On Writing Well, Chap 1&2, Day1

Words & Phrases

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1. reign 

vi. ①为王 

②(be the best)独占鳌头(among pianists, she still reigns supreme在众多钢琴演奏家当中，她仍然是最杰出的)

③占上风、盛行(peace reigns in the house房子里一片宁静) (chaos and confusion reigned充斥着混乱与迷茫)

n. ①(periodasmonarch)君主统治时期 ②(periodof power,influence)当政期

White was the reigning champ of the arena I was trying to enter.

reigning champ 本届当届的冠军

2. paralyse 瘫痪 使瘫痪

The bad news is that most of them are paralyzed by the size of the task.

大多数都因为任务量太大而搁浅了

3. confront vt. 面对 

to confront the truth面对事实

the cases that confront lawyers律师们面临的案子

confront是双向的

They are the same decisions that confront every writer going in search of his or her past.

4. saturate vt. 将浸透，使充满，使饱和

Bloggers are saturating the globe.

全球的博主越来越多

5. catch (a hidden problem or disadvantage in an apparently ideal situation)

On one level the new torrent is good news. Any invention that reduces the fear of writing is up there with air-conditioning and the lightbulb. But, as always, there’s a catch. Nobody told all the new computer writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they’re writing fluently doesn’t mean they’re writing well.

一方面有好处，一方面有坏处 on the one hand, on the other hand

6. impromptu (The adjective impromptu describes things done or said without previous thought or preparation.)

E-mail is an impromptu medium, not conducive to slowing down or looking back.

可以理解为email是一种即时通讯

7. keep pace with (并驾齐驱；赶上；跟上)

I’ve revised it six times to keep pace with new social trends.

It won’t do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought.

Thoughts

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introduction中作者先由一张E. B. White.在家中写作的照片引入，进而阐述了“尽管这几十年科技发展迅速，写作方式也越来越简单，但是写作的基本原则一直没有改变”的观点。然后讲了On Writing Well这本书的迭代历史。

chapter1中作者用他和Dr. Brock在一堂写作分享课上的不同回答，表明了他的观点。他认为写作是困难的，是孤独的，并且很多写作是很不顺畅的——文字并不会自己流露出来。作者认为，nofiction作家在写作中应该追求humanity and warmth

chapter2中作者说

But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

也就是句子应该简洁明了，没必要的结构部件应该删减干净。simplicity是写作中一直需要注意的问题，就要像杜甫写诗一样，要让刚刚进入这个领域的人也看懂。

Clear thinking becomes clear writing

为了达到这样的写作目的，必须要有一个清楚的思想。

今天看完这两章，回去删减了刚刚写完的paper。真的是删减了一大堆重复没有必要的东西，把一大坨的长句换成了结构清晰的短句。