What is the difference between a summary and a precis?

A summary or a condensed presentation of the substance of a body of material.
A precis is also a summary but it is necessary to give the precis a title and also it should also be 1/3 of the total words in the original passage.
a summary is telling the main events while a precis is telling every detail. Précis is an originally French noun, properly spelled with an acute accent, meaning a concise summary. Precise is an English adjective meaning "clearly expressed, brief and to the point." Précis is an originally French noun, properly spelled with an acute accent, meaning a concise summary. Precise is an English adjective meaning "clearly expressed, brief and to the point."
Summary and Precis are two terms that are used differently in relation to a thesis or a research paper and an essay or a chapter. This is the difference between summary and precis. An summary is a short form of a research paper in a nutshell. On the other hand a precis is a short form of an essay or a chapter in a book or an act in a play. This is the main difference between summary and precis.
You can write a precis of the 2nd scene of the 1st act of the play ‘Macbeth’ of Shakespeare. You should not use the word ‘summary’ to mean precis. In other words it is wrong to say ‘write an summary of the 2nd scene of the 1st act of the play Macbeth’. It is right to say ‘write a precis of the 2nd scene of the 1st act of the play Macbeth.’ This is the main difference between the two words summary and precis.
An summary on the other hand is requested to be submitted prior to the long research paper to be presented in a seminar or a conference. This is normally requested by the authorities of the seminar or the conference to publish the proceedings of the seminar well in advance in the form of a book.
At the same time the purpose of reading an summary is to get a clear idea about the subject matter of the research paper and the angle in which the study is made in the paper. An summary is said to reflect the mind of the author of the research paper. A precis on the other hand is said to reflect the events of the particular act of a play in a nutshell. This is the difference between an summary and a precis.
When u write down the word Summary on a MS word and right click the mouse, u'll find the various meaning of Summary. One such meaning is "Precis". The two words are very close to each other. It something like two sides of a coin. They are same.

But when it comes to using this word, u have to be very clear when and where to use this word.

Summary is a short-clear-high pointer
Precis is a little detailed out version of summary

EX: U have watched a movie. ur friends r asking u abt this movie. u give them a blank review saying "its good" & "Its same old love story". Here you are trying to tell ur friend that this movie is a love story. This is called summary (Just telling the story concept)

on the other hand, ur wife/lover asks u abt this movie in your freetime. u tell her that the hero falls in love with the heroine and chases her and they get married etc etc. u try to tell the 3 hr movie in 10 mins. This is called precis.
• If you are talking about an summary you write in a paper, there's lot to difference.

The summarys I write in school (High school), is mainly a precis of you analysis. You write a short version of what you wrote in your assignment, kind of a conclusion.
The summary needs to be set up in a special way, starting with an introduction, a short part about what you are writing about in general, then the general information (What you have discovered in your analysis), and then you finish off with a short conclusion to your subject.

A precis is just a short version of whatever is written about.
According to the free online dictonary one of the meanings of an summary is : A statement summarizing the important points of a text.
Looking up summaries the same dictionary says:
1. Presenting the substance in a condensed form; concise: a precis review.
2. Performed speedily and without ceremony: precis justice; a precis rejection.
n. pl. sum•ma•ries
A presentation of the substance of a body of material in a condensed form or by reducing it to its main points; an summary.
I think I'd be wise to let you draw your conclusions.
Not a lot of difference. An summary is a concise precis of the important details or points, whereas a precis in general could be a broader description including discussion of secondary issues of less importance. I think concise and important are the key words in differentiating the two..
Precis may be related to one incident.
Summary is may or may not be related to one incident ,may be related to statistical form

An summary is a precis; a precis cannot be an summary.

Precis is a short form of some matter but summary is the important details about that matter.
To take or withdraw from; as, to summary the funds of a bank. To remove or separate. To summarize or abridge.

An summary comprises — or concentrates in itself — the essential qualities of a larger thing— or of several things — in a short, abbreviated form. It differs from a transcript, which is a verbatim copy of the thing itself and is more comprehensive.

Literary Glossary: Summary

Used as a noun, the term refers to a short precis or outline of a longer work. As an adjective applied to writing or literary works, summary refers to words or phrases that name things not knowable through the five senses. Examples of summarys include the Cliffs Notes summaries of major literary works. Examples of summary terms or concepts include "idea," "guilt" "honesty," and "loyalty".

An summary is a brief precis of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject or discipline, and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. When used, an summary always appears at the beginning of a manuscript, acting as the point-of-entry for any given scientific paper or patent application. Summaryion and indexing services are available for a number of academic disciplines, aimed at compiling a body of literature for that particular subject.

Academic summarys

The summary of a thesis or article is a short precis that explains the main argument(s), topic(s) or findings. In theses, the summary normally appears before the table of contents.

In scientific literature

Scientific literature takes widespread advantage of the summary as the abbreviated style of choice in order to aptly communicate complex research. In science, an summary may act as a stand-alone entity in lieu of the paper as well. As such, an summary is used by many organizations as the basis for selecting research that is proposed for presentation in the form of a poster, podium/lecture, or workshop presentation at an academic conference. Most literature database search engines index summarys only as opposed to providing the entire text of the paper. Full-texts of scientific papers must often be purchased because of copyright and/or publisher fees, and therefore the summary is a significant selling point for the reprint or electronic version of the full-text.

Summarys are not public domain or open-source unless stated by the publisher. Therefore, summarys are afforded protections under copyright law in many states just as any other form of written speech is protected. However, publishers of scientific articles invariably make summarys publicly available, even when the article itself is protected by a toll barrier. For example, articles in the biomedical literature are available publicly from MEDLINE which is accessible through PubMed. It is a common misconception that the summarys in MEDLINE provide sufficient information for medical practitioners, students, scholars and patients. The summary can convey the main results and conclusions of a scientific article but the full text article must be consulted for details of the methodology, the full experimental results, and a critical discussion of the interpretations and conclusions. Consulting the summary alone is inadequate for scholarship and may lead to inappropriate medical decisions.

Summary length varies by discipline and publisher requirements. Typical length ranges from 100 to 500 words, but very rarely more than a page. An summary may or may not have the section title of "summary" explicitly listed as an antecedent to content, however, they are typically sectioned logically as an overview of what appears in the paper (e.g. any one of the following: Background, Introduction, Objectives, Methods, Results, Conclusions).

In journal articles, research papers, published patent applications and patents, an summary is a short precis placed prior to the introduction, often set apart from the body of the text, sometimes with different line justification (as a block or pull quote) from the rest of the article.

http://www.answers.com/summary

Law Encyclopedia: Precis

As a noun, an abridgment; brief; compendium; digest; also a short application to a court or judge, without the formality of a full proceeding.

As an adjective, short; concise; immediate; peremptory; off-hand; without a jury; provisional; statutory. The term as used in connection with legal proceedings means a short, concise, and immediate proceeding.

A precis judgment is a final decision in a civil action that does not involve lengthy presentations of evidence. It totally circumvents the need for trial because there is no genuine issue of fact concerning specified questions in the lawsuit that must be decided. In such an action, the party who believes that she is entitled to prevail as a matter of law makes a motion for precis judgment. In deciding such a motion, the court considers the entire record of the case and, if the evidence warrants it, can even grant a precis judgment to the party who did not ask for it. Precis judgment is governed in federal courts by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and in state courts by state codes of civil procedure.

Thesaurus: precis

adjective

Marked by or consisting of few words that are carefully chosen: brief, compendious, concise, laconic, lean2, short, succinct, terse. See big/small/amount, style/good style/bad style, words.

noun

A condensation of the essential or main points of something: recapitulation, rundown, run-through, sum, summation, summing-up, wrap-up. Informal recap. See words.

http://www.answers.com/precis

A precis is a shortened version of the original. The main purpose of such a simplification is to highlight the major points from the genuine (much longer) subject, e.g. a text, a film or an event. The aim is to help the audience get the gist in a short period of time.

It starts with a lead, including title, author, text type and the main idea of the text. It has a clearly arranged structure and is written in a logical, chronological and traceable manner. In contrast to a résumé or a review, a precis contains neither interpretation nor rating. Only the opinion of the original writer is reflected – paraphrased with new words without quotations from the text. Unlike a retelling, a precis has no dramatic structure and is written in present tense or historic present. Because summaries should be significantly shorter than the original, minor facts have to be left out. In summaries only indirect speech is used and depictions are avoided. Summaries of books or dissertations present the major facts in common scientific language and should be about from a half up to one page long.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precis

A brief statement expressing the general substance or overall idea of a work (or portion of it), recapitulating its main points, findings, and conclusions, usually given at the end. Compare with summary. See also: synopsis.

Also refers to a brief statement added as a note in the bibliographic record to describe the content of a nonbook item produced in a format, such as videocassette or DVD, that is difficult to browse.

In Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), a list of the main subdivisions of a class, providing an overview of its structure, printed in the schedules immediately following the entry for the class. Summaries for the entire Classification (main classes, divisions, and sections) are given at the beginning of the schedules.

http://lu.com/odlis/odlis_s.cfm#precis

As a noun, an abridgment; brief; compendium; digest; also a short application to a court or judge, without the formality of a full proceeding.

As an adjective, short; concise; immediate; peremptory; off-hand; without a jury; provisional; statutory. The term as used in connection with legal proceedings means a short, concise, and immediate proceeding.

A Precis Judgment is a final decision in a civil action that does not involve lengthy presentations of evidence. It totally circumvents the need for trial because there is no genuine issue of fact concerning specified questions in the lawsuit that must be decided. In such an action, the party who believes that she is entitled to prevail as a Matter of Law makes a motion for precis judgment. In deciding such a motion, the court considers the entire record of the case and, if the evidence warrants it, can even grant a precis judgment to the party who did not ask for it. Precis judgment is governed in federal courts by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and in state courts by state codes of civil procedure.
• Browne & King (2004). Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print. New York: Harper Resource. pp. 12, 117.
• Card, Orson Scott (1988). Character & Viewpoint. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books.
• Marshall, Evan (1998). The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. pp. 143–165.
• Selgin, Peter (2007). By Cunning & Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for fiction writers. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. p. 38.