注：英文引文，机翻未校。
如有内容异常，请看原文。
Writing English as a Second Language
以非母语者身份撰写英文
By William Zinsser | December 1, 2009
作者：威廉·津瑟 | 2009 年 12 月 1 日
A talk to the incoming international students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, August 11, 2009
2009 年 8 月 11 日，在哥伦比亚大学新闻研究生院面向新一届国际学生的演讲
Five years ago one of your deans at the journalism school, Elizabeth Fishman, asked me if I would be interested in tutoring international students who might need some extra help with their writing. She knew I had done a lot of traveling in Asia and Africa and other parts of the world where many of you come from.
五年前，贵校新闻学院的院长伊丽莎白·菲什曼询问我，是否愿意为在写作方面需要额外辅导的国际学生提供指导。她知晓我曾多次游历亚洲、非洲及世界其他地区，而你们中的许多人正来自这些地方。
I knew I would enjoy that, and I have---I've been doing it ever since. I'm the doctor that students get sent to see if they have a writing problem that their professor thinks I can fix. As a bonus, I've made many friends---from Uganda, Uzbekhistan, India, Ethiopia, Thailand, Iraq, Nigeria, Poland, China, Colombia and many other countries. Several young Asian women, when they went back home, sent me invitations to their weddings. I never made it to Bhutan or Korea, but I did see the wedding pictures. Such beautiful brides!
我当时便知道自己会乐于从事这份工作，事实也的确如此------从那以后我便一直坚持辅导。学生若出现写作问题，而教授认为我可以解决，便会被安排来见我。作为额外的收获，我结识了许多朋友，他们来自乌干达、乌兹别克斯坦、印度、埃塞俄比亚、泰国、伊拉克、尼日利亚、波兰、中国、哥伦比亚及其他众多国家。几位亚洲的年轻女性回国后，还给我寄来了婚礼请柬。我虽未能前往不丹或韩国赴宴，却收到了她们的婚礼照片，新娘们都十分美丽。
I can't imagine how hard it must be to learn to write comfortably in a second---or third or fourth---language. I don't think I could do it, and I admire your grace in taking on that difficult task. Much of the anxiety that I see in foreign students could be avoided if certain principles of writing good English---which nobody ever told them---were explained in advance. So I asked if I could talk to all of you during orientation week and tell you some of the things my students have found helpful.
我难以想象，以第二、第三甚至第四语言流畅地进行写作，究竟有多困难。我自认无法做到这一点，也十分钦佩你们从容地承担起这项艰巨任务。**在国际学生身上，我看到的诸多焦虑，本可通过提前讲解一些优质英文写作的原则来避免，而这些原则从未有人告知过他们。**因此我申请在新生适应周为大家做一次分享，讲述一些我的学生认为实用的内容。
So that's why we're here today.
这便是我们今日相聚于此的缘由。
I'll start with a question: What is good writing?
我先提出一个问题：何为优质写作？
It depends on what country you're from. We all know what's considered "good writing" in our own country. We grow up immersed in the cadences and sentence structure of the language we were born into, so we think, "That's probably what every country considers good writing; they just use different words." If only! I once asked a student from Cairo, "What kind of language is Arabic?" I was trying to put myself into her mental process of switching from Arabic to English. She said, "It's all adjectives."
这取决于你来自哪个国家。我们都清楚本国语境下"优质写作"的定义。我们自幼沉浸在母语的节奏与句式结构中，便会认为："或许每个国家对优质写作的评判标准都如此，只是所用词汇不同罢了。"事实远非如此！我曾问过一位来自开罗的学生："阿拉伯语是一种怎样的语言？"我试图代入她从阿拉伯语切换至英语的思维过程。她回答："满是形容词。"
Well, of course it's not all adjectives, but I knew what she meant: it's decorative, it's ornate, it's intentionally pleasing. Another Egyptian student, when I asked him about Arabic, said, "It's all proverbs. We talk in proverbs. People say things like 'What you are seeking is also seeking you.'" He also told me that Arabic is full of courtesy and deference, some of which is rooted in fear of the government. "You never know who's listening," he said, so it doesn't hurt to be polite. That's when I realized that when foreign students come to me with a linguistic problem it may also be a cultural or a political problem.
当然，阿拉伯语并非全是形容词，但我明白她的意思：这种语言辞藻华丽、修饰繁复，刻意追求美感。另一位埃及学生在我问及阿拉伯语时表示："满是谚语。我们习惯用谚语交流，人们会说'你所追寻的事物，也在追寻着你'这类话语。"他还提到，阿拉伯语中充满礼貌与谦恭的表达，部分源于对政府的畏惧。他说："你永远不知道谁在旁听"，因此保持礼貌总归无害。那一刻我意识到，国际学生向我求助的语言问题，或许同时也是文化或政治问题。
Rediscover William Zinsser and subscribe to the world of ideas. New subscribers will receive a free copy of The Writer Who Stayed , a collection of his essays.
重新认识威廉·津瑟，订阅思想世界。新订阅者可免费获赠其随笔集《坚守的写作者》。
Now I think it's lovely that such a decorative language as Arabic exists. I wish I could walk around New York and hear people talking in proverbs. But all those adjectives and all that decoration would be the ruin of any journalist trying to write good English. No proverbs, please.
如今我觉得，阿拉伯语这般辞藻华丽的语言十分美好。我甚至希望自己走在纽约街头，能听到人们用谚语交谈。但对于试图撰写优质英文的新闻从业者而言，过多的形容词与修饰性表达只会毁掉作品。请不要使用谚语。
Spanish also comes with a heavy load of beautiful baggage that will smother any journalist writing in English. The Spanish language is a national treasure, justly prized by Spanish-speaking people. But what makes it a national treasure is its long sentences and melodious long nouns that express a general idea. Those nouns are rich in feeling, but they have no action in them---no people doing something we can picture. My Spanish-speaking students must be given the bad news that those long sentences will have to be cruelly chopped up into short sentences with short nouns and short active verbs that drive the story forward. What's considered "good writing" in Spanish is not "good writing" in English.
