VOA慢速英语2014 专家分享学校论文写作技巧

 

Experts Share Tips for Writing School Papers 专家分享学校论文写作技巧

From VOA Learning¹ English, this is the Education Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。

Many secondary² 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.

很多中学或大学学生已经回到学校上课，或者说很快就会。而且你们中的一些学生告诉我们你们很担心学校的论文写作。我们知道写论文很难——甚至有点可怕，尤其是在如果你不用你的第一语言来写的情况下。

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.

所以我们要美国的一些写作专家寻求建议。我们会时常的将其作为教育报道的一部分，我们将会用他们自己的话来和你们分享一些他们的建议。

Today we hear from Mary Ann Allison, a professor in the journalism³, 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.

今天我们收到玛丽安·艾莉森教授的来信，她是纽约霍夫斯特福大学新闻部、媒体研究部和外联部的教授。她也是一名诗人和一位作家。她说学校的论文写作往往是最困难的部分。

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

“玛丽安·艾莉森，假设这位老师或教授让你在一个给定的领域选择一个题目，一个主题。”

“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，我有几个想法。首先，如果你有任何可选择的主题，那就是写一些你真正感兴趣的东西，因为你越感兴趣，自然而然的，你写的就越好，写的就越容易。”

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

“在你找到了一个你想写的主题之后，接下来要干什么呢?”

“Once you’ve decided⁴ 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.”

“一旦你决定好写什么，那么另一个要考虑的问题就是你可以找到多少信息。所以，通常如果我开始写东西，我考虑一个话题，会先花10到15分钟来看看是否有足够的信息来让我能够轻松的研究和写出我想写的东西。如果没有，那我可能会选择写别的东西。所以我所说的这两件事，是让你来平衡你的兴趣和信息的可得性。然后接下来要做的就是，写出一个粗略的提纲。”

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

“提纲，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.”

“所以当我坐下来，可能不是坐在我的书桌旁，也不是我的电脑旁，可能会在一个咖啡厅，或者喝着一杯咖啡。我只是想想，想到这个话题，我该对一个朋友说写什么?然后无论想到任何东西，我只是写下简短的笔记。关于这个话题，我会对一位朋友说些什么，或者关于这个话题我还想知道些什么?那什么时候停止呢，哦，我不知道，写了5到10点之后吧，我会停止。”

“Then, do you start to write?”

“然后，你要开始写了吗?”

“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，我会等待一整天，所以我会把问题留到第二天解决，因为你的大脑在你睡觉的时候，会继续想，继续工作。然后我用这些笔记来做一个提纲，然后我会再次检查提纲里有多少信息，关于这所有论点的信息都好找吗?如果都好找，那么我可能将会开始写作。”

“So a lot of your preparation is preparation?”

“所以你所做的很多准备是准备吗?”

“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."

“这是准备，这是在做准备，但是这也是让你的潜意识为自己做很多工作。因为如果你现在坐下来，试着去写，你就没有给你的潜意识任何时间来组织语言和汇集其他想法。”

“Is it time to write yet?”

“是时候写了吗?”

“So do some research, which gives your subconscious⁵ 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，这将会给你的潜意识一些思考的东西。对吧?然后让大脑休息一晚上，通常在第二天，你会发现，它变得越来越容易。而且，你休息的越多，将会变得越容易写。”

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

这就是本期的美国之音慢速英语教育报道，我是杰瑞·沃森。

1 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。

2 secondary   

adj.中级的，中等的，次要的；n.次要位置，副手

参考例句：

• It's a question of secondary importance.这是个次要的问题。
• Secondary school means junior school and high school.中学是指初中和高中。

3 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 subconscious   

n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的)

参考例句：

• Nail biting is often a subconscious reaction to tension.咬指甲通常是紧张时的下意识反映。
• My answer seemed to come from the subconscious.我的回答似乎出自下意识。