智能写作-留学生必看的英语论文写作技巧

编辑:pitaya02        日期:2020-10-21

本文主要介绍了“学术写作”的第7部分“简洁”。

1.简明

简明扼要写作的目的是最有效地使用词汇。写得简单并不意味着总是用最少的词,但一定要用最有效的词。写作人员经常用无效或不必要的词填充语句,可以删除或替换。但是,根据写作情景,应谨慎选择单词和短语。和坏员工一样,那些没有完成足够工作的人也应该被解雇。写出最有说服力的词后,文字就会变得更简洁和容易理解。火龙果智能写作

1.1用更加有力和具体的词取代含糊的词

一般情况下,作者会用一些含糊不清的词来表达一个概念,这是一种浪费精力的行为,最好是用较少、较具体的词来表达观点。一般而言,用词越具体,写作越简洁。因为名词,动词,形容词的多样性,大多数事物的描述都有紧密的对应性,通过头脑风暴或词典可以找到最适合描述具体情况的词语。记住下面的例子,他们在传达更多信息的同时减少了字数。火龙果语法检查

Example

Wordy: The politician talked about several of the merits of after-school programs in his speech. (14 words)

Concise: The politician touted after-school programs in his speech. (8 words)

Wordy: Suzie believed but could not confirm that Billy had feelings of affection for her. (14 words)

Concise: Suzie assumed that Billy adored her.(6 words)火龙果语法检查


Wordy:Our Website has made available many of the things you can use for making a decision on the best dentist. (20 words)

Concise: Our website presents criteria for determining the best dentist. (9 words)

Wordy: Working asa pupil under someone who develops photos was an experience that really helped me learn a lot.(20 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise: Working as a photo technician's apprentice was an educational experience.(10 words)

1.2询问该句中的每个词

仔细检查每个词,确保它们提供给句子重要而独特的信息。如文字较长,可删去或替换。以下所示的常见例句中,包括了一些可以删去句子中词汇的例句。

Wordy:The teacher demonstrated some of the various ways and methods for cutting words from my essay that I had written for class. (22 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise:The teacher demonstrated methods for cutting words from my essay. (10 words)

Wordy:Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood formed a new band of musicians together in 1969, giving it the ironic name of Blind Faith because early speculation that was spreading everywhere about the band suggested that the new musical group would be good enough to rival the earlier bands that both men had been in, Cream and Traffic, which people had really liked and had been very popular. (66 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise:Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood formed a new band in 1969, ironically naming it Blind Faith because speculation suggested that the group would rival the musicians’ previous popular bands, Cream and Traffic. (32 words)

Wordy:Many have made the wise observation that when a stone is in motion rolling down a hill or incline that that moving stone is not as likely to be covered all over with the kind of thick green moss that grows on stationary unmoving things and becomes a nuisance and suggests that those things haven’t moved in a long time and probably won’t move any time soon.

(67 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise:A rolling stone gathers no moss.(6 words)

1.3合并的句子

一些信息不必放在一个完整的句子中,可以轻松地插入另一句,而不会丢失它原来的信息。如果你想得到更多的句子组合策略,请参考句子变化的资料。

Wordy: Ludwig's castles are an astounding marriage of beauty and madness. By his death, he had commissioned three castles. (18 words)

Concise: Ludwig's three castles are an astounding marriage of beauty and madness. (11 words)

Wordy:The supposed crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico aroused interest in extraterrestrial life. This crash is rumored to have occurred in 1947. (24 words)

Concise: The supposed 1947 crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico aroused interest in extraterrestrial life. (16 words)火龙果语法检查


二、删除词语

2.1删除解释明显或过于详细的文字

文章的草拟和修改必须考虑到读者的利益。若读者已经看得很清楚文章所解释和描述的细节,则应将其删除或改写。读者群还擅长于填充叙述的非本质部分。例如以下四个示例:

Wordy:I received your inquiry that you wrote about tennis rackets yesterday, and read it thoroughly. Yes, we do have. . . (19 words)

Concise: I received your inquiry about tennis rackets yesterday. Yes, we do have. . . (12 words)

Wordy: It goes without saying that we are acquainted with your policy on filing tax returns, and we have every intention of complying with the regulations that you have mentioned. (29 words)

Concise:We intend to comply with the tax-return regulations that you have mentioned (12 words)

Wordy: Imagine a mental picture of someone engaged in the intellectual activity of trying to learn what the rules are for how to play the game of chess.(27 words)

Concise:Imagine someone trying to learn the rules of chess. (9 words)火龙果语法检查


Wordy:After booking a ticket to Dallas from a travel agent, I packed my bags and arranged for a taxi to the airport. Once there, I checked in, went through security, and was ready to board. But problems beyond my control led to a three-hour delay before takeoff. (47 words)

