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[转载]10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly 杜克大学教授:提高学术写作水平的10条建议!

已有 3396 次阅读 2021-3-5 11:02 |个人分类:论文写作|系统分类:论文交流|文章来源:转载

10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly
By Michael C. Munger

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Most academics, including administrators, spend much of our time writing. But we aren't as good at it as we should be. I have never understood why our trade values, but rarely teaches, nonfiction writing.

In my nearly 30 years at universities, I have seen a lot of very talented people fail because they couldn't, or didn't, write. And some much less talented people (I see one in the mirror every morning) have done OK because they learned how to write.

It starts in graduate school. There is a real transformation, approaching an inversion, as people switch from taking courses to writing. Many of the graduate students who were stars in the classroom during the first two years—the people everyone admired and looked up to—suddenly aren't so stellar anymore. And a few of the marginal students—the ones who didn't care that much about pleasing the professors by reading every page of every assignment—are suddenly sending their own papers off to journals, getting published, and transforming themselves into professional scholars.

The difference is not complicated. It's writing.

Rachel Toor and other writers on these pages have talked about how hard it is to write well, and of course that's true. Fortunately, the standards of writing in most disciplines are so low that you don't need to write well. What I have tried to produce below are 10 tips on scholarly nonfiction writing that might help people write less badly.

1. Writing is an exercise. You get better and faster with practice. If you were going to run a marathon a year from now, would you wait for months and then run 26 miles cold? No, you would build up slowly, running most days. You might start on the flats and work up to more demanding and difficult terrain. To become a writer, write. Don't wait for that book manuscript or that monster external-review report to work on your writing.

2. Set goals based on output, not input. "I will work for three hours" is a delusion; "I will type three double-spaced pages" is a goal. After you write three pages, do something else. Prepare for class, teach, go to meetings, whatever. If later in the day you feel like writing some more, great. But if you don't, then at least you wrote something.

3. Find a voice; don't just "get published." James Buchanan won a Nobel in economics in 1986. One of the questions he asks job candidates is: "What are you writing that will be read 10 years from now? What about 100 years from now?" Someone once asked me that question, and it is pretty intimidating. And embarrassing, because most of us don't think that way. We focus on "getting published" as if it had nothing to do with writing about ideas or arguments. Paradoxically, if all you are trying to do is "get published," you may not publish very much. It's easier to write when you're interested in what you're writing about.

4. Give yourself time. Many smart people tell themselves pathetic lies like, "I do my best work at the last minute." Look: It's not true. No one works better under pressure. Sure, you are a smart person. But if you are writing about a profound problem, why would you think that you can make an important contribution off the top of your head in the middle of the night just before the conference?

Writers sit at their desks for hours, wrestling with ideas. They ask questions, talk with other smart people over drinks or dinner, go on long walks. And then write a whole bunch more. Don't worry that what you write is not very good and isn't immediately usable. You get ideas when you write; you don't just write down ideas.

The articles and books that will be read decades from now were written by men and women sitting at a desk and forcing themselves to translate profound ideas into words and then to let those words lead them to even more ideas. Writing can be magic, if you give yourself time, because you can produce in the mind of some other person, distant from you in space or even time, an image of the ideas that exist in only your mind at this one instant.

5. Everyone's unwritten work is brilliant. And the more unwritten it is, the more brilliant it is. We have all met those glib, intimidating graduate students or faculty members. They are at their most dangerous holding a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, in some bar or at an office party. They have all the answers. They can tell you just what they will write about, and how great it will be.

Years pass, and they still have the same pat, 200-word answer to "What are you working on?" It never changes, because they are not actually working on anything, except that one little act.

You, on the other hand, actually are working on something, and it keeps evolving. You don't like the section you just finished, and you are not sure what will happen next. When someone asks, "What are you working on?," you stumble, because it is hard to explain. The smug guy with the beer and the cigarette? He's a poseur and never actually writes anything. So he can practice his pat little answer endlessly, through hundreds of beers and thousands of cigarettes. Don't be fooled: You are the winner here. When you are actually writing, and working as hard as you should be if you want to succeed, you will feel inadequate, stupid, and tired. If you don't feel like that, then you aren't working hard enough.

6. Pick a puzzle. Portray, or even conceive, of your work as an answer to a puzzle. There are many interesting types of puzzles:

"X and Y start with same assumptions but reach opposing conclusions. How?"
"Here are three problems that all seem different. Surprisingly, all are the same problem, in disguise. I'll tell you why."
"Theory predicts [something]. But we observe [something else]. Is the theory wrong, or is there some other factor we have left out?"
Don't stick too closely to those formulas, but they are helpful in presenting your work to an audience, whether that audience is composed of listeners at a lecture or readers of an article.

7. Write, then squeeze the other things in. Put your writing ahead of your other work. I happen to be a "morning person," so I write early in the day. Then I spend the rest of my day teaching, having meetings, or doing paperwork. You may be a "night person" or something in between. Just make sure you get in the habit of reserving your most productive time for writing. Don't do it as an afterthought or tell yourself you will write when you get a big block of time. Squeeze the other things in; the writing comes first.

