写作方法2022pudding.cool编辑精选
是什么让文字更易读？
What makes writing more readable?
导读
这篇文章讨论如何让写作更易读，并用“简化版/可读版”的改写示例展示可读性技巧；评论则提醒，过度简化可能损失精确信息和因果关系。值得写作者读，因为可读性不是一味删词，而是在受众、信息密度和清晰度之间做权衡。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把段落控制在2到3句，段首用一句直截了当的话概括本段，后续句子负责支撑。
- 02
用单句成段强调重点，并用小标题、列表、引语、图片等打破长篇文字或图片带来的单调。
- 03
简化时保留读者熟悉的固定表达和关键限定词，不要为了短而牺牲精确性、程度和因果。
- 04
先明确读者和写作目的：面对严肃议题时，具体数字和术语往往比泛化通俗表达更清晰。
HN 评论精选
实用简化策略包括短段落、总结句开头、单句强调、控制限定词和混合版式，但不要教条化。
这些建议核心是简化，确实不错。尤其在技术和文档写作中，我养成了几个每次写作都会用的习惯：段落尽量限制在2到3句；段首先用一句直白的话概括本段；用单句短段强调重点；少用不必要的限定词和形容词；用列表、标题、引语、图片等打破版式单调。但这些只是目标，有时长段落也正合适；有趣的语言或恰到好处的玩笑能给读者休息；内容的呈现方式也很重要。
zschuessler查看英文原文
These tips were centered around simplification, and they are good tips. For documentation and technical writing in particular, I picked up a few mannerisms that I now use every time I write. The biggest impact has been to have a goal of limiting a paragraph to 2-3 sentences. From this goal my other writing traits came naturally. When starting a paragraph, start off with a blunt statement that summarizes the paragraph. Following sentences can back up the summary sentence. Use a short single-sentence paragraph to make an emphatic point. Do word qualifiers add to your content? Many times not. Humans add qualifiers and adjectives more than what's necessary to understand a concept. Readers get bored with monotony. If there's a wall of text, that's boring. If there's a wall of images, that's boring too. I try to break up a document into different types of formatting. Lists, headings, quotes, and image/content sections to make things visually appealing. These are only goals! Sometimes a big honkin' paragraph is just what the doctor ordered. Fun language or a well-timed joke keeps things interesting. They can give the reader a well-deserved break. Like the big honkin' paragraph usage above. Lastly, the presentation of the content is important. Medium got their content width, font size, and colors down well. GitHub did a great job, too. I learned to do this when a publisher took red ink to a tutorial I wrote. They gave me the goal of shortening all paragraphs to 2-3 sentences. It was tough at first but now I'm a fan. It's a fun writing exercise :-)
简化可能制造同形歧义并丢失程度信息；可读性改写要警惕语义损失。
“写作就是思考。写得好就是思考得清楚，所以它才这么难。”我同意文章的前提，但文中一些改写会丢失重要信息或引入混淆。最明显的例子是把“她手部强烈的震颤使她无法使用美国手语”改成“她的手抖，所以她不打手语”。原句里“震颤”不常见，但改写后的“hand shakes”会让人联想到“handshake（握手）”，造成停顿；而且原句强调的是震颤程度使她无法使用手语，改写把这个程度丢失了。可读性改写很难，我们仍应重视无障碍表达。
scythmic_waves查看英文原文
"Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard." - David McCullough I agree with many of the other posts here. Some of the translations highlighted in the article seem to either lose important information or introduce confusing information. The most striking example for me was the translation from > A strong tremor in her hand makes it impossible for her to use American Sign Language. to > Her hand shakes so she does not do sign language. I agree that "tremor" is an uncommon word and some of the adjectives like "strong", "impossible", and "American" are either superfluous or not strictly necessary. But in the translation, the phrase "hand shakes" coincides with an unrelated but very common thing: a "handshake". This gave me a slight pause when reading. And it's not like it's impossible to do sign language with shaky hands. In this case, it's the degree with which Kyra's hands shake that keeps her from doing sign language, something that is lost in the translation. All this said, I want to stress that I agree with the premise of the article. We should value accessibility, and writing style is yet another vector that can exclude people. Quibbles about specific sentences shouldn't distract us from that. If anything, they and the lack of an effective algorithm to do this highlight how difficult the task is and probably always will be. Writing well is really, really hard. And the diversity of the audience for this kind of writing I think compounds that. In fact, I might argue that writing plainly is harder. I think scientific/academic writing can often be considered lazy because it doesn't take the time to consider the audience. This isn't always true, but I think I'm not alone in having slogged through a paper or an article that could have used an editor. But it didn't get sufficient editing because, and again I stress, writing well is really, really hard.