Concise: My flight to Dallas was delayed for three hours. (9 words)

Wordy: Baseball, one of our oldest and most popular outdoor summer sports in terms of total attendance at ball parks and viewing on television, has the kind of rhythm of playon the field that alternates between times when players passively wait with no action taking place between the pitches to the batter and then times when they explode into action as the batter hits a pitched ball to one of the players and the player fields it.(77 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise: Baseball has a rhythm that alternates between waiting and explosive action. (11 words)

2.2删除不必要的限定词和修饰语

在写作时,作者有时会使用一个或多个额外的词或短语,这些词或短语似乎只是用于狭义的定义或修饰名词的意思,并不改变句子的意思,但这有时会妨碍作者的写作。尽管这些词或词组在适当的上下文衔接中是有意义的,但它们常常作为“填充词”使用,而且很容易删除。

Wordy: Any particular type of dessert is fine with me. (9 words)

Concise:Any dessert is fine with me. (6 words)

Wordy: Balancing the budget by Friday is an impossibility without some kind of extra help. (14 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise: Balancing the budget by Friday is impossible without extra help. (10 words)

Wordy:For all intents and purposes, American industrial productivity generally depends on certain factors that are really more psychological in kind than of any given technological aspect. (26 words)

Concise: American industrial productivity depends more on psychological than on technological factors. (11 words)

以下是一些通常可以删去的词汇和短语,它们能让句意更加清晰:

kind of

sort of

type of

really

basically

for all intents and purposes

definitely

actually

generally

individual

specific

particular

2.3删除重复的措词

留意那些重复的,意思相似的词,短语或较长的段落。没有建立在句子和段落内容之上的词语是不必要选择的。火龙果语法检查


Wordy: I would appreciate it if you would bring to the attention of your drafting officers the administrator's dislike of long sentences and paragraphs in messages to the field and in other items drafted for her signature or approval, as well as in all correspondence, reports, and studies. Please encourage your section to keep their sentences short. (56 words)

Concise: Please encourage your drafting officers to keep sentences and paragraphs in letters, reports, and studies short. Dr. Lomas, the administrator, has mentioned that reports and memos drafted for her approval recently have been wordy and thus time-consuming. (37 words)

Wordy:The supply manager considered the correcting typewriter an unneeded luxury. (10 words)

Concise:The supply manager considered the correcting typewriter a luxury. (9 words)

Wordy:Our branch office currently employs five tellers. These tellers do an excellent job Monday through Thursday but cannot keep up with the rush on Friday and Saturday. (27 words)

Concise:Our branch office currently employs five tellers, who do an excellent job Monday through Thursday but cannot keep up with Friday and Saturday rush periods. (25 words)

2.4删去多余词语

很多词都有类似的意思,比如 finish和 complete,因此在大多数情况下,用 completelyfinish来表达结尾是多余的。这同样适用于以下短语:

1、past memories

2、various differences

3、each individual ______

4、basic fundamentals

5、true facts

6、important essentials

7、future plans

8、terrible tragedy

9、end result

10、final outcome

11、free gift

12、past history

13、unexpected surprise

14、sudden crisis

像“veryunique”这种类似冗余的表达方式,既然“unique”的含义是独特的,那么再加上“very”、“so”、“especially”、“somewhat”、“extremely”这些修饰程度的词就不符合逻辑。" unique"是没有等级的,有些东西不是独一无二的,就是没有等级。

Wordy: Before the travel agent was completely able to finish explaining the various differences among all of the many very unique vacation packages his travel agency was offering, the customer changed her future plans. (33 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise:Before the travel agent finished explaining the differences among the unique vacation packages his travel agency was offering, the customer changed her plans. (23 words)火龙果语法检查


2.5忽略多余的分类说明

特定词语常指其一般意义,因此我们不必特别说明,我们都知道“循环”是指一段时间,“粉色”是一种颜色,“闪光”是一种外观。在下列短语中,一般类别术语可以删去,只留下具体的描述。

large in size

often times

of a bright color

heavy in weight

period in time

round in shape

at an early time

economics field

of cheap quality

honest in character

of an uncertain condition

in a confused state

unusual in nature

extreme in degree

of a strange type

Example

Wordy: During that time period, many car buyers preferred cars that were pink in color and shiny in appearance. (18 words)

Concise: During that period, many car buyers preferred pink, shiny cars. (10 words)

Wordy:The microscope revealed a group of organisms that were round in shape and peculiar in nature. (16 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise:The microscope revealed a group of peculiar, round organisms. (9 words)

