Like when you want to say that you'll tell a short version of something which would alter the accuracy of the original version.
I was thinking of "In a nutshell" and "To make a long story short", but I felt like those phrases did not place emphasis on the "there might be an insignificant loss of accuracy" aspect.
I think you might be helped by roughly:
- without completeness or exactness : approximately
This implies that you are giving a simplified version of the facts, one which is not to be held to a requirement of full accuracy or completeness, but which is presented to give a reasonably understandable quick overview.
Note: As user568458 points out, this definition refers to approximately as a synonym of roughly; and approximately is generally considered more formal. Thus it may be useful in situations where roughly might not be exactly appropriate.
"More or less" could be used, i.e. This is more or less the plan, you go here, you go there, etc...
"To simplify."
Or, if too much accuracy is lost by the simplification:
"To oversimplify."
There are lots ways I can think of to say "I'm not going to go into all the details", but not many of them also include altering the accuracy. These are more for starting to explain something to someone, rather than describing what happened to you. (But why would you need a phrase to say "this isn't 100% accurate" then; stories aren't expected to be 100% accurate, are they?)
"In layman's terms" - phrased simply, without jargon. This implies an explanation from an expert to a non-expert, e.g. "a part of your car engine has melted" (maybe you don't have the knowledge or interest for a more accurate explanation), but would not be used for recounting a story, e.g. "Why was I late today? In layman's terms, there were roadworks". This includes that it will be inaccurate, on the basis that someone doesn't have the knowledge to understand a more accurate detailed explanation, or that it's not relevant at the time.
Model - In engineering / math worlds, a simplified version of a thing, which is wrong-but-useful is a model. e.g. "We'll model our ice cream stall as one person buying two hundred ice creams an hour, and then show that we can make it work". Model definitely implies deliberate inaccuracy, for the purpose of making things simpler, not to be deceitful.
"Back of the envelope" is similar - Approximate, rough, simplified, especially of a calculation, estimation or other reasoning. "Do some back-of-the-envelope calculations before all the facts come in."
"A high level description / the high level overview / Executive Summary" - A high-level description is one that is more abstracted, describes overall goals and systemic features. "You want a high level overview of our holiday plans? Australia, the beach, alcohol. Any questions?". A high level view ought to be accurate, but incomplete.
"The Cliff notes" (or the sparknotes) version - A summary of a much longer work designed to allow a student to quickly learn the key points of the longer work. I've only really heard this online from Americans, meaning similar to a high level overview.
"{something} 101" - ("one oh one"). (chiefly US, postpositive) Basic, beginner, starting from scratch. "Geology 101 tells us that you can't build a reservoir on sandstone."
These are a few alternatives that come to mind:
"basically", "to paraphrase", "in a nutshell"
All of these more or less say the same thing: that you are going to cut out a lot of the details in order to be succinct.
Sketch. You could use the verb form:
Let me sketch (out) the plan
or the noun
That is a quick sketch of the scenario
I prefer the former. A sketch is a summary or outline and carries the clear implication that it lacks much detail (so satisfies your lessened accuracy requirement).
"Loosely, ..."
is also a good one.
I usually preface a situation like this with "Long story short..." Implying that I am leaving out a lot of detail but you get the basic idea of what happened.
Depending on the context, "dumbing down" may be appropriate.
For scientific explanations, I like "oversimplify" (or, for people who would understand the joke, "as a spherical cow approximation").
In their answers, jkdev and Mark suggest "to oversimplify" or "oversimplify" as appropriate ways of emphasizing that "there might be an minor loss of accuracy here." I think that a slight modification of these two options allows a speaker to emphasize the risk without conceding that the simplification involved is excessive (and hence, by implication, inappropriate). In short, I would use
At the risk of oversimplifying...
By using this wording, I acknowledge that I am about to give a simplified account of a complicated situation, and I concede that the resulting explanation may be too simple for some purposes; but at the same time, I emphasize that, on balance (and in full consciousness of the risk involved), I deem the risk worth taking in order to provide a clear, easy-to-grasp thumbnail description to someone unfamiliar with the tangle of circumstances involved.
I tend to go with 'to paraphrase', which was already mentioned by Octopus, but another fun one is, "Here's the Reader's Digest version:".
I like to use effectively since it denotes a causal relationship to the antecedent without addressing what else it may cause (i.e. unintended side effects).
The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as:
3.3 = in effect (see effect n. 8): †a.3.a Actually, in fact (obs.). b.3.b Virtually, substantially.
To gloss over:
Glossing over [some of] the details/problems/..., I think that...
Note that with this construction you can specify the loss of accuracy or other difficulty with the idea you are conveying.
I'd say
As a rough idea...
to mean that what I say will be short, easily comprehensible and approximately right.
But the vogue way of saying it on the interwebs, if you're also going to give the full version afterwards, is
TL;DR: ...
One way to put it would be to use the concept of a "lie to children":
A lie-to-children is a simplified explanation of technical or complex subjects as a teaching method for children and laypeople... The word "children" should not be taken literally, but as encompassing anyone in the process of learning about a given topic regardless of age.
...
Because some topics can be extremely difficult to understand without experience, introducing a full level of complexity to a student or child all at once can be overwhelming. Hence elementary explanations are simplified in a way that makes the lesson more understandable, though technically wrong. A lie-to-children is meant to be eventually replaced with a more sophisticated explanation which is closer to the truth.
If the problem is more mathematically/scientifically inclined you could call it a Fermi estimate
At least among British mathematicians, 'morally speaking' is often used by speakers about to give an explanation that isn't actually correct in a strict sense but gives the right idea.
To expand on the high-level description idea from TessellatingHeckler’s post, there are people (directly or indirectly influenced by the “GTD” school of productivity) who will talk about specific altitudes from which they are providing (or requesting) a perspective of the situation.
Depending on their adherence to (or knowledge of) the system, what they say may or may not fit into the following ranges:
50,000 ft: Purpose
40,000 ft: 3- to 5-year Vision
30,000 ft: 1- to 2-year Goals
20,000 ft: Areas of Responsibility
10,000 ft: Current Projects
Runway: Current Actions
In practice, people say things like “Just give me the view from 20,000 feet on this.” or “This is just the version from 10,000 feet” to make it clear that what they are talking about is not (and should not be) restricted by adherence to factuality or provision of detail.
This occurs primarily in the world of business. I am also writing from AmE perspective and I’m not sure how international this phrasing is.
I've always called this a gloss on the situation, as in this example:
Let me save us all some time by putting a gloss on this for you.
In doing some research, I've found several reasonably similar definitions, but none identical to how I would personally define the term: A superficial summary of a complex situation, which sacrifices accuracy for simplicity.
Here's a well-known one from the math/CS community for a bit of flavor (though it's not common outside these fields):
You pronounce it "ell-zero". Variants include "L1" and "first-order". It comes from the use of a Taylor series to represent a function. The L0 approximation is the best representation of the function as a single constant (y=a) while the L1 approximation is the best representation as a single constant plus a linear term (y=mx+b).
Here's from Wikipedia:
I personally like this usage since it's quirky and nicely expresses that the following is a simplification, but still representative of the larger whole. It's also nice from an information theory perspective: the higher orders require more information to express, therefore, using this expression is saying:
This is an approximation of the reality. I could be more specific (and thus be more accurate), but it would require more time to relate.
. . . which is exactly what you're looking for.
This post doubles as an argument for LaTeX support on english.stackexchange.
