PRÉCIS WRITING Its Purpose, Value, and Method, with Examples WHAT PRÉCIS WRITING IS Précis Writing in English Schools. Of late years a type of composition work called "précis writing " has taken a prominent place in the teaching of English in England. The long report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the Board of Education' refers constantly to the practice of précis," and often quotes the testimony of teachers as to the educational value of this kind of writing. In all textbooks on English composition published recently in England, one chapter at least is devoted to the précis. Moreover, a considerable number of manuals on the subject have been issued, bearing titles all the way from Précis Writing for Beginners and Précis Writing for Schools, to A Handbook of Précis and A Progressive Course in Précis Writing. Every boy of seventeen in an English school knows, therefore, both in theory and by classroom practice, what a précis is. The French term "précis " (pronounced pray-see) literally means "a pruned or cut-down statement." In other words, it is an abstract or summary. In no sense is it equivalent to a paraphrase, or a translation, or a restatement. A précis, on the contrary, is merely the essence the pith of a paragraph, or of several paragraphs, or even of a whole essay. "You take your material," to quote one English writer, "and boil it down so as to get rid of all the parts that do not really 1 Published in 1921 under the title, The Teaching of English in England. 3 |