词汇大师-- Getting Into the Writing Game

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: advice from a writing coach.
RS: Jack¹ Hart is a managing editor at The Oregonian newspaper in Portland. We talked to him last year about the classic writing guide by William Strunk and E.B. White called "The Elements of Style."
AA: Now Jack Hart has written his own book, based on forty years of experience as an editor and writing coach. It's called "A Writer's Coach: An Editor's Guide to Words That Work."

　　JACK HART: "I always start every piece of writing I do by thinking about what is the core thing that I really want to say. And the first thing that I always write is theme -- the word theme, t-h-e-m-e, colon² -- and then try to come up with a theme statement that is a simple subject-predicate-object sentence that is my core idea."
AA: "And that's more to guide you? I mean, does that sentence work its way into the final -- "
JACK HART: "It probably will never appear in print, so there's no angst associated with it. It's not for public consumption. But it's right there on the top of my screen to guide me all through the writing process.
"Then I like a little jot³ outline, just a rough sketch⁴ of where you're going from there. And it often will consist for me just of three or four numbered points; these are the three or four main topics that I'm going to cover in this piece of work.
"Or if it's something more scenic⁵ -- a piece of creative nonfiction or a piece of fiction or something like that -- it would be a scenic outline: scene one, scene two, scene three, and what I'm going to accomplish in those scenes."
RS: "So what you're saying is you have kind of a roadmap for beginning your composition or your article or whatever you're writing -- you have some prewriting in there."
JACK HART: "Yeah, it's a lot easier to write if you know where you're headed."
AA: "Do you have any quick, off-the-top-of-your-head troubleshooting tips for people who might be listening, having trouble writing something?"
JACK HART: "Well, the most astounding⁶ thing I discovered in my career has to do with process as well, and that is: If you are having problems at any one step of the process, the trouble probably originated in the immediately preceding step of the process. So if you are having problems with your draft, you probably don't have a good organizational scheme. If you are having problems organizing your material, you probably didn't do a particularly good job gathering⁷ your information. And so on and so forth⁸."
RS: "Or perhaps don't understand it yourself enough to write it."
JACK HART: "That's right. If you don't have the right information, then you didn't hone your idea perhaps well enough in the first place."
RS: "Give us some of those techniques -- tell us a few of your tricks that might even help us."
JACK HART: "Here's a good one: expletives. We just think of expletives as profanities. But, in fact, an expletive is any empty word that doesn't really have any content to it. And the most common ones in English are things like 'there is,' 'there was,' 'it is,' 'it was.'
"And there's nothing grammatically wrong with a sentence constructed with 'there is' or 'there was' in it, but usually you can construct a much more forceful sentence by getting rid of 'there was' or 'there were': 'There were six geese waddling⁹ across the golf course.' How about just 'Six geese waddled¹⁰ across the golf course.'"
RS: "Could you give us a few more tricks that might help listeners who are writing English as a foreign language but want to write more?"
JACK HART: "Well, particularly if you're writing English as a foreign language, I would think there's a tendency to be a bit timid with the language and to include a lot of little qualifiers. E.B. White, in his wonderful book with Strunk, talked about little qualifiers, which White called the 'parasites¹¹ in the pond of prose' -- so things like 'a little bit' and 'rather' that are almost never necessary.
"'Instead' -- here's an example -- 'Instead, the somewhat dark rooms are suffused¹² with a cool glow from embedded¹³ lights.' What do we need 'somewhat' for in a sentence like that? 'In a refined, civilized¹⁴, technically¹⁵ efficient if somewhat frostbitten way' -- well, why not just step out and say 'if frostbitten way.' 'Viewed as stodgy¹⁶ and a bit behind the times' -- just say 'stodgy and behind the times.' But a lot of folks get in the habit of just qualifying every other statement that way -- "
AA: "Those are hedge words, right?"
JACK HART: "They're hedge words that weaken what we say."
RS: Jack Hart is author of "A Writer's Coach: An Editor's Guide to Words That Work."
AA: And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is [email protected]. And for more advice about writing, check out our Web site: voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

2 colon   

n.冒号，结肠，直肠

参考例句：

• Here,too,the colon must be followed by a dash.这里也是一样，应当在冒号后加破折号。
• The colon is the locus of a large concentration of bacteria.结肠是大浓度的细菌所在地。

3 jot   

n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下

参考例句：

• I'll jot down their address before I forget it.我得赶快把他们的地址写下来，免得忘了。
• There is not a jot of evidence to say it does them any good.没有丝毫的证据显示这对他们有任何好处。

4 sketch   

n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述

参考例句：

• My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
• I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。

5 scenic   

adj.自然景色的，景色优美的

参考例句：

• The scenic beauty of the place entranced the visitors.这里的美丽风光把游客们迷住了。
• The scenic spot is on northwestern outskirts of Beijing.这个风景区位于北京的西北远郊。

6 astounding   

adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词)

参考例句：

• There was an astounding 20% increase in sales. 销售量惊人地增加了20%。
• The Chairman's remarks were so astounding that the audience listened to him with bated breath. 主席说的话令人吃惊，所以听众都屏息听他说。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

8 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

9 waddling   

v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Rhinoceros Give me a break, were been waddling every day. 犀牛甲：饶了我吧，我们晃了一整天了都。 来自互联网
• A short plump woman came waddling along the pavement. 有个矮胖女子一摇一摆地沿人行道走来。 来自互联网

10 waddled   

v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• A family of ducks waddled along the river bank. 一群鸭子沿河岸摇摇摆摆地走。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The stout old man waddled across the road. 那肥胖的老人一跩一跩地穿过马路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 parasites   

寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫

参考例句：

• These symptoms may be referable to virus infection rather than parasites. 这些症状也许是由病毒感染引起的，而与寄生虫无关。
• Kangaroos harbor a vast range of parasites. 袋鼠身上有各种各样的寄生虫。

12 suffused   

v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her face was suffused with colour. 她满脸通红。
• Her eyes were suffused with warm, excited tears. 她激动地热泪盈眶。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

13 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

14 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

15 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

16 stodgy   

adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的

参考例句：

• It wasn't easy to lose puppy fat when Mum fed her on stodgy home cooking.母亲给她吃易饱的家常菜，她想减掉婴儿肥可是很难。
• The gateman was a stodgy fellow of 60.看门人是个六十岁的矮胖子。