This document compares and contrasts summaries and rhetorical précis. A summary is a condensed version of a text's main points written in the writer's own words that conveys the author's ideas without supporting details. A rhetorical précis is part summary and part analysis that describes both the content and how the text makes its points. It is more analytical than a summary. To write a rhetorical précis, the first sentence states the author, title, date and thesis. The second sentence explains how the author supports the thesis. The third sentence states the author's purpose. The fourth sentence describes the intended audience.

1. Summary -vs- Rhetorical Précis

2. What is a Summary? A condensed version of the text’s main points. Written in your own words. Conveys the author’s main ideas. Eliminates supporting details.

3. When might a summary be used? 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).

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

5. What is a Rhetorical Précis? 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.

6. Guidelines to Writing a RP Provide a condensed statement of the text’s main point. Write brief statements about the text’s essential rhetorical parts: purpose, methods, and intended audience.

7. How to Structure a RP 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 the 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.