Precis and abstract

PRECIS

 Summary of the written work, such as an article,

book, or other text.
 Is regarded as a very important kind of composition
because it develops one’s capacity to discriminate
between essential and non-essential.
HOW TO WRITE PRECIS

1. Read the text your precis will summarize.

2. Annotate the text
3. Restate the text’s thesis using your own words
4. Summarize each section of the text using one to two
sentences
5. Determine the author’s purpose for writing the text
6. Create a brief outline of the argument, if you need it.
7. Compare your summarize from the original text.
Two golden rules for writing precis

1. Precision-keep your precis accurate. Never include

information that is not the part of paragraph. You
can’t include anything of your own. You are
supposed to be rewrite to paragraph in less number
words.
2. Brevity-avoid unnecessary words and sentence
that don’t help the precis to convey the message.
Try to make long sentences shorter.
Example of precision and brevity

Paragraph- putting an end to the 60 years old pratice

of barring women from becoming makeup artist in the
mumbai film industry, the supreme court on november
11,2014 allowed qualified women to be appointed for
this job.
Precise- on 11 november 2014. supreme court allowed
women to work as make artist in mumbai film industry.
 Tips for writing precis

1. Number of words in precis should of 1/3 of the actual

paragraph.
2. Don’t change the central idea of paragraph
3. Retain the keywords of the paragraph
4. Don’t waste your time in counting world’s, instead
count lines
5. Your precis should be completed in one paragraph
only.
6. Avoid weak sentence
 Don’t copy Don’t write from
sentences from the first person
the original (no “ I” or “we”

5 don’ts of writing a critical

precis

Don’t address to
Don’t complicate it wrong facts and
figures
Don’t mention any
additional info
 Abstracts

 An abstract is brief summary of research article,thesis,

review, conference proceeding, or any in depth
analysis of particular subject and is often used to help
the reader quickly ascertain the paper’s purpose.
 Abstracts include:

 A statement of your main topic, purpose and

objectives
 A brief description of the methodology
 An overview of the most significant findings or
agruments
 A summary of your conclusions and
recommendations
 Types of abstract

1. Article abstract
 Abstract usually accompany research articles- in
many journals the abstract is published as part of the
articles, between the title and proper text.
2.Conference abstract
Researchers wishing to present a paper at a conference
send an abstract outlining their proposed paper.
 How write an abstract

Part one of three

Getting your abstract started
1. Write your paper first
2. Review and understand any requirements for
writing your abstract
3. Consider your audience
4. Determine the type of abstract you must write
 How write an abstract

Part of two of three

Writing your abstract
1. Identify your purpose
2. explain the problem at hand
3. explain your methods
4. Describe your results(informative abstract only)
5. Give conclusion
 How write an abstract

Part three of three

Formatting your abstract
1. Keep it in order
2. Provide helpful information
3. Write it from scratch
4. Use key phrases and words
5. Use real information
6. Avoid being too specific
7. Be sure to do basic revisions
8. Get feedback from someone
EXAMPLE OF ABSTRACT FROM
CHEMISTRY REPORT
In this experiment, DESCRIPTION
chromatography was AIM/OBJECTIVE
used to analyse amino
acids in solution.
Standards were used to
identiify unknown
amino acids in a
mixture. Ascending METHOD
layer chromatography
with an isopropanol-
based solvent was used
to separate the amino
acids,which were then
detected with ninhydin.
The unknown mixture Results
analysed was found to
contain aspartate and
histidine. It was observed
that hydrophobic amino
acids were most mobile.
This technique was shown Conclusion
to be an effective way of
analysing unknown mixtures
of amino acids. A
mechanism for ninhydrin Further conclusion
binding to amino acids is
proposed, based on
observations from this
experiment.
 Purpose

 An abstract may act as a stand-alone entity instead of a

full paper.
 The abstract can convey the main results and
conclusions of scientific article but the full text article
must be consulted for details of methodology, the full
expiremental results, and a critical discussion of the
interpretations and conclusions.
 An abstract allows one to sift through copious number
of papers for ones in which the researcher can have
more confidence that they will be relevant ti his or her
research.
Differences of the summary, abstract,
precis and the paraphrase

 Summary in an essay telling the main ideas of the

article in your own words.
 Abstract is simply a short, standalone summary of the
work or paper that others can use as an overview.
 A paraphrase expresses the ideas of a source or
passage in your own words and sentence structure.
 Precis is a shortening in your own words, of a text of
written work.