英文写作 – D&C

转载请注明来自http://boweihe.me/?p=1586

内容摘自《The Elements of Style (Fourth Edition)》，根据自己的理解写的，如有错误烦请指正。

Page 4 从句之前的逗号

从句作非限定用法，用于补充主语时，需要加逗号。

The audience, which had at first been indifferent, became more and more interested.

这句话可以拆分成两个句子：

The audience was at first indifferent. Later it became more and more interested.

与之对应，用于限定时，从句前面不用加逗号

People who live in glass houses shouldnt’t throw stones.

Page 5 不同连接词对应不同的逗号

当两个子句对应同一个主语时，若使用but表示转折关系，前面要加逗号，但是and就不用.

I have heard the arguments, but am still uncovinced.

He has had several years’ expericnce and is thoroughly competent.

Page 6 分号和连接词

如果没有连接两个子句的连接词，那么更应该使用分号将他们隔开

It is nearly half past five; we cannot reach town before dark.

上面的句子可以不经修改直接拆成两个独立的句子.

或者使用连接词and，用逗号连接

It is nearly half past five, and we cannot reach town before dark.

但是仍要注意，如果使用副词（accordingly, besides, then, therefore, thus）而不是连接词的话，仍是需要使用分号分隔的

I had never been in the place before; besides, it was dark as a tomb.

Page 6 冒号的使用

不要用冒号将动词与补语分开来（如下句中的requires a knife）

错误：Your dedicated whittler requires: a knife, a piece of wood, and a back proch.

正确：Your dedicated whittler requires three props: a knife, a piece of wood, and a back porch.

不要用冒号将介词和后面的宾语分开来（如下句中的 grows from theory）

错误：Understanding is that penetrating quality of knowledge that grows from: theory, practice, conviction, assertion, error, and humiliation.

正确：Understanding is that penetrating quality of knowledge that grows from theory, practice, conviction, assertion, error, and humiliation.

如果后面的子句是对前面的补充或是解释，可以用冒号连接

But even so, there was a directness and dispatch about animal burial: there was non stopover in the undertaker’s foul parlor, no wreath or spray.

Page 10 （谓语）动词单复数形式

one of the …. 形势，是不用在意’one’的

One of those people who are never ready on time.

但是在使用each, either, everyone, everybody, neither, nobody, someone时谓语动词应当是单数形式

Everybody thinks he has a unique sense of humor.

使用none的时候应该注意表达的意思，如果意思是“没有，没有人..”的话用单数

None of us is perfect.

如果是“不止一个”的含义，那就是复数形式

None are so fallible as those who are sure they are right. 最易犯錯者，莫過於自信正確無誤之人

使用with, as well as, in addition to, except, together with, no less than之类的连接词增加的额外部分，不作为考虑单复数的依据，即只考虑原本的主语就可以了

His speech as well as his manner is objectionable.

Page 13 句子开头的分词短语要与后面主句的主语一致

Walking slowly down the road, he saw a woman accompanied by two children.

如果是要强调是那个woman慢慢走在路上，应该这么写

He saw a waman, accompanied by two children, walking slowly down the road.

错误：Young and inexperienced, the task seemed easy to me. 这里的主语是task，但是前面的短语确实形容me的

正确：Young and inexperienced, I thought the task easy.

这是我在Coursera上提交的一篇English Composition I: Achieving Expertise的作业。如需使用我的文章，请至少在文末注明出处。本文为草稿性质的文章可能存在少许错误，最终成型的final版还在写作中，视情况公布。
This is a project essay of mine in English Composition I: Achieving Expertise. Anyone who uses my work please at least cite this webpage at the end of your work. The text in this post is only a draft which may contain few syntax errors.

Project One: Critical Review of Coyle’s “The Sweet Spot”

Coyle’s inspiring Sweet Spot
The word “talent” can be seen through Coyle’s passage, but according to the author, the word is more or less linked with practice and mistakes. It’s obviously an inspiring and self-helping book, and this chapter gives a strong idea that greatness isn’t born. It’s grown, especially through mistakes.
In this chapter Coyle discusses a variety of ideas via different examples. He has visited different people from several countries. So he demonstrates his view with their personal experience. Brunio is an eleven-year-old Brazilian football player who is trying to learn the elastic, which is a ball-handling maneuver. Although he failed to finish the move at the first time, he stopped and thought with his taut face and focused eyes, practicing it slowly but progressively (P.13). Another girl Jennie kept working on the pop song, singing every note slowly, and finally sang the measure perfectly (P.13). Those two example presents the idea that practice deeply leads the way to success.
Coyle isn’t totally agree with the traditional explanation that such kind of concentrated talent is to attribute it to a combination of genes and environment (P.14). He offers his “deep practice” theory and reinforces it with a word list memorization exercise (P.16). The words in column B with fragments can be remembered more easily than column A because it evokes our deeper practice. The following life vest example (P.16) also proves his theory.
To further illustrate his idea, Coyle cites a UCLA professor Bjork. Bjork said “there’s an optimal gap between what you know and what you’re trying to do”, and that’s what the Sweet Spot is. In Coyle’s theory practice and making mistakes is a way to find the sweet spot, then one can turn mistakes into skills. And people use time more efficiently when they practice deeply (P.19).
According to Coyle’s theory, deep practice is a strange concept for two reasons. Firstly, it cuts against our intuition about talent. Secondly it turns mistakes into skills (which is mentioned above). His second reason provokes a question that what if the mistake has a decent chance of killing you (P.20). Then Edwin Link’s pilot simulation device is cited to deal with that question. As is described in the text that Edwin’s trainer allows a pilot to perform “take off” and “land” a dozen times on his instruments during a few hours (P.24). His invention successfully extended the deep practice idea onto dangerous jobs.
In order to assure his theory could take effect on other field, the author applies his idea to Brazil’s soccer players. In short, the special indoor football, futsal, helps local players gain more practice opportunities. Futsal is the lever through which those other factors transfer their force (P.28). However, I personally have some doubts that whether this magical ball is overestimated. In my opinion, other factors such as environment (e.g. poverty, popularity), passion of the kids might be taken into consideration as well. Though futsal does help improve their football skills, it isn’t quite clear that whether the mini-sized heavy ball is the key factor to such talent.
“As Coyle reports, deep practice actually changes the physical makeup of the brain. … However, mere repetition is not enough. To create myelin, the repetition requires powerful attention” said by Jade and Barbara (Eckard, et al. 2013). Coyle gives us hope and inspiration via a variety of stories, but it simply isn’t objective. He relates success (or talent) to deep practice regardless of innate capabilities and environments.
In summary, despite of Coyle’s little subjective, I have learned a lot from the first chapter of his book. Perhaps Coyle doesn’t need to be objective because the text itself is about making you feel good, energetic and ambitious, at least it inspired me well. I also admire his way of elaborating the concepts.
References
1.       Eckard, Bonnie J. “Embodying Deep Practice: A Pedagogical Approach to Actor Training.” Embodied Consciousness: Performance Technologies (2013): 46.

Works of others that indirectly helps me with my critical review
1.       Critical Review on “The Sweet Spot” by Daniel Coyle. http://criticalreviewthesweetspot.blogspot.com/
2.       Critical Review of Coyle’s The Sweet Spot        http://book.douban.com/review/5866658/
3.       Critical Review of Daniel Coyle’s “The Sweet Spot”http://www.researchgate.net/publication/252930427_Critical_Review_of_Daniel_Coyle’s_The_Sweet_Spot

以下是peer review的结果：
The following texts are results of peer review: