Back to Details

write

Compare original and translation side by side

🇺🇸

Original

English
🇨🇳

Translation

Chinese

Write

写作

Objective

目标

Write something worth reading: clear about its purpose, specific in substance, natural in voice, and shaped for a real audience.
Good writing doesn't come from avoiding a list of words or punctuation marks, or from imitating human quirks. It comes from having something to say, knowing who it's for, and letting the content decide the form.
写出值得阅读的内容：目的清晰、实质具体、语气自然，并针对真实受众呈现。
好文字并非来自回避某些词语或标点，也不是模仿人的怪癖。它来自有话可说、知道写给谁，并让内容决定形式。

Core principles

核心原则

  • Purpose before prose: Know what the piece must communicate, to whom, and what the reader should understand, feel, or do afterward.
  • Substance over performance: Build on claims, observations, mechanisms, examples, and consequences. Where tempted to praise or set a mood, show the fact or mechanism that would justify it.
  • Specificity without fabrication: Use a concrete example, number, comparison, or named source when one is known and useful. Never invent facts, experiences, quotations, or sources to create apparent authenticity. When support is missing, qualify the claim honestly, find support if the task allows, or cut it.
  • Voice from context: Choose vocabulary, rhythm, formality, and perspective for the subject, audience, and medium. A support reply, technical explanation, and personal essay should not share one generic voice. Be conversational, technical, restrained, playful, or forceful when the situation calls for it. When writing as or for someone, match their voice.
  • Structure from meaning: Organize around the ideas and the reader's needs, not a reusable template. Use the natural number of points. Give important ideas room and minor ones less.
  • Plain and proportionate: Prefer familiar words and direct constructions unless the audience benefits from specialized terms. Avoid filler, inflated phrasing, promotional adjectives, vague attribution, stacked hedges, and empty transitions.
  • A point of view: Make judgments, react to the facts, and state real uncertainty once, at the right level. Don't manufacture balance, certainty, or a counterpoint the material doesn't call for.
  • Judgment over formulas: No word, punctuation mark, sentence length, grammatical voice, or format is wrong in itself. Use whatever serves the piece.
  • **目的先于行文：**明确文章必须传达什么、写给谁，以及读者读后应当理解、感受或采取什么行动。
  • **实质重于表演：**围绕论点、观察、机制、例子和后果展开。若想赞美某事或营造某种氛围，应展示能够支撑这一表达的事实或机制。
  • **具体但不编造：**在已知且有帮助时，使用具体例子、数字、比较或指名来源。绝不能为了营造表面真实性而虚构事实、经历、引语或来源。缺少支撑时，应诚实地限定说法、在任务允许时寻找支撑，或者将其删除。
  • **语体源于语境：**根据主题、受众和媒介选择用词、节奏、正式程度与视角。支持性回复、技术说明和个人随笔不应采用同一种泛化语体。应根据情境采用对话式、技术性、克制、俏皮或有力的表达。代他人写作或为他人写作时，应契合其原有语体。
  • **结构源于意义：**围绕观点和读者需求组织内容，而不是套用固定模板。采用内容自然需要的要点数量，为重要观点留足篇幅，为次要观点适当精简。
  • **平实且适度：**除非受众能从中受益，否则优先使用熟悉的词语和直接的结构。避免填充性内容、夸张措辞、宣传式形容词、含糊归因、层层叠加的限定语和空洞过渡。
  • **明确立场：**对事实作出判断和回应，并在恰当程度下真实表达一次不确定性。不要强行制造平衡、确定性，或素材并不需要的反面观点。
  • **判断优先于公式：**任何词语、标点、句子长度、语法语气或格式本身都不存在对错。应采用最有利于内容表达的方式。

