On Writing Well 11-12

Chapter11 Nonfiction as Literature

Chapter12 Writing about people

Words

1.make of

He didn't know what to make of that.

1. to have a particular opinion about or understanding of something or someone:

例：I didn’t know what to make of her.

仿：What do you make of the idea?

2.stillness

And yet, in the stillness of the night, the host said to several callers,"don't you ever dreaming of writing the great American novel?"

学习一个表达 in the stillness of the night 寂静／宁静的夜

3.preponderance

But the great preponderance of what writers now write and sell, what book and magazine publishers publish and what readers demand is nonfiction.

a preponderance of something if there is a preponderance of people or things of a particular type in a group, there are more of that type than of any other:

例：There is a preponderance of female students in the music department

仿：There are preponderance of teenagers who are addicted to computer games.

4.elicit

Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives.

to succeed in getting information or a reaction from someone, especially when this is difficult:

例：When her knock elicited no response, she opened the door and peeped in.

搭配：elicit something from somebody

例：The test uses pictures to elicit words from the children.

仿： The policeman try to elicit the truth from the criminal.

Reflections:

记得第一次的笔记中我就想到李笑来老师在《把时间当朋友里》说到：我国的语文教育忘记教会学生如何用用简洁、有效、准确、朴素、具体的文字纪录自己的知识和经验。

一直以来一说到写作我就只觉得那是文学，一定要文笔优美，擅长用各种修辞。就像是书里提到的那位主持人，一说到写作就只觉得是那些著名的文学作品。可能是因为受到的教育，又或者因为媒体环境的影响，我们总是容易把写作最基本的功能忘记了。其实写作就是写你心中想说的东西，并没有说一定要是文学作品才高雅，其他的写作类型都第一等。

我只想说：从人类整体的发展情况来看，除了“文学”，文字还有其他更多的责任，比如传递信息、积累经验、共享知识等指责，而对大多数人来说，这些更为重要。－李笑来

《人类简史》里也说到过文字最开始就是为了记录各种信息而产生的。