写作方法2021sci-hub.do
关于学术写作：一份个人笔记（2016）
On academic writing: a personal note (2016)
导读
这条讨论围绕学术写作的坏文风展开：术语堆砌、把简单的事说复杂，往往掩盖了洞见的缺失。评论里既有费曼把社会学句子翻译成"人读书"的经典笑话，也有研究生导师"你的字是要花钱的"的忠告，还有从新闻写作转来的人对"学术写作要重复要点"的体会。对写作者来说，这是一份关于简洁、读者意识和自欺的清醒提醒。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
用费曼式翻译法自查：把每个句子翻成大白话，如果翻不出来或者越翻越长，说明这句话在遮掩空话。
- 02
"你的字是要花钱的"，删掉不必要的词；但在学术写作里，重要观点要在不同章节以简单的方式重复，因为读者是跳读的。
- 03
假设每个小节会被孤立地读到，让段落能脱离上下文独立成立，不要依赖前文的唯一一次交代。
- 04
把复杂说简单是本事，用语言把简单说复杂只是在装聪明；坏文风常常是缺乏洞见的掩护。
HN 评论精选
用极端例子展示学术术语如何把一句话能说清的事包装成冗长行话。
费曼读社会学论文时随手停下，仔细读下一句，大意是"社会共同体的个体成员常通过视觉、符号渠道接收信息"。他来回琢磨并翻译了一遍——意思是："人读书。"
sampo查看英文原文
Feynman on reading a sociology paper: > So I stopped – at random – and read the next sentence very carefully. I can’t remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: “The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” I went back and forth over it, and translated. You know what it means? “People read.” https://thedetectiveshandbook.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/feynman-on-sociology/ This is part of a story in the book (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!) and from the book I understand it happened in the 1950s.
学术读者会跳读，重要观点要在不同章节以简单的方式重复，而不只是交代一次。
我的研究生导师说"你的字是要花钱的"——我辩解说某点在前文说过一次，他认为那不算说过。我受的是新闻写作训练，习惯直白行文、删掉冗词、找最简单的说法；这在学术写作里仍有用，但现在我会在全文中重复重要的意思。读者读论文不像读新闻，他们希望每个部分能被相对独立地阅读。重要的东西就重复，但要简单地重复。
scott_s查看英文原文
"Your words are expensive." Said to me by my graduate advisor when he said I had not stated something, and I pointed out I had, once, in an earlier section. My writing style, even my academic writing style, is a result of how I was trained as a writer: as a journalist, from spending so much time on my high school newspaper. I have long felt this was an advantage. I was trained as a writer to write straight-forward prose. And I was trained as an editor to eliminate unnecessary words and try to find the simplest way to say something. My advisor was right, of course. Academic writing is not journalistic writing. I still try to keep my prose as simple as possible, but now I will repeat important sentiments throughout the paper. People don't read academic papers the same as news stories; readers expect to be able to read sections in relative isolation. If something is important, repeat it! But repeat it simply.
冗长晦涩常常不是深度，而是没有内容可说的遮羞布。
离开人文学科研究生项目前不久，我得出另一个结论：糟糕的文风是在掩盖洞见的缺失。没什么可说的时候，就多说废话。此后十五年里我看到的一切都没让我改变这个看法。
karaterobot查看英文原文
> why is it that a profession so fundamentally involved in the business of writing ... pays so little attention to this aspect of its work? I came to a different conclusion shortly before leaving my humanities graduate program: that the bad writing was covering for an absence of valuable insight. If you don't have anything to say, say a lot of bullshit. Nothing I've seen about the field in the last 15 years has made me reconsider that position.
文风的两种方向：制造复杂 vs. 化繁为简。
想显得聪明的人，用语言把简单的事变复杂；真正聪明的人，用语言把复杂的事变简单。
m12k查看英文原文
People who want to be clever use language to make simple things complicated. People who are clever use language to make complicated things simple.
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