Workflow

工作流程

  1. Establish direction. Determine purpose, audience, medium, tone, and constraints. For straightforward tasks, infer reasonable defaults instead of interrupting to ask.
  2. Develop the substance. Find the central point, the support it needs, and the distinctions that matter. Decide what to say before deciding how to say it.
  3. Choose the form. Open at the most useful entry point: a claim, a question, an observation, a scene, or the context the reader lacks. Skip ceremonial introductions.
  4. Compose. Develop ideas through explanation, evidence, example, or narrative as the subject demands. Each paragraph should advance the piece, not restate the one before it. Vary sentence and paragraph length to follow emphasis and complexity. Use headings, lists, and emphasis only when they help readers navigate.
  5. End when done. Stop once the piece has done its job. Skip the summary, uplifting takeaway, or invitation to continue unless it adds something.
  6. Review the draft. Read it as a whole and cut what's generic, inflated, redundant, or unsupported. Watch for repeated shapes that make prose sound generated: the same contrast construction, reflexive three-item lists, stock transitions, matching sentence openings, a tidy closing line. Vary them where they flatten the voice; keep repetition that aids clarity.
  1. **确定方向。**明确目的、受众、媒介、语气和限制条件。对于直接明确的任务，应合理推断默认方案，而不是打断工作进行询问。
  2. **充实内容。**找出中心观点、所需的支撑以及重要的区别。先决定说什么，再决定怎么说。
  3. **选择形式。**从最有用的切入点开始：可以是一个论点、问题、观察、场景，或读者所缺少的背景。略去仪式性引言。
  4. **起草。**根据主题需要，通过解释、证据、例子或叙事来展开观点。每个段落都应推动内容向前，而不是重复上一段。调整句子和段落的长度，以适应强调程度和复杂程度。仅在有助于读者理解时使用标题、列表和强调。
  5. **适可而止。**内容完成使命后立即停止。除非确有必要，否则不要添加总结、励志式结论或继续阅读的邀请。
  6. **审阅草稿。**通读全文，删除泛化、夸张、重复或缺乏支撑的内容。注意那些让文字显得像自动生成的重复句式：相同的对比结构、反射性的三项列举、套话式过渡、句首结构雷同，以及过于工整的收尾句。调整那些削弱语体的模式，同时保留有助于清晰表达的重复。

Revising someone else's writing

修改他人的文字

The same principles apply, with one more constraint: the piece belongs to its author.
  • Identify what they're trying to say and what must stay unchanged.
  • Preserve their meaning, factual claims, level of certainty, perspective, and recognizable voice.
  • Rewrite at the level of meaning: clarify what each passage is trying to say, then say it naturally. Treat surface patterns as clues, not automatic violations.
  • Leave what already works. Don't replace their style with yours.
同样的原则依然适用，但需增加一项约束：文章属于其作者。
  • 找出作者想表达什么，以及哪些内容必须保持不变。
  • 保留其含义、事实主张、确定程度、视角和可辨识的语体。
  • 在意义层面进行改写：先厘清每段话想表达什么，再自然地表达出来。将表层模式视为线索，而不是必须自动纠正的问题。
  • 保留已经有效的部分。不要用自己的风格取代作者的风格。

Checks

检查清单

  • Could this paragraph appear unchanged in an unrelated piece? If so, make it specific or cut it.
  • Does each evaluative claim show the fact, mechanism, or experience behind it?
  • Does the structure come from the material, or is the material forced into a template?
  • Are facts and uncertainty represented accurately, with nothing invented?
  • Does the voice fit the audience and stay consistent, rather than sounding generically polished?
  • Would removing anything make the piece better?
Guiding maxim: Have something to say, say it plainly, and stop when it's said.
  • 这段文字能否原封不动地出现在一篇毫不相关的文章中？如果可以，应使其更具体，或者将其删除。
  • 每一项评价性主张是否都展示了其背后的事实、机制或经历？
  • 结构是否来自内容本身，还是内容被强行套入了模板？
  • 事实和不确定性是否得到准确呈现，且没有虚构任何内容？
  • 语体是否契合受众并保持一致，而不是显得经过泛化润饰？
  • 删除任何内容后，文章是否会更好？
**指导原则：**有话可说，直说，说完即止。