SUMMARY AND PRECIS WRITING Communication Skills i SUMMARY

SUMMARY AND PRECIS WRITING Communication Skills

i SUMMARY

Summary ■ A condensed version of the text’s main points. ■ Written in your own words. ■ Conveys the author’s main ideas. ■ Eliminates supporting details. ■ It is a fairly brief restatement --- in your own words ---of the contents of a passage. ■ Note: you simply report back what the writer has said, without making value judgments.

Usage ■ When writing a research paper (to give an overview of another writer’s perspective or argument) ■ In academic assignments (to report your understanding of what a text says). ■ In a persuasive “take a stand” essay/paper (to support your view and present arguments that oppose your view).

Characteristics of a good summary ■ Can be understood without reference to the original; ■ Is a faithful reproduction of, or contains only the ideas or information of, the original; ■ Is brief without any unnecessary detail; ■ Is a readable unified whole

How to Compose a summary? 1. Read the text for its main points. 2. Write out the text’s thesis or main point. 3. Identify the text’s major divisions or chunks. 4. Summarize each part in one or two sentences. 5. Combine your summaries of the parts into a coherent whole. *Be sure to use your own words!*

. PRECIS

Precis ■ French for “concise summary. ” ■ It is part summary, part analysis. ■ Less neutral and more analytical than a summary. ■ Describes content of text. ■ Describes HOW the text makes its points.

Guidelines for writing Precis 1. Provide a condensed statement of the text’s main point. 2. Write brief statements about the text’s essential rhetorical parts: purpose, methods, and intended audience.

Structure of Precis ■ Sentence 1: Name of author, genre, and title of work, date in parenthesis; a rhetorically accurate verb (such as “claims, ” argues, ” “asserts, ” “suggests”); and a THAT clause containing the major assertion or thesis statement in the work. ■ Sentence 2: An explanation of HOW the author develops and supports thesis, usually in chronological order. ■ Sentence 3: A statement of the author’s apparent purpose, followed by an “in order to” phrase. ■ Sentence 4: A description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience.