原因和清晰 (Part II)
Highlights from Chapters 1&2 <<Stype – Toward Clarity and Grace>> by Joseph Williams
11.
Useful Nominalizations
(1) The nominalization is a subject referring to a previous sentence. These nominalizations let us link sentences into a more cohesive flow.
(2) The nominalization names what would be the object of its verb.
(3) A succinct nominalization can replace an awkward “The fact that”.
(4) Some nominalizations refer to an often repeated concept.
(5) We often use a nominalization after “there is/are” to introduce a topic that we develop in subsequent sentences.
(6) And sometimes our topic seems so abstract that we think we can write about it only in nominalizations.
12.
Passives and Agents
In addition to avoiding abstract nominalizations, you can make your style more direct if you also avoid unnecessary passive verbs.
We can usually make our style more vigorous and direct if we avoid both nominalizations and unnecessary passive verbs.
Active sentences encourage us to name the specific agent of an action and avoid a few extra words with a form of “be” and, when we preserve the Agent of the action, the preposition “by”.
13.
When we combine passives with nominalizations, we create that wretched prose we call legalese, sociologicalese, educationalese, bureaucratese all of the -eses of those who confuse authority and objectivity with polysyllabic abstraction and remote impersonality.
14.
Choosing between Active and Passive
To choose between the active and the passive, we have to answer two questions: First, must our audience know who is performing the action? Second, are we maintaining a logically consistent string of subjects? And third, if the string of subjects is consistent, is it the right string of subjects?
The second consideration is more complex: it is whether the subjects in a sequence of sentences are consistent.
If in a series of passive sentences, you find yourself shifting from one unrelated subject to another, try rewriting those sentences in the active voice. Use the beginning of your sentence to orient your reader to what follows.
15.
Metadiscourse
The writers are referring to their acts of writing or arguing, and are using what we shall call metadiscourse.
Metadiscourse is the language we use when, in writing about some subject matter, we incidentally refer to the act and to the context of writing about it.
We use metadiscourse verbs to announce that in what follows we will explain, show, argue, claim, deny, describe, suggest, contrast, add, expand, summarize. We use metadiscourse to list the parts or steps in our presentation: first, second, third, finally; to express our logical connections: infer, support, prove, illustrate, therefore, in conclusion, however, on the other hand.
We hedge how certain we are by writing it seems that, perhaps, I believe, probably, etc.
Scholarly writers use the first person in introductions to announce their intentions in metadiscourse: We claim that, We shall show, We begin by examining. If writers use metadiscourse at the beginning of a piece, they often use it again at the end, when they review what they have done: We have suggested, I have shown that, We have, however, not claimed.
16.
Noun + Noun + Noun
Whenever you find in your writing a string of nouns that you have never read before and that you probably will not use again, try disassembling them.
Start from the last and reverse their order, even linking them with prepositional phrases, if necessary.
If one of the nouns is a nominalization, change it into a verb.
17.
Summing Up
(1) Express actions and conditions in specific verbs, adverbs, or adjectives:
(2) When appropriate, make the subjects of your verbs characters involved in those actions.