VOA慢速英語: 專家分享學校論文寫作技巧(雙語)

專家分享學校論文寫作技巧

From VOA Learning English, this is the Education Report.

這里是美國之音慢速英語教育報道。

Many secondary and university students have returned to classes, or soon will. And some of you have told us that you worry about academic writing –writing for school. We know that writing papers can be hard – even a little frightening. This is especially true if you are not writing in your first language.

很多中學或大學學生已經(jīng)回到學校上課，或者說很快就會。而且你們中的一些學生告訴我們你們很擔心學校的論文寫作。我們知道寫論文很難——甚至有點可怕，尤其是在如果你不用你的第一語言來寫的情況下。

So we have asked some writing experts in the United States for advice. From time to time as part of the Education Report, we will share some of their suggestions with you in their own words.

所以我們要美國的一些寫作專家尋求建議。我們會時常的將其作為教育報道的一部分，我們將會用他們自己的話來和你們分享一些他們的建議。

Today we hear from Mary Ann Allison, a professor in the journalism, media studies and public relations department at Hofstra University in New York. She is also a poet and a writer. She says starting a paper is often the most difficult part of writing for school.

今天我們收到瑪麗安·艾莉森教授的來信，她是紐約霍夫斯特福大學新聞部、媒體研究部和外聯(lián)部的教授。她也是一名詩人和一位作家。她說學校的論文寫作往往是最困難的部分。

“Mary Ann Allison, suppose the teacher or professor gives you a choice of a topic, a subject, within a given field.”

“瑪麗安·艾莉森，假設這位老師或教授讓你在一個給定的領域選擇一個題目，一個主題。”

“Well, I have a couple of thoughts. The first, if you have any choice at all of a topic, is to do something that you’re really interested in, because the more you’re interested in it naturally, the better you’ll write and the easier it’ll be.”

嗯，我有幾個想法。首先，如果你有任何可選擇的主題，那就是寫一些你真正感興趣的東西，因為你越感興趣，自然而然的，你寫的就越好，寫的就越容易。”

“After you have found a subject you think you would like to write about, what comes next?”

“在你找到了一個你想寫的主題之后，接下來要干什么呢?”

“Once you’ve decided on something, another consideration would be how much information you can find. So, often if I’m starting something, I’m considering a topic, I do, oh, 10, 15 minutes’ worth of looking at information to see if there’s enough for me to be able to easily research and write what I want to write. And if there’s not, then I might choose something else to write on. So those two things, I would say, sort of balance your interest and information availability. And then the next thing that I would do is what I call a back-of-the-envelope outline.”

“一旦你決定好寫什么，那么另一個要考慮的問題就是你可以找到多少信息。所以，通常如果我開始寫東西，我考慮一個話題，會先花10到15分鐘來看看是否有足夠的信息來讓我能夠輕松的研究和寫出我想寫的東西。如果沒有，那我可能會選擇寫別的東西。所以我所說的這兩件事，是讓你來平衡你的興趣和信息的可得性。然后接下來要做的就是，寫出一個粗略的提綱。”

“Back of the envelope, and what is that?”

“提綱，是什么呢?”

“So that’s when I sit down, maybe not at my desk, not at my computer, maybe even at a café, or with a cup of coffee, but where I sit. And I just kind of think about it, and I think about the topic like, what would I say to a friend? And I just write down short notes about whatever – whatever comes to mind. What would I say to a friend about this? Or, what do I want to know about this? And when I have - oh, I don’t know - anywhere between five and 10 points, I stop.”

“所以當我坐下來，可能不是坐在我的書桌旁，也不是我的電腦旁，可能會在一個咖啡廳，或者喝著一杯咖啡。我只是想想，想到這個話題，我該對一個朋友說寫什么?然后無論想到任何東西，我只是寫下簡短的筆記。關于這個話題，我會對一位朋友說些什么，或者關于這個話題我還想知道些什么?那什么時候停止呢，哦，我不知道，寫了5到10點之后吧，我會停止。”

“Then, do you start to write?”

“然后，你要開始寫了嗎?”

“And then I wait a whole day, so I sleep on it, because your brain will work on it while you’re sleeping. And then I take those notes and I make an outline. And then I take the outline and again check how much information is there. Is there easy information on all these points? And if the signals are all ‘yes’, then I might start writing.”

“然后，我會等待一整天，所以我會把問題留到第二天解決，因為你的大腦在你睡覺的時候，會繼續(xù)想，繼續(xù)工作。然后我用這些筆記來做一個提綱，然后我會再次檢查提綱里有多少信息，關于這所有論點的信息都好找嗎?如果都好找，那么我可能將會開始寫作。”

“So a lot of your preparation is preparation?”

“所以你所做的很多準備是準備嗎?”

“It’s preparation, and it’s doing preparation, but it’s also letting your unconscious do a lot of work for you. Because if you sit down and try to write it right now, you don’t give your unconscious any time to organize things (or to)bring together other ideas."

“這是準備，這是在做準備，但是這也是讓你的潛意識為自己做很多工作。因為如果你現(xiàn)在坐下來，試著去寫，你就沒有給你的潛意識任何時間來組織語言和匯集其他想法。”

“Is it time to write yet?”

“是時候?qū)懥藛?”

“So do some research, which gives your subconscious something to think about. Right? Then let it rest for a night. You’ll often find that it’s much easier(to start writing) the next day. Also, the more rested you are, the better it will be.”

“所以做一些研究，這將會給你的潛意識一些思考的東西。對吧?然后讓大腦休息一晚上，通常在第二天，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)，它變得越來越容易。而且，你休息的越多，將會變得越容易寫。”

And that’s the VOA Learning English Education Report. I’m Jeri Watson.

這就是本期的美國之音慢速英語教育報道，我是杰瑞·沃森。