西班牙语同样承载着大量优美却冗余的表达，会让用英文写作的新闻从业者束手束脚。西班牙语是西班牙语使用者珍视的民族瑰宝。而使其成为瑰宝的，是那些表达笼统概念的长句与音韵优美的长名词。这类名词情感饱满，却缺乏动作性------没有我们能够具象化的人物行为。我必须告知我的西班牙语学生一个现实：这些长句必须被果断拆解为短句，搭配短名词与简短的主动动词，以此推动叙事发展。西班牙语语境下的"优质写作"，并不等同于英文语境下的"优质写作"。
So what is good English---the language we're here today to wrestle with? It's not as musical as Spanish, or Italian, or French, or as ornamental as Arabic, or as vibrant as some of your native languages. But I'm hopelessly in love with English because it's plain and it's strong. It has a huge vocabulary of words that have precise shades of meaning; there's no subject, however technical or complex, that can't be made clear to any reader in good English---if it's used right. Unfortunately, there are many ways of using it wrong. Those are the damaging habits I want to warn you about today.
那么，我们今日探讨的优质英文究竟是什么？它不像西班牙语、意大利语或法语那般富有韵律，不像阿拉伯语那般修饰繁复，也不像你们的部分母语那般鲜活生动。**但我却深深钟爱英文，因其质朴且有力。英文拥有海量词汇，且词义层次精准；只要运用得当，无论主题多么专业复杂，优质英文都能让所有读者理解。**遗憾的是，英文的错误用法比比皆是。这些正是我今日要提醒大家规避的不良写作习惯。
First, a little history. The English language is derived from two main sources. One is Latin, the florid language of ancient Rome. The other is Anglo-Saxon, the plain languages of England and northern Europe. The words derived from Latin are the enemy---they will strangle and suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.
首先简单回顾一段历史。英文主要源自两大语系：一是古罗马华丽繁复的拉丁语，二是英格兰与北欧质朴的盎格鲁-撒克逊语。拉丁语衍生词汇是写作的阻碍，会让你的文字变得晦涩沉闷；而盎格鲁-撒克逊词汇则能让你的表达自由流畅。
How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompous nouns that end in --ion ---like implementation and maximization and communication (five syllables long!)---or that end in --ent ---like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture---somebody doing something. Here's a typical sentence: "Prior to the implementation of the financial enhancement." That means "Before we fixed our money problems."
拉丁语词汇为何会让文字晦涩沉闷？这类词汇通常是冗长浮夸的名词，以 -ion 结尾，如 implementation（实施）、maximization（最大化）、communication（交流，多达五个音节），或以 -ent 结尾，如 development（发展）、fulfillment（实现）。**这类名词表达的是模糊笼统的概念，而非我们能具象化的具体人物行为。**举一个典型例句："Prior to the implementation of the financial enhancement"，其实际含义为"Before we fixed our money problems"（在我们解决财务问题之前）。
Believe it or not, this is the language that people in authority in America routinely use---officials in government and business and education and social work and health care. They think those long Latin words make them sound important. It no longer rains in America; your TV weatherman will tell that you we're experiencing a precipitation probability situation.
信不信由你，美国各界掌权者------政府、商业、教育、社会工作及医疗领域的官员------日常都使用这类表达。他们认为冗长的拉丁语词汇能彰显自身重要性。在美国，天气预报不再简单播报"下雨"，电视气象主播会说"当前存在降水概率情况"。
I'm sure all of you, newly arrived in America, have already been driven crazy trying to figure out the instructions for ordering a cell phone or connecting your computer, or applying for a bank loan or a health insurance policy, and you assume that those of us who were born here can understand this stuff. I assure you that we don't understand it either. I often receive some totally unintelligible letter from the telephone company or the cable company or the bank. I try to piece it out like a hieroglyphic, and I ask my wife, "Can you make any sense of this?" She says, "I have no idea what it means."
我确信，刚抵达美国的各位，在阅读手机订购、电脑连接、银行贷款或医疗保险申请说明时，都曾感到崩溃。你们或许会认为，土生土长的美国人能看懂这些内容。我可以明确告诉大家，我们同样无法理解。我经常收到电话公司、有线电视公司或银行寄来的晦涩难懂的信件，只能像破译象形文字一样逐句揣摩，然后问妻子："你能看懂这是什么意思吗？"她总会回答："完全不明白。"
Those long Latin usages have so infected everyday language in America that you might well think, "If that's how people write who are running the country, that's how I'm supposed to write." It's not. Let me read you three typical letters I recently received in the mail. (I keep letters like this and save them in a folder that I call "Bullshit File.")
这类冗长的拉丁语用法已深深渗透美国日常语言，你们或许会认为："管理国家的人都这样写作，那我也该效仿。"事实并非如此。我为大家朗读三封近期收到的典型信件（我会将这类信件存入一个名为"废话文档"的文件夹）。
The first one is from the president of a private club in New York. It says, "Dear member: The board of governors has spent the past year considering proactive efforts that will continue to professionalize the club and to introduce efficiencies that we will be implementing throughout 2009." That means they're going to try to make the club run better.