把术语换成日常词可能增加歧义和推理负担，固定表达和显式因果有时反而更易读。
“更易读”的文本有些改进，也有明显退步。“Born premature（早产）”是固定说法，读者一看就懂；“born early”不是固定表达，可能要猜是“清晨出生”“提前出生”还是“早产”。“出生时非常小”还算可读，但读者要花力气排除“作者只是在说婴儿都很小”的可能。“她有视力困难”不如原句明确，因为早产与健康困难之间的因果链不再显式，读者需要自行推断，增加了心智负担。
rogual查看英文原文
There are some improvements in the "more readable" text, but also some noticeable regressions: "Born premature" is an established turn of phrase. You read it, you know exactly what is meant. "Born early" is not an established phrase. You have to think about it more. It could mean "born early in the morning" or "born before her time" or "born prematurely". You can figure it out, it's not rocket science, but it's a little papercut of having to expend some effort. You have to think and pick the most likely meaning. "Very small when she was born" is readable enough, though you do have to spend a bit of effort discarding the possibility that the author is simply drawing attention to the fact that babies are small to set up some future point. "She has trouble seeing" is not as clear as the original "...which has impacted [...] eyesight". True, "impacted" is unwieldy and could be improved, but the causal link between the premature birth and the health difficulties is no longer explicit and must now be inferred, taking more mental effort from the reader.
先确定读者和目的；在严肃议题中，具体数字和术语能更准确地传达严重性与因果。
写作最重要的是知道读者是谁。考虑到原 ProPublica 文章是在讲亚利桑那州没有帮助残疾儿童，原段落更合适，因为它简洁清楚地说明了 Kyra 问题的严重性。“ profound deaf（深度耳聋）”有特定含义，能传达残疾的严重程度；“27周”比“出生早”有用得多，因为36周后出生通常问题不大，而27周非常早、并发症风险高，需要先进的新生儿重症监护；“2磅”对婴儿来说非常小（平均约7磅）。另外，“震颤”加“无法”比“抖动”更能传达严重的医疗问题；简化版还会让人搞不清她不打手语是因为偏好还是不能。
jbandela1查看英文原文
> Kyra is autistic and profoundly deaf. She was born premature at about 27 weeks, just a little over 2 pounds, which has impacted pretty much everything: eyesight, hearing, digestion, sleep patterns. A strong tremor in her hand makes it impossible for her to use American Sign Language. Her parents think she recognizes a couple dozen signs. The most important thing when writing is to know your audience. Given the goal the original ProPublica article (talking about how the the state of Arizona is not helping disabled children) the original paragraph is preferable because it succinctly and clearly communicates how serious Kyra’s problem is. In the first sentence, “profoundly deaf” has a specific meaning and conveys the seriousness of the disability. Similarly, 27 weeks is a lot more helpful than “born early”. Many children are born before 40 weeks (early) and generally anything after 36 weeks (after the lungs have developed) is pretty uncomplicated. However, 27 weeks is very early and has a high complication rate and requires state of the art neonatal intensive care. In addition, 2 pounds is very small for a baby(average is around 7 pounds) and again requires a lot of high tech medical care just to survive until what would be full term. In addition the words “tremor” combined with “impossible” conveys the severe medical nature of the problem more so than “shaking”. In addition, with the simple version, it is ambiguous whether using sign language is because of preference (self-conscious) or because it is impossible. Again consider the goals of the original article. It is to point out the injustice that a child with a severe medical problem is not getting the care and help she requires and deserves. The original wording does a much better job of making this case. The most important thing in writing is knowing your audience and your goal.
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