本文主要介绍来自Purdue University Writing Lab的关于论文写作的电子资源中“学术写作”的第一部分第七节“简洁”。

1.简洁

简洁写作的目标是使用最有效的词汇。简洁写作不意味着总是使用最少的单词，但是一定要使用最有效的单词。写作者通常用一些可以被删除或替代的无效或不必要单词填充语句。然而根据写作情景，单词和短语应该慎重地被选择。就像糟糕的员工一样，那些没有完成足够任务的单词应该被解雇。当只剩下最有效的词语时，写作将会更加简明易懂。

1.1更有力、更具体的单词代替模糊的单词

通常，作者会用几个小的、模棱两可的单词去表达一个概念，这样会很浪费精力，最好能用更少、更具体的单词来传达自己的观点。一般来说，用词越具体，写作就越简洁。由于名词、动词和形容词的多样性，大多数事物都具有密切对应的描述，通过头脑风暴或同义词典可以找到最适合描述特定实例的单词。请注意下面的例子，它们在降低字数的同时传达了更多的信息。

Example

Wordy: The politician talked about several of the merits of after-school programs in his speech. (14 words)

Concise: The politician touted after-school programs in his speech. (8 words)

Wordy: Suzie believed but could not confirm that Billy had feelings of affection for her. (14 words)

Concise: Suzie assumed that Billy adored her.(6 words)

Wordy: Our Website has made available many of the things you can use for making a decision on the best dentist. (20 words)

Concise: Our website presents criteria for determining the best dentist. (9 words)

Wordy: Working asa pupil under someone who develops photos was an experience that really helped me learn a lot.(20 words)

Concise: Working as a photo technician's apprentice was an educational experience.(10 words)

1.2 质问句子中的每一个单词

检查每一个单词，确保它们为句子提供了重要和独特的信息。如果单词很冗长，可以删除和替换。下面展示的一些常见的例子中，包含了一些在句子中可以删除的词汇的案例。

Wordy: The teacher demonstrated some of the various ways and methods for cutting words from my essay that I had written for class. (22 words)

Concise: The teacher demonstrated methods for cutting words from my essay. (10 words)

Wordy: Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood formed a new band of musicians together in 1969, giving it the ironic name of Blind Faith because early speculation that was spreading everywhere about the band suggested that the new musical group would be good enough to rival the earlier bands that both men had been in, Cream and Traffic, which people had really liked and had been very popular. (66 words)

Concise: Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood formed a new band in 1969, ironically naming it Blind Faith because speculation suggested that the group would rival the musicians’ previous popular bands, Cream and Traffic. (32 words)

Wordy: Many have made the wise observation that when a stone is in motion rolling down a hill or incline that that moving stone is not as likely to be covered all over with the kind of thick green moss that grows on stationary unmoving things and becomes a nuisance and suggests that those things haven’t moved in a long time and probably won’t move any time soon.

(67 words)

Concise: A rolling stone gathers no moss.(6 words)

1.3 合并句子

有些信息不需要放入一个完整的句子中，可以很容易的插入到另一个句子中并且不会丢失其原有的信息。要获得更多的句子组合的策略，请参阅关于句子变化的讲义。

Wordy: Ludwig's castles are an astounding marriage of beauty and madness. By his death, he had commissioned three castles. (18 words)

Concise: Ludwig's three castles are an astounding marriage of beauty and madness. (11 words)

Wordy: The supposed crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico aroused interest in extraterrestrial life. This crash is rumored to have occurred in 1947. (24 words)

Concise: The supposed 1947 crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico aroused interest in extraterrestrial life. (16 words)

2. 去除单词

2.1 去除解释明显或提供过多细节的单词

在起草和修改文章时，一定要考虑到读者。如果文章所解释和描述的细节对读者来说已经十分明显，那么要删除或改写它们。读者也非常擅长填充叙述的非本质方面。如下面四个例子：

Wordy: I received your inquiry that you wrote about tennis rackets yesterday, and read it thoroughly. Yes, we do have. . . (19 words)

Concise: I received your inquiry about tennis rackets yesterday. Yes, we do have. . . (12 words)

Wordy: It goes without saying that we are acquainted with your policy on filing tax returns, and we have every intention of complying with the regulations that you have mentioned. (29 words)

Concise: We intend to comply with the tax-return regulations that you have mentioned (12 words)

Wordy: Imagine a mental picture of someone engaged in the intellectual activity of trying to learn what the rules are for how to play the game of chess.(27 words)

Concise: Imagine someone trying to learn the rules of chess. (9 words)