第一封来自纽约一家私人俱乐部的主席，信中写道："尊敬的会员：理事会过去一年持续研讨积极举措，以推进俱乐部专业化运营，并落实将于 2009 年全年推行的增效方案。"这句话的实际含义是：他们将努力让俱乐部运营得更完善。
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Here's a letter to alumni from the head of the New England boarding school I attended when I was a boy. "As I walk around the Academy," she writes, "and see so many gifted students interacting with accomplished, dedicated adults" [that means boys and girls talking to teachers ] and consider the opportunities for learning that such interpersonal exchanges will yield..." Interpersonal exchanges! Pure garbage. Her letter is meant to assure us alumni that the school is in good hands. I'm not assured. One thing I know is that she shouldn't be allowed near the English department, and I'm not sure she should even be running the school. Remember: how you write is how you define yourself to people who meet you only through your writing. If your writing is pretentious, that's how you'll be perceived. The reader has no choice.
第二封来自我年少时就读的新英格兰寄宿学校校长，收件人为校友。她写道："漫步校园，我看到众多天赋出众的学生与学识渊博、敬业奉献的成年人交流互动，并思索这类人际互动所能带来的学习机遇......"人际互动！纯属空洞说辞。这封信本是为了向校友保证学校管理得当，却并未让我安心。我只确定一点：她不应涉足英文教学工作，甚至是否适合管理学校都存疑。请记住：你的写作风格，是仅通过文字认识你的人对你的全部认知。若文字故作高深，他人便会如此看待你，读者别无选择。
Here's one more---a letter from the man who used to be my broker; now he's my investment counsel. He says, "As we previously communicated, we completed a systems conversion in late September. Data conversions involve extra processing and reconciliation steps [translation: it took longer than we thought it would to make our office operate better ]. We apologize if you were inconvenienced as we completed the verification process [we hope we've got it right now ]. "Further enhancements will be introduced in the next calendar quarter" [we're still working on it ]. Notice those horrible long Latin words: communicated , conversion , reconciliation , enhancements , verification. There's not a living person in any one of them.
再看第三封，来自我的前经纪人，如今的投资顾问。他写道："如此前沟通，我们于 9 月末完成系统转换。数据转换需额外的处理与核对步骤。若核验流程给您带来不便，我们深表歉意。下一自然季度将推出更多优化措施。"请注意这些糟糕的冗长拉丁语词汇：communicated（沟通）、conversion（转换）、reconciliation（核对）、enhancements（优化）、verification（核验）。这些词汇中没有任何鲜活的人物形象。
Well, I think you get the point about bad nouns. (Don't worry---in a minute I'll tell you about good nouns.) I bring this up today because most of you will soon be assigned to a beat in one of New York's neighborhoods. Our city has been greatly enriched in recent years by immigrants from every corner of the world, but their arrival has also brought a multitude of complex urban problems. You'll be interviewing the men and women who are trying to solve those problems---school principals, social workers, health-care workers, hospital officials, criminal justice officials, union officials, church officials, police officers, judges, clerks in city and state agencies---and when you ask them a question, they will answer you in nouns: Latin noun clusters that are the working vocabulary of their field. They'll talk about "facilitation intervention" and "affordable housing" and "minimum-density zoning," and you will dutifully copy those phrases down and write a sentence that says: "A major immigrant concern is the affordable housing situation." But I can't picture the affordable housing situation. Who exactly are those immigrants? Where do they live? What kind of housing is affordable? To whom? As readers, we want to be able to picture specific people like ourselves, in a specific part of the city, doing things we might also do. We want a sentence that says something like "New Dominican families on Tremont Avenue in the Bronx can't pay the rent that landlords ask." I can picture that; we've all had trouble paying the landlord.
我想大家已经明白劣质名词的问题所在（不必担心，稍后我会讲解优质名词）。我今日提及此事，是因为你们中的大多数人很快会被分配到纽约某一社区进行报道。近年来，来自世界各地的移民极大地丰富了这座城市，但也带来了诸多复杂的城市问题。你们将采访致力于解决这些问题的人群，包括校长、社会工作者、医护人员、医院官员、刑事司法人员、工会人员、教会人员、警察、法官以及市州机构职员。当你向他们提问时，他们会用本领域常用的拉丁语名词词组作答，比如"便利化干预""经济适用房""最低密度分区"。你会如实记录这些表述，写出类似"移民群体的关切是经济适用房问题"的句子。**但我无法具象化"经济适用房问题"。这些移民具体是谁？居住在何处？何种住房对他们而言可负担？作为读者，我们希望看到与自己相似的具体人物，在城市的具体区域，做着我们也可能做的事。**我们需要这样的句子："布朗克斯区特雷蒙特大道上的多米尼加新移民家庭，无力支付房东索要的租金。"这句话能让我具象化场景，毕竟我们都曾有过交不起房租的经历。
So if those are the bad nouns, what are the good nouns? The good nouns are the thousands of short, simple, infinitely old Anglo-Saxon nouns that express the fundamentals of everyday life: house , home , child , chair , bread , milk , sea , sky , earth , field , grass , road ... words that are in our bones, words that resonate with the oldest truths. When you use those words, you make contact---consciously and also sub consciously---with the deepest emotions and memories of your readers. Don't try to find a noun that you think sounds more impressive or "literary." Short Anglo-Saxon nouns are your second-best tools as a journalist writing in English.
**既然这些是劣质名词，那么优质名词是什么？优质名词是数千个简短质朴、传承久远的盎格鲁-撒克逊名词，它们描绘日常生活的基本事物：房屋、家、孩子、椅子、面包、牛奶、海洋、天空、大地、田野、青草、道路......这些词汇根植于我们的内心，与最古老的真理共鸣。**使用这类词汇时，你会在有意识与潜意识层面，触达读者内心最深处的情感与记忆。不要刻意寻找自认为更惊艳、更具"文学性"的名词。简短的盎格鲁-撒克逊名词，是英文新闻写作的第二大利器。
What are your best tools? Your best tools are short, plain Anglo-Saxon verbs. I mean active verbs, not passive verbs. If you could write an article using only active verbs, your article would automatically have clarity and warmth and vigor.
