points
  • Always write the precis in the third person and past tense, regardless of the original passage's perspective.
  • Use reported speech: "The author argues that…" becomes implied — you don't literally say "the author"; you state the idea as a fact.
  • Cut examples, illustrations, repetitions, asides and rhetorical questions — these are usually expansion devices.
  • Retain the main argument, key supporting points, and the conclusion.

The seven-step CSS technique

  1. Read the passage twice. First reading: catch the overall sense. Second reading: mark the thesis, key claims and unfamiliar words.
  2. Count the words of the original (often supplied; if not, estimate by sampling a few lines).
  3. Note the target length: divide by three.
  4. Underline the main idea in each paragraph. Cross out examples and digressions.
  5. Choose a title that captures the central theme.
  6. Draft the precis on rough paper. Don't yet worry about word count.
  7. Compress — replace verbose constructions with shorter equivalents until you hit the target length. Then re-read for flow.

A useful word-saving habit: replace "due to the fact that" with because, "in spite of the fact that" with although, "the majority of" with most, "in the event that" with if, "at this point in time" with now.

Example — passage and model precis

Original passage (≈180 words):

Reading is one of the most rewarding activities a human being can pursue, and yet in our age of constant digital distraction it is increasingly neglected. The book demands of us something that the screen does not: sustained, silent attention. When we sit down with a serious novel or a work of history, we are obliged to surrender to another mind for hours at a stretch, following its arguments, picturing its scenes, weighing its judgements against our own. This is hard work, and many people in our era no longer have the patience for it. They prefer the rapid stimulation of short videos, news feeds and instant messages. The cost, however, is enormous. A society that no longer reads loses access to the accumulated wisdom of its forebears; it loses, too, the deep empathy that only long immersion in another human being's thoughts can produce. We may know more facts than any previous generation, but we know them shallowly, in fragments, without the patient, deliberate thought that turns information into understanding.

Model precis (≈60 words — one-third of 180)

Title: The Cost of a Society That No Longer Reads

Although reading rewards us deeply by demanding sustained attention, digital distractions have made it rare. People now prefer rapid stimulation to the slow effort of following another mind's arguments. The cost is heavy: a society that abandons reading forfeits both inherited wisdom and the empathy born of patient immersion, leaving it well informed but shallow in understanding.

Notice what was cut: the examples ("short videos, news feeds and instant messages"), the rhetorical phrasing ("This is hard work"), and the closing flourish about "facts" and "fragments". What was kept: the thesis (reading is rewarding but neglected), the cause (digital distractions, impatience) and the consequence (shallow understanding).

The technique is mechanical once you internalise it — read deeply, identify the spine, strip the flesh, restate in clean, dignified prose.

What is a Precis — Principles and 20-Mark Technique — English (Precis & Composition) CSS Notes · CSS Prepare