Wordy:After booking a ticket to Dallas from a travel agent, I packed my bags and arranged for a taxi to the airport. Once there, I checked in, went through security, and was ready to board. But problems beyond my control led to a three-hour delay before takeoff. (47 words)

Concise: My flight to Dallas was delayed for three hours. (9 words)

Wordy: Baseball, one of our oldest and most popular outdoor summer sports in terms of total attendance at ball parks and viewing on television, has the kind of rhythm of playon the field that alternates between times when players passively wait with no action taking place between the pitches to the batter and then times when they explode into action as the batter hits a pitched ball to one of the players and the player fields it.(77 words)

Concise: Baseball has a rhythm that alternates between waiting and explosive action. (11 words)

2.2 删除不必要的限定词和修饰语

作者有时行文会用到一个或多个额外的单词或短语，这些单词或短语似乎只是用来狭义的定义或修饰名词的含义而不改变句子的含义，但是这种方式有时会阻碍作者的写作。虽然这些单词或者短语在适当的上下文衔接中是有意义的，但是它们经常会被用作“填充词”，并且很容易被删除。

Wordy: Any particular type of dessert is fine with me. (9 words)

Concise: Any dessert is fine with me. (6 words)

Wordy: Balancing the budget by Friday is an impossibility without some kind of extra help. (14 words)

Concise: Balancing the budget by Friday is impossible without extra help. (10 words)

Wordy:For all intents and purposes, American industrial productivity generally depends on certain factors that are really more psychological in kind than of any given technological aspect. (26 words)

Concise: American industrial productivity depends more on psychological than on technological factors. (11 words)

这里我们找到了一些通常可以删除的词汇和短语来使句意更清楚：

kind of

sort of

type of

really

basically

for all intents and purposes

definitely

actually

generally

individual

specific

particular

2.3 省略重复的措辞

注意那些重复的、有相似意思的单词、短语或较长的段落。不建立在句子和段落内容上的单词是没有必要选择的。

Wordy: I would appreciate it if you would bring to the attention of your drafting officers the administrator's dislike of long sentences and paragraphs in messages to the field and in other items drafted for her signature or approval, as well as in all correspondence, reports, and studies. Please encourage your section to keep their sentences short. (56 words)

Concise: Please encourage your drafting officers to keep sentences and paragraphs in letters, reports, and studies short. Dr. Lomas, the administrator, has mentioned that reports and memos drafted for her approval recently have been wordy and thus time-consuming. (37 words)

Wordy: The supply manager considered the correcting typewriter an unneeded luxury. (10 words)

Concise: The supply manager considered the correcting typewriter a luxury. (9 words)

Wordy: Our branch office currently employs five tellers. These tellers do an excellent job Monday through Thursday but cannot keep up with the rush on Friday and Saturday. (27 words)

Concise: Our branch office currently employs five tellers, who do an excellent job Monday through Thursday but cannot keep up with Friday and Saturday rush periods. (25 words)

2.4 删除冗余的词语

许多对单词短语含义接近，如finish和complete，所以在大多数情况下用completely finish表达结束是多余的。以下一些短语也是如此：

1、past memories

2、various differences

3、each individual ______

4、basic fundamentals

5、true facts

6、important essentials

7、future plans

8、terrible tragedy

9、end result

10、final outcome

11、free gift

12、past history

13、unexpected surprise

14、sudden crisis

一个类似冗余的表达例如“very unique”，既然“unique”的意思是独一无二的，那么添加“very”， “so”， “especially”， “somewhat”， “extremely”等修饰程度的单词是不合逻辑的。“unique”是不分等级的，有些东西要么是独一无二的，要么则不是。

Wordy: Before the travel agent was completely able to finish explaining the various differences among all of the many very unique vacation packages his travel agency was offering, the customer changed her future plans. (33 words)

Concise: Before the travel agent finished explaining the differences among the unique vacation packages his travel agency was offering, the customer changed her plans. (23 words)

2.5 省略多余的类别描述

具体的单词往往指他们的一般的含义，所以我们不需特殊说明，我们都知道“周期”是指一段时间，“粉色”是一种颜色，“闪亮”是一种外观。下面的一些短语中，一般的类别术语可以被删除，只留下具体的描述词

large in size

often times

of a bright color

heavy in weight

period in time

round in shape

at an early time

economics field

of cheap quality

honest in character

of an uncertain condition

in a confused state

unusual in nature

extreme in degree

of a strange type

Example

Wordy: During that time period, many car buyers preferred cars that were pink in color and shiny in appearance. (18 words)

Concise: During that period, many car buyers preferred pink, shiny cars. (10 words)

Wordy: The microscope revealed a group of organisms that were round in shape and peculiar in nature. (16 words)

