The four tools of précis writing

First things first: What is the goal in précis writing? 

The goal is to extract the thesis and the main points, out of the complex structure of an argument.   

The science of the précis boils down to a clever deployment of four tools. 

The first tool or strategy is as obvious as the difference between short and long. A given passage is roughly three to four times the length of the expected précis. The only way you can hammer a précis out of the passage is by massively excising the latter. I call this strategy—hold your breath—deletion. But you have to apply deletion mindfully, taking care not to chop out a main point. 

That brings us to the other three strategies. Generalization is to induce the general theme or idea from specific instances. e.g. 'Farid is a student who is hardworking. He is also very bright.' These statements could be generalized to a single proposition such as the following: Farid is a good student. 

Similar to but separate from generalization is the move I call synthesis. This is where you combine multiple ideas, even as you keep up some of the original phrasing. Playing with the same example, the synthesis of the two sentences would be: Farid is a bright and hardworking student. Note that unlike generalization, synthesis retains the actual wording but fuses the two separate sentences into a single syntactic whole.

Finally, paraphrasing : this is the simple act of rewording a statement with the help of synonymous phrases and grammatical reconstruction. As a student, Farid is at once smart and diligent.