如果你的目标是写小说，应该看原版The Elements of Style （免费下载）：

http://www.jlakes.org/ch/web/The-elements-of-style.pdf

为了“完整”性，我们继续用The Elements of Style 。不喜欢看英文原著的，凑合着看我的注解。

（有时，我会用Google Translate。GT现在还不成熟，你不要拿它当回事。）

III
  A Few Matters of Form 

第三部分有点“杂”。我只挑几个科技英语写作可能会用到带东东。

Hyphen. When two or more words are combined to form a compound adjective, a hyphen is usually required. 

注解：两个词（或n个词）合起来作为形容词时，这两个词需要“手拉手”（用“－”连接）。

He belonged to the leisure class and enjoyed leisure-class pursuits. （这里的leisure-class是形容词。）

She entered her boat in the round-the-island race. （这里的round-the-island是形容词。）

Do not use a hyphen between words that can better be written as one word: water-fowl, waterfowl. 

注解：有时，两个词已经“合二为一”了，就不要“硬插一杠”：water-fowl成为waterfowl。另外一个例子是sea water （两个词）。如果用为形容词，是seawater density （seawater是一个词）。

Common sense will aid you in the decision, but a dictionary is more reliable. 

注解：原作者认为“用pp想一下就知道该不该 “合”，我不同意。原作者也觉得查字典更加靠谱。我觉得不一定能找到。

The steady evolution of the language seems to favor union: two words eventually become one, usually after a period of hyphenation. 

wild life


wild-life

wildlife

注解：从“历史潮流”来看，应该是“合”。比方说，wildlife 。

The hyphen can play tricks on the unwary, as it did in Chattanooga when two newspapers merged —the News and the Free Press. Someone introduced a hyphen into the merger, and the paper became The Chattanooga News-Free Press, which sounds as though the paper were news-free, or devoid of news. Obviously, we ask too much of a hyphen when we ask it to cast its spell over words it does not adjoin. 

注解：有时候，“合”不好，会闹笑话。看看你会不会觉得上面的例子“很搞笑“？

Numerals. Do not spell out dates or other serial numbers. Write them in figures or in Roman notation, as appropriate. 

注解：日期和一些“序列号”不用“英文”表达。比如：

August 9, 1988 

Part XII 

Rule 3 

Exception: When they occur in dialogue, most dates and numbers are best spelled out. 

注解：但是，但是，在对话中，最好如下：

"I arrived home on August ninth."


"In the year 1990, I turned twenty-one."


"Read Chapter Twelve." 

注解：我觉得时代在变。这些规矩也会变。

Parentheses. A sentence containing an expression in parentheses is punctuated outside the last mark of parenthesis exactly as if the parenthetical expression were absent. The expression within the marks is punctuated as if it stood by itself, except that the final stop is omitted unless it is a question mark or an exclamation point.

注解：括号里面的东西，你可以“当它不存在”。

I went to her house yesterday (my third attempt to see her), but she had left town. （拿掉括号和里面的词，句子一样顺。）

He declares (and why should we doubt his good faith?) that he is now certain of success. （如果括号里面的内容带问号和感叹号，不能省略。句号则必须省略，见第一个例子。）

(When a wholly detached expression or sentence is parenthesized, the final stop comes before the last mark of parenthesis.)


注解：如果整句话都在括号里，句号也在括号里，不能省略。

［科技英语写作基础（系列）：大纲（1）

http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=306792&do=blog&id=1146690

科技英语写作基础（系列）：大纲（2）

http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=306792&do=blog&id=1146716］

1.    语态（1）

2.    常用时态

3.    一些标点符号“规则”（句号、逗号，参考The Elements of StylePart I）

4.    一些语法“规则”（主语、谓语的一致性、变化多端的代词、分词短语的主人，参考The Elements of Style Part I）

5.    一些基本的写作“原则”（文章结构、段落、语态、简洁性等，参考The Elements of Style）

6.    修改、修改、再修改［简洁为上, see Chapter 7 Concision by Joseph／三种修饰语＋两种“问题修饰语”，即悬空修饰语（p161）、错位修饰语／, see Chapter 8 Length by Joseph／逻辑性／一致性］

请大家多提意见。