Concise: The microscope revealed a group of peculiar, round organisms. (9 words)

3. 改变短语

3.1 将短语改为单词和形容词

使用可以用一个单词就可以表达的短语有可能导致赘述。尽可能将短语换成单个单词。

Wordy: The employee with ambition... (4 words)

Concise: The ambitious employee... (3 words)

Wordy: The department showing the best performance... (6 words)

Concise: The best-performing department... (4 words)

Wordy: Jeff Converse, our chief of consulting, suggested at our last board meeting the installation of microfilm equipment in the department of data processing. (23 words)

Concise: At our last board meeting, Chief Consultant Jeff Converse suggested that we install microfilm equipment in the data processing department. (20 words)

Wordy: We read the letter we received yesterday and reviewed it thoroughly. (11 words)

Concise: We thoroughly read the letter we received yesterday. (8 words)

Wordy: As you carefully read what you have written to improve your wording and catch small errors of spelling, punctuation, and so on, the thing to do before you do anything else is to try to see where a series of words expressing action could replace the ideas found in nouns rather than verbs. (53 words)

Concise: As you edit, first find nominalizations that you can replace with verb phrases. (13 words)

3.2 将不必要的“that”，“who”，“which”子句改成短语

使用可以用短语就能表达的分句往往会增加句子的累赘感，尽可能将修饰从句转换成短语或者单词。

Wordy: The report, which was released recently... (6 words)

Concise: The recently released report... (4 words)

Wordy: All applicants who are interested in the job must... (9 words)

Concise: All job applicants must... (4 words)

Wordy: The system that is most efficient and accurate... (8 words)

Concise: The most efficient and accurate system... (6 words)

3.3 把被动句变为主动句

Wordy: An account was opened by Mrs. Simms. (7 words)

Concise: Mrs. Simms opened an account. (5 words)

Wordy: Your figures were checked by the research department. (8 words)

Concise: The research department checked your figures. (6 words)

4. 躲避常见的陷阱

4.1 避免在句首过度使用虚指词

虚指词是指it+ be-verb或there+ be-verb形式的短语。在某些情况下，这样的表达可以在修辞上起到强调作用，但过度使用或不必要的使用会造成文章冗长。例如“It is imperative that we find a solution.”，同样的意思可以用更加简洁的措辞表达，“We must find a solution.”但是使用虚指词结构可以强调情况的紧迫性，所以带有虚指词的句子可能会更可取。

不过，还是应该避免过度地使用虚指词，最常见的虚指词结构包括一个虚指词后面跟着一个名词和一个以that， which， who开头的关系从句。在大多数情况下，可以通过消除虚指词开头，使名词成为句子的主语，并且可以通过消除关系代词来创造简洁的句子。

Example

Wordy: It is the governor who signs or vetoes bills. (9 words)

Concise: The governor signs or vetoes bills. (6 words)

Wordy: There are four rules that should be observed: ... (8 words)

Concise: Four rules should be observed:... (5 words)

Wordy: There was a big explosion, which shook the windows, and people ran into the street. (15 words)

Concise: A big explosion shook the windows, and people ran into the street. (12 words)

4.2 避免过度使用名词形式的动词

尽可能使用动词而不是名词形式，尽可能使用动词而不是名词形式，即名物化。名词化较多的句子通常以be作为主要动词。使用名词化代替动作动词作为主要动词，而不是“be”的形式，有助于使文章引人入胜。

Wordy: The function of this department is the collection of accounts. (10 words)

Concise: This department collects accounts. (4 words)

Wordy: The current focus of the medical profession is disease prevention. (10 words)

Concise:The medical profession currently focuses on disease prevention. (8 words)

4.3 避免不必要的不定式短语

有些不定式短语可以转化为限定动词或简短名词短语。做这样的改变也经常导致be-动词被动作动词取代。

Wordy: The duty of a clerk is to check all incoming mail and to record it. (15 words)

Concise: A clerk checks and records all incoming mail. (8 words)

Wordy: A shortage of tellers at our branch office on Friday and Saturday during rush hours has caused customers to become dissatisfied with service. (23 words)

Concise: A teller shortage at our branch office on Friday and Saturday during rush hours has caused customer dissatisfaction. (18 words)

4.4 避免拐弯抹角，直接表达

迂回表达通常是用几个词来表达本来可以更简洁的意思。我们常常忽略它们，因为许多这样的表达是习惯性的修辞格。但在书面写作中，应该避免使用这些词，因为它们添加了多余的词语，却没有额外的意思。当然，有时为了修辞效果，你可能会决定使用虚指词结构，而不是更简洁的表达。这些指导原则应作为一般性建议，而不是绝对准则。