Week1 On Writing Well Summary

Words and expressions

1.          Perhaps a sentence has been so shoddily constructed that the reader could read it in several ways.

shoddily: made or done cheaply or carelessly

仿写: These products are shoddily produced.

2.If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

rickety: lacking physical strength or vitality 不稳固的；不结实的

仿写：Your  conclusion will be rickety if you have not enough evidence.

3. If they doze off in the middle of your article because you have been careless about a technical detail, the fault is yours.

doze off: If you doze off, you fall into a light sleep, especially during the daytime. 打瞌睡

仿写：The film was so boring that I dozed off in the middle of it.

4. But our panel evidently felt that the Manhattan commuter’s dailytrek is no less arduous.

arduous：involving a lot of strength and effort

仿写：This work will be arduous, but we have to overcome the difficulty.

5.  The public mood was most felicitously caught by thewoman who replied: “I don’t eat feather meat of no kind.”

felicitously: well-chosen and suitable

仿写: Her prose style is not always felicitous; she tends to repetition.

6. The notion of Coolidge having no ideas and not being a nuisance can’t help leaving a residue of enjoyment.

residue: the part of something that is left after the rest has gone or been taken away

仿写: The residue of the stock was sold.

Structures:

Introduction

PART 1 Principles:

1.The Transaction

2.Simplicity

3.Clutter

4.Style

5.The Audience

6.Words

7.Usage

PART 2 Methods:

8.Unity

9.The Lead and the Ending

Reflection

    Writing wasn’t easy and wasn’t fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed. Writing is a craft, no't an art, so rewriting is the essence of writing. Clutter is the disease of writing. And it is important for good writing is to strip every sentence to itscleanest components. As the author mentioned,writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. In order to make clear sentences, we should fight clutter to simiplify our writing.As for the style, our style is to write what we want to say, most importantly, be ourselves and be confident.      Before writing, we should think about the unity to maintain consistency with pronoun, tense and mood. While reading, we must pay attention to the lead. The most important sentence in any article is the first one, which can capture the audience at once. The perfect ending should take our readers slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right.

作为一个新成员，坚持读完了一个星期的书，先不说自己有没有关于内容的收获，能坚持每天抽出两小时读完一两个章节，做完每天的读书笔记，我觉得这对我就已经是一种莫大的进步和收获。期待下个星期的阅读。