8. Not all of your thoughts are profound. Many people get frustrated because they can't get an analytical purchase on the big questions that interest them. Then they don't write at all. So start small. The wonderful thing is that you may find that you have traveled quite a long way up a mountain, just by keeping your head down and putting one writing foot ahead of the other for a long time. It is hard to refine your questions, define your terms precisely, or know just how your argument will work until you have actually written it all down.

9. Your most profound thoughts are often wrong. Or, at least, they are not completely correct. Precision in asking your question, or posing your puzzle, will not come easily if the question is hard.

I always laugh to myself when new graduate students think they know what they want to work on and what they will write about for their dissertations. Nearly all of the best scholars are profoundly changed by their experiences in doing research and writing about it. They learn by doing, and sometimes what they learn is that they were wrong.

10. Edit your work, over and over. Have other people look at it. One of the great advantages of academe is that we are mostly all in this together, and we all know the terrors of that blinking cursor on a blank background. Exchange papers with peers or a mentor, and when you are sick of your own writing, reciprocate by reading their work. You need to get over a fear of criticism or rejection. Nobody's first drafts are good. The difference between a successful scholar and a failure need not be better writing. It is often more editing.

If you have trouble writing, then you just haven't written enough. Writing lots of pages has always been pretty easy for me. I could never get a job being only a writer, though, because I still don't write well. But by thinking about these tips, and trying to follow them myself, I have gotten to the point where I can make writing work for me and my career.

Michael C. Munger is chairman of political science at Duke University, a position he has held since 2000.

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本文作者迈克尔·芒格2000年起担任杜克大学政治学系主任,著有《政策分析:选择、冲突和实践》《解析政治学》等作品。文章载于《高等教育纪事报》,原标题10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly,吴万伟/译



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在大学工作的近30年中,我看到很多有才华的人因为不能写作或者没有写作而失败了。而有些能力平平的人(每天早上,我都能从镜子中看到这个人)就因为掌握了写作技能在学界混得还算不错。

这开始于研究生院。从那时起,你要从上课转变为写作,开始几乎正好相反的转型。许多研究生在前两年上课期间是人人都羡慕和高看的明星,但突然间他们发现自己不再是主角了。

相反,那些不在乎通过认真阅读参考书目中的每一页书来讨好教授的不起眼的学生突然给刊物投稿而且发表了,实现了从学生到专业学者的转变。

其实,差别并不复杂,就是因为写作水平。

瑞切尔•托尔(Rachel Toor)和本刊其他作家都谈过写一手好文章是多么艰难,确实如此。幸运的是,很多学科写文章的标准非常低,你根本不需要写得很好。

下面,我提出学术文章写作的10条建议,它们或许能帮助人们写得稍微好一些。

1.写作是一种功夫,需要日积月累

熟能生巧、巧能致精,写作也是越写越有心得、越写越有信心。

假如你一年后要跑马拉松,你会等到几个月后才突然一下子跑完26英里吗?当然不会,你会天天坚持跑步,慢慢加量。你或许可以先在平路上练习,然后随着水平的提高,慢慢在难度更大的路面上疾跑。

要想写好文章,多写是唯一必经之路。你不能指望等到要出书或编写砖头厚的外部评审报告时才开始练习写作。

2.制定以产出导向的目标,而不是以投入导向的目标

“我要努力写作三小时”这样的豪言壮语是一种错觉,而“我要敲打出三页双倍行距的文字”才是实实在在的目标。完成这三页纸的目标后,停下来去做点儿别的事情。

备课、授课、开会,干什么都行。如果晚些时候你还有写作的感觉,好极了。如果你没感觉,那么你今天也不是没有收获的,至少你留下了一些文字。

3.寻找发自内心的声音,不要为出版而写作

詹姆斯·布坎南是1986年诺贝尔经济学奖的得主。他在面试求职者时会问的一个问题是:“你写的东西里有什么是10年后还有人读的吗?100年后呢?”有人曾问过我这个问题,问的我心里怕怕的。而且这个问题也让人感到很惭愧,因为我们多数人都不会这样想这个问题。

我们关心的是“发表”论文,至于写的东西是不是有思想或是不是能够启迪读者思考好像不在考虑范围。矛盾的是,如果你想得只是“发表”,你可能反而发表不了什么东西。如果你写的东西正是你感兴趣的课题,那么写作往往就变得容易了。

4.写作需要时间

许多聪明人会给自己找理由,这些理由是自欺欺人的谎言。比如,“我在临交稿前写得最快最好”。请注意:这完全是不真实的。谁也不能在压力下有更好的表现。毋庸置疑,你聪颖过人。

但如果要阐述一个艰深的课题,你凭什么认为可以在临开会的前一天晚上的大半夜里,脑袋里能凭空蹦出智慧的火花,做出重要的贡献?

写文章的人往往在书桌前一坐就是数小时,不停琢磨各种想法。他们会向别人提出各种问题,会在品茶或吃饭时也要与其他有见解的人切磋意见,会一边漫步一边思考。有想法后,再坐下来写上一大段。

不要担心你写出来的东西不够好,或者不能即刻用得上。你在写文章的时候会产生新的灵感;而你所做的也并不是仅仅去记录下各种想法。

那些几十年后仍然有人读的文章和书籍都是坐在书桌前辛勤思考,强迫自己把深刻的思想转变成文字的作者写出来的;然后,他们会再让这些文字引导自己迸发出更多的灵感。如果你给自己足够的时间,写作就会像魔术一样,在遥远时空的另外一个人的脑海中生动地把此时此刻存在自己脑海中的想法刻画出来。

5.写作锋芒来自磨砺,而不是吹嘘

每个人的作品在落笔完成之前都是精彩无限的。而且,越是未落在字面上越精彩。我们都遇见过那些口若悬河、咄咄逼人的研究生或者老师。他们在酒吧或者聚会上一手拿着啤酒、一手拿着香烟,让人倍感敬畏。他们简直无所不知。他们会告诉你他们即将着笔的作品会多么不同凡响。

时光飞逝,对于“你在写什么?”的问题,多年后他们的回答仍然是那个听过多少遍的200字的回答。这个样子从未改变,因为他们除了吹嘘,从未专心做过任何实实在在的工作。

如果是另一种情况,你在努力写东西,而你的作品不断在发展变化。你不喜欢自己刚刚写完的部分,而且你也不确定接下来将发生什么。当有人问“你在写什么?”时,你会为之语塞,因为你不知道怎么去解释。

那个拿着啤酒和香烟的踌躇满志的家伙呢?他只是装腔作势,实际上从来不写任何东西。他的回答是脱口而出,那是在消耗数百瓶啤酒和数千支香烟过程中不断演练的成果。

不要被假象所迷惑:你才是赢家。当你真正在写作,以成功所要求的标准付出辛勤努力时,你一定会感到力不从心、水平太臭,自己把自己折磨得疲惫不堪。如果你没有这样的感觉,那说明你对自己的要求还不够严格。

6.构思一个引人入胜的谜题

将你的作品描绘或构思成为一个谜题的答案。有很多种有意思的谜题可供选择,比如:

“甲和乙从相同的假设前提出发,最后却得到了完全相反的结论。这是怎么回事?”
“这里有三个问题表面上看起来各不相同。但奇怪的是,它们实质上都是同一个问题,只是表象不同。我来告诉你这是为什么。”

“理论预测的结果该会如此,但我们看到的现实却不同。是理论错了,还是有什么其他因素我们没有考虑进去呢?”

不要被这些公式限制住了,但在你向大家(不论是演讲的听众还是文章的读者),呈现你的作品时,这些公式还是对你很有帮助的。

7.先写作,然后再安排其他的事情

把写作放在第一位。我正好是个习惯起早的人,所以我一大早就开始写作。在写作之后,我安排上课、开会或做一些文案工作。你或许是个“夜猫子”,或介于两者之间。不管怎样,请把你最有效率的时间留给写作。不要在忙完别的事情后,才突然想起来要写作,也不要迷惑自己说等到有了大块儿时间后再去动笔。挤时间去做其他事;写作要排在首位。

8.不能要求每一个点子都高大上

许多人因为不能有力地阐释自己感兴趣的大题目而沮丧不已。进而,他们就什么也不写了。其实,不妨从小题目写起。埋头坚持、在创作道路上一步一个脚印地跋涉,慢慢你会惊喜地发现自己已经在爬山登顶的过程中完成了很长的路程。

只有在把思想写下来的过程中,我们才会更加明晰论文提出的问题,才能更准确地定义专业术语,并了解论据的逻辑性。

9.摸着石头过河

你最深刻的思想往往是错误的,或者,至少可以说它们不是毫无瑕误的。如果你研究的课题很深奥,那么准确把握课题的核心和把谜题构思好都不是轻易能做好的事。

当刚入学的研究生说他们知道自己希望研究的领域或毕业论文要写什么课题时,我总是暗自发笑。几乎所有最优秀的学者都会因为他们的研究和写作体验而经历巨大改变。他们边实践边学习,而有时候,认识到自己犯错正是他们的学习收获。

10.好文章是改出来的

请别人来帮你参详一下你的作品。大学的一大优势是我们几乎所有人都在同一条船上,而且我们都体验过面对空白页面上一闪一闪的光标却一个字也写出不来的恐怖。与你的同学或导师交换阅读各自的作品,尤其是当你写得感到恶心的时候,不妨帮别人读一读他们的作品。你必须克服心里对批评和否定的恐惧。

没有人的第一稿是完美的。成功的学者与不成功的学者之间的差异不一定是谁的写作水平高,而常常是谁能把编辑修改的功夫做足做好。

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如果你感到写作很困难,那只说明你写得不够多。写很多页的文字对我而言一直都是一件很轻松的事。但我永远不可能只靠写作谋生,因为我写得还不够好。

但是,在领会这些小窍门并努力坚持实践,我已经能让写作的技能为我所用,成为我人生和职业发展的一种助力。





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