Precis Writing Guide — The 1/3rd Rule Explained
A precis is a clear, accurate summary of a passage reduced to roughly one-third of its original length, retaining only the essential ideas in your own words. It is scored on precision, not creativity — this guide gives you the exact technique, then shows it applied in full to two worked passages.
The 1/3rd Rule
If the original passage is roughly 300 words, your precis should land close to 100 words — examiners generally allow a tolerance of about ±10%. This target forces the real skill being tested: distinguishing the passage's central argument from the examples, repetitions, and elaboration used to support it. A precis that is far too long usually means you have kept an example or a repeated point; one that is far too short usually means you have cut a genuine supporting idea, not just its illustration.
The 7-Step Technique
1. Read twice, then plan
First read for overall understanding; second read to identify the central theme and the 2-4 supporting points that carry it. Only after this should you begin writing.
2. Find the backbone, not the details
Every passage has one central argument or theme. Everything else — examples, statistics, anecdotes, quotations — exists to support that theme, not to be reproduced itself.
3. Eliminate ruthlessly
Cut examples and illustrations (state the point they were illustrating, not the illustration itself), repetitions, rhetorical questions, exclamations, and direct quotations (paraphrase the idea instead of quoting it).
4. Convert to reported, third-person style
A precis is written in indirect/reported style, in the third person, regardless of the original passage's voice — even if the original passage is a first-person narrative or a direct quotation from a speech.
5. Report, don't evaluate
A precis summarises what the passage says. It never adds your own opinion, agreement, disagreement, or interpretation beyond what the passage itself states.
6. Use your own words
Paraphrase rather than lift phrases directly from the passage. Examiners specifically penalise precis that are largely copied sentences with a few words removed.
7. Give it a title
A short, apt title (typically 3-6 words) that captures the passage's central theme is a distinct, scored component of a good precis — never skip it.
Worked Example 1 — Governance
Original Passage (≈300 words)
For much of independent India's history, a citizen's interaction with the state was mediated by long queues, discretionary decision-making, and an administrative culture that treated information as a privilege rather than a right. Over the past two decades, this relationship has undergone a quiet but far-reaching transformation. The digitisation of land records, the introduction of online grievance-redressal portals, and the linking of welfare schemes to biometric identification have together reduced, though not eliminated, the scope for arbitrary delay and petty corruption that once characterised routine encounters with government offices.
Consider the example of a farmer seeking a copy of his land title. A decade ago, this might have required repeated visits to a tehsil office, unofficial payments to clerks, and weeks of uncertainty. Today, in many states, the same document can be downloaded from a portal within minutes, its authenticity verifiable through a digital signature. Similarly, citizens can now track the status of a pension application or a ration card correction through a mobile application, converting what was once an opaque, discretionary process into one that is at least partially visible and auditable.
This shift has not been uniform. Rural and economically weaker citizens, who often lack reliable internet access, digital literacy, or even a functioning smartphone, have found themselves navigating a system now designed around an assumption of connectivity it does not yet universally deliver. Digital exclusion has, in some cases, simply replaced administrative exclusion, disadvantaging the same populations technology was meant to empower.
Nonetheless, the underlying shift in administrative culture is real. Accountability, once dependent almost entirely on an official's discretion and a citizen's persistence, is increasingly built into the architecture of the system itself — a change that reformers had sought for decades and that no single policy announcement had previously managed to deliver.
Show Model Precis & Title
E-Governance: Transforming Accountability, Unevenly
E-governance has gradually transformed India's public administration from a discretionary, opaque system into one offering greater transparency and accountability. Digitisation of records, online grievance redressal, and biometric-linked welfare delivery have reduced arbitrary delay and petty corruption in citizens' routine dealings with the state, making previously opaque processes visible and auditable. However, this transformation has been uneven: citizens lacking internet access, digital literacy, or smartphones face a new form of digital exclusion mirroring the administrative exclusion technology was meant to remedy. Despite this unevenness, the shift represents a genuine structural change in administrative accountability that decades of policy reform had previously failed to achieve.
Note how the farmer/land-title example is removed entirely — only the point it illustrated (reduced delay and corruption) survives — and the passage's first-person framing ("consider the example") is dropped for a neutral, reported tone.
Worked Example 2 — Economy & Labour
Original Passage (≈290 words)
A decade ago, the word 'employment' conjured a fairly stable image: a fixed employer, a monthly salary, and a set of statutory protections that came bundled with the job itself. For a rapidly growing share of India's urban workforce, that image no longer holds. Delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, and home-service professionals now work through digital platforms that connect them to customers on a per-task basis, often without the formal employment contract that would entitle them to provident fund contributions, health insurance, or paid leave.
Proponents of this arrangement point to genuine advantages. Platform work offers flexibility that conventional employment rarely does — a worker can log on for a few hours between other commitments, and entry barriers are often lower than for traditional jobs, since neither formal qualifications nor personal connections are typically required to begin earning. For many first-time entrants to the urban labour market, this has provided an income source that would otherwise have been unavailable.
Yet the same flexibility that attracts workers to platform work also strips away protections built up over a century of labour law, much of which was designed around a clear, singular employer-employee relationship that platform work is structured specifically to avoid. Earnings fluctuate unpredictably with algorithmic demand allocation that workers cannot see or contest, and a worker injured on the job typically has no employer-provided safety net to fall back on.
India's 2020 labour codes made a first, partial attempt to extend certain social security provisions to gig and platform workers, recognising them as a distinct category deserving protection. Implementation, however, has lagged the legislative recognition, leaving millions of platform workers in a regulatory grey zone: neither fully informal in the traditional sense, nor covered by the protections that formal employment has historically guaranteed.
Show Model Precis & Title
Gig Work: Flexibility Without Protection
The rise of platform-based gig work — delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, and home-service professionals — has redefined employment for a growing share of India's urban workforce, replacing fixed salaries and statutory protections with flexible, per-task earning arrangements. This flexibility offers genuine advantages, including low entry barriers and income access for first-time labour-market entrants, but strips away protections built around a traditional employer-employee relationship, leaving workers exposed to unpredictable, algorithmically-determined earnings and no safety net for workplace injury. India's 2020 labour codes made a partial legislative attempt to extend social security to such workers, but implementation has lagged, leaving millions in a regulatory grey zone.
Note the specific named categories (delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers) are kept — they are the passage's actual subject, not an illustrative example — while the "conjured a fairly stable image" framing is compressed to its core claim.
6 Mistakes That Cost Marks
- Missing the word-count target significantly (either far too long or far too short) — aim within roughly ±10% of one-third the original length.
- Including examples, illustrations, or direct quotations instead of just the point they were making.
- Writing in the first person, or retaining direct speech from the original passage.
- Adding personal opinion, agreement, or criticism not present in the original passage.
- Copying phrases verbatim rather than paraphrasing in your own words.
- Omitting a title, or giving a title that is too vague ('An Essay on Development') rather than specific to the passage's actual argument.