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  3. There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearl

There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearl

admin2015-04-10  71
问题     There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly. The following principles state what most of us know and at times forget.
1. Use the active voice
    The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive. This rule does not, of course, mean that the writer should discard the passive voice, which is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary. The habitual use of the active voice makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind.
2. Put statements in positive form
    Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, noncommittal languages. Use the word not as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion. Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; he wishes to be told what is. Hence, as a rule, it is better to express even a negative in positive form.
3. Use definite, specific, concrete language
    Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract. If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers—Home, Dante, Shakespeare—are effective largely because they deal in particular and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.
4. Omit needless words
    Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
5. Use figures of speech sparingly
    The simile is a common device and a useful one, but similes coming in rapid fire, one right on top of another, are more detracting than illuminating.
    Style is an increment in writing. When we speak of Fitzgerald’s style, we don’t mean his command of the relative pronoun, we mean the sound his words make on paper. Every writer, by the way he uses the language, reveals something of his spirit, his habit, his capacities, his bias. This is inevitable as well as enjoyable. All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation—it is self escaping into the open. No writer long remains incognito. Style takes its final shape more from attitudes of mind than from principles of composition. What a man is, rather than what he knows, will at last determine his style. If one is to write, one must believe in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message.
[A]For instance, instead of saying he was not satisfied with the result, it is better to say he was dissatisfied with the result.
[B]Many a tame sentences of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as there is or could be heard.
[C]The reader needs time to catch his breath; he can’t be expected to compare everything with something else, and no relief in sight.
[D]When you become hopelessly mired in a sentence, it is best to start fresh; the sentence needs to be broken apart and replaced by two or more shorter sentences.
[E]In exposition and in argument, the writer must likewise never lose his hold upon the concrete; and even when he is dealing with general principles, he must furnish particular instances of their application.
[F]Many expressions in common use violate this principle, such as the question as to whether and there is no doubt but that.
选项
答案A
解析
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