3.短语变化

3.1把短语换成单词和形容词

用只需一个词就能表达的短语会导致冗长的描述。尽量把词组替换为单个词。

Wordy:The employee with ambition... (4 words)

Concise: The ambitious employee... (3 words)

Wordy:The department showing the best performance... (6 words)

Concise: The best-performing department... (4 words)

Wordy:Jeff Converse, our chief of consulting, suggested at our last board meeting the installation of microfilm equipment in the department of data processing. (23 words)

Concise:At our last board meeting, Chief Consultant Jeff Converse suggested that we install microfilm equipment in the data processing department. (20 words)

Wordy:We read the letter we received yesterday and reviewed it thoroughly. (11 words)

Concise:We thoroughly read the letter we received yesterday. (8 words)

Wordy: As you carefully read what you have written to improve your wording and catch small errors of spelling, punctuation, and so on, the thing to do before you do anything else is to try to see where a series of words expressing action could replace the ideas found in nouns rather than verbs. (53 words)火龙果语法检查


Concise:As you edit, first find nominalizations that you can replace with verb phrases. (13 words)

3.2把不必要的" that"," who"," which"子句变成短语

可通过短语表达的分句常常会增加句子的累赘感,并尽可能地将修饰从句转化为短语或单词。

Wordy:The report, which was released recently... (6 words)

Concise:The recently released report... (4 words)

Wordy:All applicants who are interested in the job must... (9 words)

Concise:All job applicants must... (4 words)

Wordy:The system that is most efficient and accurate... (8 words)

Concise:The most efficient and accurate system... (6 words)

3.3被动句转为主动句

Wordy:An account was opened by Mrs. Simms. (7 words)

Concise:Mrs. Simms opened an account. (5 words)

Wordy:Your figures were checked by the research department. (8 words)

Concise:The research department checked your figures. (6 words)

4.规避常见陷阱

4.1在句首避免过分使用虚指

虚指是 it+be-verb或 there+be-verb形式的短语。有些时候,这样的表达在修辞中可以起到强调的作用,但是过度使用或者不必要的使用会导致文章冗长。举例来说," It is imperative that we find solution."这个意思可以用更简明的语言来表达," We must find a solution.",但使用虚指结构可以强调情况的迫切性,因此带虚指的句子可能更好。

然而,应避免过度使用虚指,最常用的虚指结构包括:虚指后跟名词,以 that, which, who开头的关系从句。多数情况下,可以通过消除虚指开头,使名词成为句中的主语,通过消除关系代词,使句子更简洁。

Example

Wordy: It is the governor who signs or vetoes bills. (9 words)

Concise: The governor signs or vetoes bills. (6 words)

Wordy: There are four rules that should be observed: ... (8 words)

Concise: Four rules should be observed:... (5 words)

Wordy: There was a big explosion, which shook the windows, and people ran into the street. (15 words)

Concise: A big explosion shook the windows, and people ran into the street. (12 words)

4.2避免名词形式的动词过度使用

用动词代替名词,用动词代替名词代替名词,尽可能物化名字。更多名物化的句子通常使用 be作为主要动词。用名物化代替动作动词作为主要动词而非“be”的形式,可以使文章更有吸引力。

Wordy:The function of this department is the collection of accounts. (10 words)

Concise: This department collects accounts. (4 words)

Wordy: The current focus of the medical profession is disease prevention. (10 words)

Concise:The medical profession currently focuses on disease prevention. (8 words)

4.3避免不需要的不确定词组

一些不定式短语可以被转换成限定动词或名词短语。这种变化还常常导致be-动词被动动词替换。

Wordy: The duty of a clerk is to check all incoming mail and to record it. (15 words)

Concise:A clerk checks and records all incoming mail. (8 words)

Wordy:A shortage of tellers at our branch office on Friday and Saturday during rush hours has caused customers to become dissatisfied with service. (23 words)

Concise:A teller shortage at our branch office on Friday and Saturday during rush hours has caused customer dissatisfaction. (18 words)火龙果语法检查


4.4避免直截了当地表示

婉转的表达通常是用几个字就能表达出更加简洁的意思。人们往往忽视了这些词语,因为这些词语大多是惯用的修辞。但是,在书写时,应避免使用这些词汇,因为它们增加了多余的词汇而没有任何额外的意义。当然,为了达到修辞效果,你可以选择用指法结构,而不要用更简洁的表达方式。应将其作为一般建议,而不是绝对准则。


火龙果智能写作是全球第一款中英双语语法检查校对产品,运用火龙果智能写作技术进行错别字文本校对,除错别字校对以外,还可以对语法、标点等进行校对。

火龙果智能写作官网https://www.mypitaya.com

积极拥抱变化,才能更好的应对这个时代



智能写作-教育类文章写作技巧