最有力的工具是什么？是简短质朴的盎格鲁-撒克逊动词，且是主动动词，而非被动动词。若一篇文章仅使用主动动词，便会自然具备清晰、温暖且富有活力的特质。
Let's go back to school for a minute and make sure you remember the difference between an active verb and a passive verb. An active verb denotes one specific action: JOHN SAW THE BOYS. The event only happened once, and we always know who did what: it was John who activated the verb SAW . A passive-voice sentence would say: THE BOYS WERE SEEN BY JOHN. It's longer. It's weaker: it takes three words (WERE SEEN BY instead of SAW), and it's not as exact. How often were the boys seen by John? Every day? Once a week? Active verbs give momentum to a sentence and push it forward. If I had put that last sentence in the passive---"momentum is given to a sentence by active verbs and the sentence is pushed forward by them"---there is no momentum, no push.
我们回顾一下基础语法，明确主动动词与被动动词的区别。主动动词指向具体动作：约翰看见了男孩们。该事件仅发生一次，且我们清晰知晓行为主体：是约翰执行了"看见"这一动作。被动语态的句子则是：男孩们被约翰看见了。句子更长，语气更弱，用三个单词（WERE SEEN BY）替代一个单词（SAW），且表述不够精准。约翰多久看见这些男孩一次？每天？每周一次？主动动词为句子赋予动力，推动叙事发展。若将上一句改为被动语态------"句子的动力由主动动词赋予，且句子由其推动"------便毫无动力与推进感可言。
One of my favorite writers is Henry David Thoreau, who wrote one of the great American books, Walden , in 1854, about the two years he spent living---and thinking---in the woods near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau's writing moves with simple strength because he uses one active verb after another to push his meaning along. At every point in his sentences you know what you need to know. Here's a famous sentence from Walden :
我最喜爱的作家之一是亨利·戴维·梭罗，他于 1854 年创作了美国经典著作《瓦尔登湖》，记录了自己在马萨诸塞州康科德附近树林中两年的生活与思考。**梭罗的文字质朴有力，源于他接连使用主动动词推进表意。读者在其句子的每一处，都能获取所需信息。**以下是《瓦尔登湖》中的经典名句：
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of nature, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
我步入丛林，是因为希望从容地生活，直面生命的本质，探寻自然所能给予的启迪，以免临终时才发觉，自己从未真正活过。
Look at all those wonderful short, active verbs: went , wished , front , see , learn , die , discover . We understand exactly what Thoreau is saying. We also know a lot about him ---about his curiosity and his vitality. How alive Thoreau is in that sentence! It's an autobiography in 44 words---39 of which are words of one syllable . Think about that: only five words in that long, elegant sentence have more than one syllable. Short is always better than long.
看看这些精彩的简短主动动词：步入、希望、直面、探寻、领悟、离世、发觉。我们能精准理解梭罗的表达，也能窥见他的好奇心与生命力。这句话中的梭罗形象鲜活至极！短短 44 个单词构成了一段人生自述，其中 39 个为单音节词。试想：这句优美的长句中，仅有 5 个单词非单音节。简短永远优于冗长。
Now let me turn that sentence into the passive:
现在我将这句话改为被动语态：
A decision was made to go to the woods because of a desire for a deliberate existence and for exposure to only the essential facts of life, and for possible instruction in its educational elements, and because of a concern that at the time of my death the absence of a meaningful prior experience would be apprehended.
步入丛林的决定被作出，源于对从容生活的向往，对直面生命本质的追求，以及对获取生命启迪的期许，同时担忧离世时会发觉自己未曾拥有有意义的人生经历。
All the life has been taken out of the sentence. But what's the biggest thing I've taken out of that sentence? I've taken Thoreau out of that sentence. He's nowhere to be seen. I've done it just by turning all the active verbs into passive verbs. Every time I replaced one of Thoreau's active verbs with a passive verb I also had to add a noun to make the passive verb work. "I went to the woods because" became "A decision was made." I had to add the noun decision . "To see if I could learn what it had to teach---two terrific verbs, learn and teach; we've all learned and we've all been taught---became "for possible instruction." Can you hear how dead those Latin nouns are that end in i-o-n? Decision. Instruction. They have no people in them doing something.
这句话彻底失去了生命力。而我抹去的最关键的东西是什么？**我抹去了梭罗本人的形象，他在句中消失无踪。这一切仅通过将主动动词全部改为被动动词便实现了。**每次将梭罗的主动动词替换为被动动词时，我都需要添加名词以适配被动结构。"I went to the woods because"变为"A decision was made"，必须添加名词 decision（决定）。"探寻自然所能给予的启迪"这一包含 learn（领悟）与 teach（启迪）两个优质动词的表达，变为"对获取生命启迪的期许"。你能感受到这些以 -ion 结尾的拉丁语名词有多空洞吗？决定、启迪，其中没有任何人物行为。
So fall in love with active verbs. They are your best friends.
因此，请热爱主动动词，它们是你写作路上最好的伙伴。
I have four principles of writing good English. They are Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity.
我总结了四条优质英文写作原则：清晰、质朴、简洁、人本。
First, Clarity. If it's not clear you might as well not write it. You might as well stay in bed.
第一，清晰。文字若不清晰，便不如不写，不如卧床休憩。
Two: Simplicity. Simple is good. Most students from other countries don't know that. When I read them a sentence that I admire, a simple sentence with short words, they think I'm joking. "Oh, Mr. Zinsser, you're so funny," a bright young woman from Nigeria told me. "If I wrote sentences like that, people would think I'm stupid." Stupid like Thoreau, I want to say. Or stupid like E. B. White. Or like the King James Bible. Listen to this passage from the book of Ecclesiastes:
**第二，质朴。质朴即为美。**多数国际学生并未意识到这一点。当我为他们朗读自己欣赏的简短质朴的句子时，他们会以为我在开玩笑。一位来自尼日利亚的聪慧女生对我说："津瑟先生，您真有趣。如果我写出这样的句子，人们会觉得我愚笨。"我想说，是像梭罗一样愚笨，还是像 E.B. 怀特一样愚笨，亦或是像《钦定版圣经》一样愚笨？请听《传道书》中的这段文字：
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all.
我转念静观尘世，捷足未必先登，力强者未必胜战，智者未必得食，明者未必致富，能者未必受赏识，机遇与无常降临于众人。
Or stupid like Abraham Lincoln, whom I consider our greatest American writer. Here's Lincoln addressing the nation in his Second Inaugural Address as president, in 1865, at the end of the long, terrible, exhausting Civil War:
或是像我眼中美国最伟大的作家亚伯拉罕·林肯一样"愚笨"。以下是 1865 年漫长惨烈的内战结束时，林肯在第二次总统就职演说中的致辞：
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan,---to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
对任何人不怀恶意，对所有人心怀慈爱，坚守上帝昭示的正义，让我们奋力完成未竟之业，医治国家的创伤，照料浴血奋战的战士及其遗孀孤儿，竭力实现并守护国内与各国间公正持久的和平。
Here's another American President, Barack Obama, also a wonderful writer, who modeled his own style on Lincoln's. In his memoir, Dreams from My Father , a beautifully written book, Obama recalls how, as a boy,
另一位美国总统贝拉克·奥巴马同样是优秀的写作者，其文风深受林肯影响。在文笔优美的回忆录《我父亲的梦想》中，奥巴马回忆了年少时的经历：
At night, lying in bed, I would let the slogans drift away, to be replaced with a series of images, romantic images, of a past I had never known.
夜晚卧床，我会让那些口号渐渐消散，取而代之的是一系列浪漫画面，描绘着我未曾亲历的过往。
They were of the civil rights movement, mostly, the grainy black-and-white footage that appears every February during Black History Month. . . . A pair of college students . . . placing their orders at a lunch counter teetering on the edge of riot. . . . A county jail bursting with children, their hands clasped together, singing freedom songs.画面大多与民权运动相关，是每年二月黑人历史月播出的粗糙黑白影像......一对大学生在濒临骚乱的午餐柜台点餐......县监狱里挤满了孩子，他们手牵手，唱响自由之歌。
Such images became a form of prayer for me, bolstering my spirits, channeling my emotions in a way that words never could. They told me . . . that I wasn't alone in my particular struggles, and that communities . . . had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens. They expanded or contracted with the dreams of men. . . . In the sit-ins, the marches, the jailhouse songs, I saw the African-American community becoming more than just the place where you'd been born or the house where you'd been raised. . . . Because this community I imagined was still in the making, built on the promise that the larger American community, black, white, and brown, could somehow redefine itself---I believed that it might, over time, admit the uniqueness of my own life.这些画面成为我的精神寄托，鼓舞着我，以文字无法企及的方式疏导我的情绪。它们让我明白，在专属的挣扎中我并非孤身一人，社群需要被构建、被捍卫、如花园般悉心培育。社群随人类的梦想兴衰更迭。在静坐抗议、游行示威、狱中歌声中，我看到非裔社群不再只是出生地与成长地。我想象中的社群仍在塑造中，它依托于一个期许：美国这个更大的社群，无论黑人、白人还是其他族裔，终将重塑自我。我相信，假以时日，它会接纳我人生的独特性。
So remember: Simple is good. Writing is not something you have to embroider with fancy stitches to make yourself look smart.
请记住：质朴即为美。写作无需用华丽辞藻刻意修饰，以彰显自身聪慧。
Principle number 3. Brevity. Short is always better than long. Short sentences are better than long sentences. Short words are better than long words. Don't say currently if you can say now . Don't say assistance if you can say help . Don't say numerous if you can say many . Don't say facilitate if you can say ease . Don't call someone an individual ; that's a person, or a man or a woman. Don't implement or prioritize. Don't say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Writing is talking to someone else on paper or on a screen.
**第三条原则：简洁。简短永远优于冗长。短句优于长句，短词优于长词。**能用 now（现在）就不用 currently（当前），能用 help（帮助）就不用 assistance（协助），能用 many（许多）就不用 numerous（诸多），能用 ease（缓解）就不用 facilitate（促进）。不要用 individual（个体）指代人，直接用 person（人）、man（男人）或 woman（女人）。不要使用 implement（实施）、prioritize（优先）这类词汇。书面表达的内容，应与日常口语表达一致。写作，就是在纸上或屏幕上与他人对话。
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Which brings me to my fourth principle: Humanity. Be yourself. Never try in your writing to be someone you're not. Your product, finally, is you. Don't lose that person by putting on airs, trying to sound superior.
由此引出第四条原则：人本。做真实的自己，切勿在写作中伪装成他人。最终，你的文字作品就是你本人的写照。不要故作姿态、刻意彰显优越感，从而丢失本真。
There are many modern journalists I admire for their strong, simple style, whom I could recommend to you as models. Two who come to mind are Gay Talese and Joan Didion. Here's a passage by Talese, from his book of collected magazine pieces, The Gay Talese Reader , about the great Yankee baseball star, Joe DiMaggio, who at one point was married to Marilyn Monroe:
当代有许多文风质朴有力的新闻从业者，值得大家借鉴学习，其中我首先想到的是盖伊·塔利斯与琼·迪迪翁。以下是塔利斯在杂志文集《盖伊·塔利斯读本》中，描写传奇洋基棒球明星乔·迪马乔（曾与玛丽莲·梦露成婚）的段落：
Joe DiMaggio lives with his widowed sister, Marie, in a tan stone house on a quiet residential street near Fisherman's Wharf. He bought the house almost thirty years ago for his parents, and after their death he lived there with Marilyn Monroe. . . . There are some baseball trophies and plaques in a small room off DiMaggio's bedroom, and on his dresser are photographs of Marilyn Monroe, and in the living room downstairs is a small painting of her that DiMaggio likes very much: It reveals only her face and shoulders, and she is wearing a very wide-brimmed sun hat, and there is a soft sweet smile on her lips, an innocent curiosity about her that is the way he saw her and the way he wanted her to be seen by others.
乔·迪马乔与寡居的姐姐玛丽同住，居所位于渔人码头附近一条安静的居民区街道上，是一栋棕褐色石屋。大约三十年前，他为父母买下这栋房子，父母离世后，他与玛丽莲·梦露在此居住......迪马乔卧室旁的小房间里摆放着棒球奖杯与纪念牌，梳妆台上放着玛丽莲·梦露的照片，楼下客厅里挂着一幅他十分喜爱的梦露小画像。画像只呈现了她的面部与肩部，她戴着一顶宽檐遮阳帽，唇角漾着温柔甜美的笑意，眼神带着纯真的好奇。这便是他眼中的她，也是他希望世人看到的她。
And here's Joan Didion, who grew up in California and wrote brilliant magazine pieces about its trashy lifestyle in the 1960s. No anthropologist caught it better. This passage is from her collection of early magazine pieces, Slouching Toward Bethlehem .
再看琼·迪迪翁的文字，她在加州长大，创作了诸多描写 20 世纪 60 年代加州浮华生活的优秀杂志文章，其刻画精准度无人能及。以下段落选自她的早期杂志文集《向伯利恒跋涉》。
There are always little girls around rock groups---the same little girls who used to hang around saxophone players, girls who lived on the celebrity and power and sex a band projects when it plays---and there are three of them out here this afternoon in Sausalito where the Grateful Dead rehearse. They are all pretty and two of them still have baby fat and one of them dances by herself with her eyes closed.
摇滚乐队身边总围着年轻女孩，就像当年围在萨克斯手身边的那群女孩一样，她们沉醉于乐队演出时散发的名气、力量与性感魅力。今日下午，在索萨利托"感恩而死"乐队的排练现场，就有三位这样的女孩。她们都容貌姣好，其中两人仍带着婴儿肥，还有一位独自闭眼跳舞。
Somebody said that if I was going to meet some runaways I better pick up some hamburgers and Cokes on the way, so I did, and we are eating them in the Park together, me, Debbie who is fifteen, and Jeff who is sixteen. Debbie and Jeff ran away twelve days ago, walked out of school with $100 between them.有人告诉我，若要采访离家出走的青少年，最好顺路买些汉堡与可乐。我照做了，随后与 15 岁的黛比、16 岁的杰夫在公园一同进食。十二天前，黛比与杰夫离家出走，带着仅有的 100 美元离开了学校。
Debbie is buffing her fingernails with the belt to her suède jacket. She is annoyed because she chipped a nail and because I do not have any polish remover in the car. I promise to get her to a friend's apartment so that she can redo her manicure, but something has been bothering me and as I fiddle with the ignition I finally ask it. I ask them to think back to when they were children, to tell me what they had wanted to be when they were grown up, how they had seen the future then.黛比用麂皮外套的腰带打磨指甲，因指甲崩裂且我车内没有洗甲水而面露不悦。我答应带她去朋友家重新做美甲，却有个问题萦绕心头，最终在摆弄点火装置时问了出来。我让她们回想童年，说说儿时的梦想，以及当年对未来的憧憬。
Jeff throws a Coca-Cola bottle out the car window. "I can't remember I ever thought about it," he says.杰夫将可乐瓶扔出车窗，说道："我不记得自己想过这些。"
"I remember I wanted to be a veterinarian once," Debbie says. "But now I'm more or less working in the vein of being an artist or a model or a cosmetologist. Or something."黛比说："我记得曾经想当兽医，可现在我大概想做艺术家、模特、美容师之类的工作。"
Here's the first paragraph of an article of mine that originally ran in The New Yorker . (It's now in my book Mitchell & Ruff .)
以下是我发表在《纽约客》上一篇文章的开篇段落（现已收录于著作《米切尔与拉夫》）：
Jazz came to China for the first time on the afternoon of June 2, 1981, when the American bassist and French-horn player Willie Ruff introduced himself and his partner, the pianist Dwike Mitchell, to several hundred students and professors who were crowded into a large room at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The students and the professors were all expectant, without quite knowing what to expect. They only knew that they were about to hear the first American jazz concert ever presented to the Chinese. Probably they were not surprised to find that the two musicians were black, though black Americans are a rarity in the People's Republic. What they undoubtedly didn't expect was that Ruff would talk to them in Chinese, and when he began they murmured with delight.
1981 年 6 月 2 日下午，爵士乐首次登陆中国。美国贝斯手兼法国号演奏家威利·拉夫，向挤满上海音乐学院大礼堂的数百名师生介绍了自己与钢琴搭档德怀克·米切尔。师生们满怀期待，却又不知即将迎来什么。他们只知道，即将聆听首场面向中国观众的美国爵士乐演出。鉴于美利坚黑人在中华人民共和国较为少见，师生们或许并未对两位黑人音乐家感到意外。但他们万万没想到，拉夫会用中文与他们交流，开口瞬间，全场都发出欣喜的低语。
Five plain declarative sentences that get the story started at full speed---WHAP! You're right in that room at the Shanghai Conservatory on that June afternoon in 1981.
五句质朴的陈述句，瞬间将故事推向高潮。你仿佛身临其境，置身于 1981 年 6 月那个下午的上海音乐学院礼堂。
I've given you these examples because writing is learned by imitation. We all need models. Bach needed a model; Picasso needed a model. Make a point of reading writers who are doing the kind of writing you want to do. (Many of them write for The New Yorker.) Study their articles clinically. Try to figure out how they put their words and sentences together. That's how I learned to write, not from a writing course.
我列举这些案例，是因为写作靠模仿习得。我们都需要学习榜样，巴赫有榜样，毕加索也有榜样。坚持阅读与你写作方向一致的作者的作品（其中许多人为《纽约客》撰稿），细致剖析其文章，探究其遣词造句与句式构建的方法。我便是这样学会写作的，而非通过写作课程。
Two final thoughts. Some of you, hearing me talk to you so urgently about the need to write plain English, perhaps found yourself thinking: "That's so yesterday. Journalism has gone digital, and I've come to Columbia to learn the new electronic media. I no longer need to write well." I think you need to write even more clearly and simply for the new media than for the old media. You'll be making and editing videos and photographs and audio recordings to accompany your articles. Somebody---that's you---will still have to write all those video scripts and audio scripts, and your writing will need to be lean and tight and coherent: plain nouns and verbs pushing your story forward so that the rest of us always know what's happening. This principle applies---and will apply---to every digital format; nobody wants to consult a Web site that isn't instantly clear. Clarity, brevity, and sequential order will be crucial to your success.
最后两点思考。部分同学听我急切地强调质朴英文写作的重要性，或许会心想："这早已过时。新闻业已进入数字化时代，我来哥伦比亚大学是为学习新兴电子媒体，无需再精进写作。"而我认为，相较于传统媒体，新媒体对文字清晰质朴的要求更高。你们会制作并编辑视频、图片、音频素材以配合文章报道，而所有视频脚本与音频文案，都需要由你们撰写。文字必须凝练、紧凑、连贯，用质朴的名词与动词推动叙事，让读者清晰知晓事件发展。这一原则适用于所有数字媒介形式，无人愿意浏览表述晦涩的网站。清晰、简洁、逻辑连贯，是你们成功的关键。
I emphasize this because the biggest problem that paralyzes students is not how to write; it's how to organize what they are writing. They go out on a story, and they gather a million notes and a million quotes, and when they come back they have no idea what the story is about---what is its proper narrative shape? Their first paragraph contains facts that should be on page five; facts are on page five that should be in the first paragraph. The stories exist nowhere in time or space; the people could be in Brooklyn or Bogotá.
我着重强调这一点，是因为困扰学生的最大问题并非写作本身，而是内容架构。外出采访时，学生收集大量笔记与引述，归来后却不知故事脉络为何，不知如何搭建合理的叙事结构。本该在第五页出现的内容，放在了开篇段落；本该开篇呈现的事实，却出现在第五页。故事失去时空定位，人物仿佛既在布鲁克林，又在波哥大。**
The epidemic I'm most worried about isn't swine flu. It's the death of logical thinking. The cause, I assume, is that most people now get their information from random images on a screen---pop-ups, windows, and sidebars---or from scraps of talk on a digital phone. But writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing; it's the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?
我最担忧的流行病并非猪流感，而是逻辑思维的消亡。究其原因，我想是如今大多数人从屏幕上的随机影像（弹窗、窗口、侧边栏）或手机碎片化对话中获取信息。而写作是线性且有序的，B 句必须承接 A 句，C 句必须承接 B 句，最终完成整篇表达。写作的难点不在于文字书写，而在于思考。每写完一句话，若能自问"读者接下来需要了解什么"，便能解决大部分写作问题。
One maxim that my students find helpful is: One thought per sentence. Readers only process one thought at a time. So give them time to digest the first set of facts you want them to know. Then give them the next piece of information they need to know, which further explains the first fact. Be grateful for the period. Writing is so hard that all of us, once launched, tend to ramble. Instead of a period we use a comma, followed by a transitional word (and , while ), and soon we have strayed into a wilderness that seems to have no road back out. Let the humble period be your savior. There's no sentence too short to be acceptable in the eyes of God.
我的学生认为一句箴言十分实用：一句话只表达一个意思。读者一次只能接收一个信息，因此要给他们时间消化你传递的第一组事实，再补充进一步阐释的后续信息。请珍视句号的作用。写作本就艰难，我们一旦动笔，便容易长篇赘述。不用句号而用逗号，接续 and（并且）、while（然而）等连接词，很快便会偏离主题，陷入无法回头的文字泥潭。让平凡的句号成为你的救星，再短的句子在表达中都有其价值。
As you start your journey here at Columbia this week, you may tell yourself that you're doing "communications," or "new media," or "digital media" or some other fashionable new form. But ultimately you're in the storytelling business. We all are. It's the oldest of narrative forms, going back to the caveman and the crib, endlessly riveting. What happened? Then what happened? Please remember, in moments of despair, whatever journalistic assignment you've been given, all you have to do is tell a story, using the simple tools of the English language and never losing your own humanity.
本周开启哥伦比亚大学的求学之旅后，你或许会认为自己从事的是"传播""新媒体""数字媒体"等时髦领域。但归根结底，你们都在从事叙事工作，我们所有人皆是如此。叙事是最古老的表达形式，可追溯至原始人类与孩童时期，永远引人入胜。发生了什么？接下来又发生了什么？请记住，陷入困境时，无论面对何种新闻任务，你只需用质朴的英文讲述故事，坚守本真即可。
Repeat after me:
Short is better than long.
Simple is good. (Louder )
Long Latin nouns are the enemy.
Anglo-Saxon active verbs are your best friend.
One thought per sentence.
跟我一起念：
简短优于冗长。
质朴即为美。（大声念）
冗长拉丁语名词是阻碍。
盎格鲁-撒克逊主动动词是挚友。
一句话只表达一个意思。
Good luck to you all.
祝各位一切顺利。
William Zinsser, who died in 2015, was the author of 18 books, including On Writing Well, and a columnist for the Scholar website.
威廉·津瑟（2015 年逝世），著有 18 部作品，包括《写作法宝》，同时担任《美国学者》网站专栏作家。
Summary of "On Writing Well"
《写作法宝》内容摘要
April 12, 2026
self-help
自我提升类
Main Ideas
主要观点
- Write clearly and simply -- strip away clutter, jargon, and unnecessary words to let your ideas breathe
行文清晰简洁------剔除冗余表达、专业术语与不必要的词汇，让观点自然呈现 - Know your subject and your reader -- clarity comes from understanding what you are saying and why it matters to them
熟知写作主题与读者------清晰的表达建立在对内容的理解之上，同时明确内容对读者的意义 - Rewrite ruthlessly -- first drafts are never final; good writing is rewriting
果断修改文稿------初稿并非最终版本，优质的写作依靠反复修改
The Fundamentals
写作基本原则
Clutter is the Enemy
冗余表达是写作的阻碍
- Cut every word that doesn't serve your purpose
删去所有与写作目的无关的词汇 - Eliminate weak qualifiers ("very," "rather," "somewhat")
摒弃语气弱化的修饰词（如"非常""相当""略微"） - Remove redundant phrases and unnecessary explanations
去除重复句式与多余的解释内容 - One strong word beats ten weak ones
一个有力的词汇，胜过十个平淡的词汇
Use Simple, Direct Language
使用简洁直白的语言
- Prefer common words over fancy ones
优先选用常用词汇，而非华丽生僻的表达 - Write the way you speak (but edit rigorously)
以日常口语逻辑写作，并进行严谨修改 - Avoid jargon, buzzwords, and pretentious vocabulary
避免专业术语、流行新词与刻意浮夸的措辞 - Short sentences trump long, complex ones
短句表达效果优于冗长复杂的长句
Find Your Own Voice
形成个人写作风格
- Don't write to impress; write to communicate
写作以沟通为目的，而非刻意博取关注 - Let your personality show without dominating the message
适度展现个人特质，不掩盖核心内容 - Consistency in tone builds trust with readers
语气风格保持统一，与读者建立信任 - Your unique perspective shapes the way you present ideas
独特的视角决定观点的呈现方式
Essential Writing Practices
实用写作方法
- Lead with your best foot -- grab attention in the first paragraph; make readers care immediately
开篇突出亮点------在首段抓住读者注意力，快速引发阅读兴趣 - Organize logically -- structure should guide readers naturally from idea to idea
合理组织逻辑------行文结构自然引导读者理解不同观点 - Use concrete details over abstractions -- show, don't tell; examples resonate more than generalizations
用具体细节替代抽象描述------以实例展现内容，具象案例比笼统表述更具感染力 - Read aloud -- your ear catches awkward phrasing your eyes miss
大声朗读文稿------听觉能捕捉到视觉易忽略的生硬句式 - Know when to stop -- end when you've made your point, not after
把握收尾时机------观点表达完毕即可结束，不做多余延伸
Writing Types (Guiding Principles)
不同文体写作要点（指导原则）
- Memoir & Personal Essays -- authenticity and specificity matter; readers connect with honest stories, not polished performances
回忆录与个人随笔------真实感与细节具有意义，读者更易共情真诚的故事，而非刻意雕琢的内容 - Interviews & Profiles -- listen more than you talk; the best insights emerge from genuine curiosity
访谈与人物特写------多倾听少发言，真挚的好奇往往带来深刻见解 - Opinion & Argument -- make your case clearly; support claims with evidence, not rhetoric
观点与议论文------清晰阐述立场，以事实支撑观点，而非单纯依靠修辞 - Business & Technical Writing -- clarity is non-negotiable; respect your reader's time
商务与技术写作------清晰性不可妥协，尊重读者的时间成本
Common Mistakes to Avoid
需规避的常见写作误区
- Over-explaining or stating the obvious
过度解释或陈述显而易见的内容 - Mixing formality with your natural voice
正式文风与个人自然语气混杂 - Burying the lead in unnecessary context
将主要内容埋没在无关背景中 - Using passive voice when active is clearer
主动语态表达更清晰时仍使用被动语态 - Writing for yourself instead of your reader
以自我为中心写作，忽视读者需求
Action Plan
实践方案
- Pick a piece you've written -- identify three sentences that don't pull their weight; delete or rewrite them
选取一篇已完成的文稿------找出三个无实际作用的句子，删除或重写 - Read a paragraph aloud -- does it sound like you? If not, simplify until it does
大声朗读段落------判断文风是否贴合自身，若不符合则持续简化 - Name your audience -- before writing, answer: Who is this for, and why should they care?
明确目标读者------写作前思考：本文面向哪些人，读者为何需要阅读？ - Set a rewrite rule -- plan for at least two rounds of editing; expect to cut 10-20% in the first pass
制定修改规则------安排至少两轮编辑，首轮删减10%--20%的内容 - Read Zinsser's examples -- study his own writing and the quoted pieces that illustrate each principle in action
研读津瑟的写作案例------学习作者本人的作品与引用文段，理解各项原则的实际运用
Reference
- Writing English as a Second Language - The American Scholar
https://theamericanscholar.org/writing-english-as-a-second-language/ - Summary of "On Writing Well"
https://rd.me/books/on-writing-well