Introduction: Rhetorical Precis Writing

A rhetorical precis analyzes both the content (the what) and the delivery (the how) of a unit of spoken or written discourse. It is a highly structured four-sentence paragraph blending summary and analysis. Each of the four sentences requires specific information; students are expected to use brief quotations (to convey a sense of the author’s style and tone) and to include a terminal bibliographic reference. Practicing this sort of writing fosters precision in both reading and writing, forcing a writer to employ a variety of sentence structures and to develop a discerning eye for connotative shades of meaning.

Take a look at the overall format:

1. Name of author, [optional: a phrase describing author], genre and title of work, date in parentheses (additional publishing information in parentheses or note); a rhetorically accurate verb (such as “asserts,” “argues,” suggests,” “implies,” claims,” etc.); and a THAT clause containing the major assertion (thesis statement of the work).
2. An explanation of how the author develops and/or supports the thesis, usually in chronological order.
3. A statement of the author’s purpose followed by an “in order to” phrase.
4. A description of the intended audience and/or the essay’s tone.

Now take a closer look modeled from Dave Barry’s “The Ugly Truth about Beauty”:

1. The first sentence: In “The Ugly Truth about Beauty” (1998), Dave Barry argues that “women generally do not think of their looks in the same way that men do” (4).
2. The second sentence: Barry illuminates this discrepency by juxtaposing men’s perceptions of their looks (“averagelooking”) with women’s (“not good enough”), by contrasting female role models (Barbie, Cindy Crawford) with male role models (He-Man, Buzz-Off), and by comparing men’s interests (the Super-Bowl, lawn care) with women’s (manicures). NOTE: This is all still just one sentence!
3. The third sentence: He exaggerates and stereotypes these differences in order to prevent women from so eagerly accepting society’s expectation of them; to this end, Barry claims that men who want women to ” look like Cindy Crawford” are idiots(10), implying that women who adhere to the Crawford standard are fools as well.
4. The fourth sentence: Barry ostensibly addresses men in this essay because he opens and closes the essay directly addressing men (as in “If you’re a man…”) and offering to give them advice in a mockingly conspiratorial fashion; however, by using humor to poke fun at both men and women’s perceptions of themselves, Barry makes this essay palatable to women as well, hoping to convince them to stop obsessively “thinking they need to look like Barbie” (8).

See it in Action: