On Writing Well -Day8 (Ch10-1)
Content：
Part I | Principles
1. The Transaction
2. Simplicity
3. Clutter (Writing clean English Sentence)
4. Style (Preserving your identity)
5. The audience (Who am I writing for)
6. Words (The only tools you’ve got)
7. Usage (What is good usage)
Part II | Methods
8. Unity (Anchor of good writing)
9. The lead and the ending
10. Bits and pieces
....
Words and Expressions:
1. This is a chapter of scraps and morsels
【释义】
A morsel is a very small amount of something,especially a very small piece of food.
2. Many verbs also carry in their imagery or in their sound a suggestion of what they mean
【释义】
the use of words or pictures to describe ideas or actions in poems, books, films etc.
3. “blare” connotes loudness.
【释义】
if a word connotes something, it makes you think of qualities and ideas that are more than its basic meaning。
4. What is so eerie about these sentences is that they have no people in them.
【释义】
If you describe something as eerie, you mean that it seems strange and frightening, and makes you feel nervous.
7. Don’t inflate an incident to make it more outlandish than it actually was.
【释义】
If you describe something asoutlandish, you disapproveof it because you think it is very unusual,strange, or unreasonable.
8. whose byline has appeared in the college newspaper.
【释义】
a line at the beginning of an article in a newspaper or magazine that gives the writer’s name
Thoughts:
这一章 Zinser列出了很多Do's and Don'ts， 确实是平常会犯的小错误，根本原则还是要simple and clear。
Verbs:
Short is better than long;
Active is better than passive;
Avoid the kind that need an appended preposition;
Use precise verbs.
Adverbs/Adjectives:
Don’t use adverbs unless they do necessary work
Strong verbs are weakened by redundant adverbs
Little qualifiers:
Prune out the little qualifiers as they whittles away some fraction of the reader’s trust
Punctuation：
The period: make sure that the sentence is under control from beginning to end, in syntax and punctuation.
The Exclamation Point. Don’t use it unless you must to achieve a certain effect. (Instead, construct your sentence so that the order of the words will put the emphasis where you want it)
The semicolon: Use it with discretion, remembering that it the semicolon brings the reader, if not to a halt, at least to a pause, and rely instead on the period and the dash.
The dash: used in two ways. One is to amplify or justify in the second part of the sentence a thought you stated in the first part. The other use involves two dashes, which set apart a parenthetical thought within a longer sentence.
The colon: serves well its pure role of bringing your sentence to a brief halt before you plunge into
MOOD CHANGERS
Used to alert the reader as soon as possible to any change in mood from the previous sentence.
Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with “but.” If that’s what you learned, unlearn it.
Don’t start a sentence with “however”—it hangs there like a wet dishrag.
CONTRACTIONS
There’s no rule against such informality—trust your ear and your instincts, but to avoid "I’d,” “he’d,” “we’d" (can mean both had and would).
THAT AND WHICH
Always use “that” unless it makes your meaning ambiguous.
If your sentence needs a comma to achieve its precise meaning, it probably needs “which”.
CONCEPT NOUNS
Always has people and working verbs in the sentence, and avoid abstract nouns.
CREEPING NOUNISM
Do not string two or three nouns together where one noun—or, better yet, one verb—will do.
OVERSTATEMENT
Don’t overstate. Let the humor sneak up so we hardly hear it coming.
CREDIBILITY
Don’t inflate an incident to make it more outlandish than it actually was.
DICTATION
Dictated sentences tend to be pompous, sloppy and redundant.
WRITING IS NOT A CONTEST
Forget the competition and go at your own pace. Your only contest is with yourself.
THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
Your subconscious mind does more writing than you think.
THE QUICKEST FIX
A difficult problem in a sentence can be solved by simply getting rid of it.
PARAGRAPHS
Keep your paragraphs short, but don’t go berserk.
Each paragraph has its own integrity of content and structure.
