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十大簡潔英文準則九：避免多餘詞句
【學術專欄】
The best writing doesn’t waste words. It employs words efficiently. Recently our Facebook fans at TPS have been enjoying our new column Brevity: Valuing Each Word. For the past 4 months, we have asked fans to provide examples of brevity relevant to the Rule we were discussing for the week. Now that the 10 Ways to Shorten & Strengthen Your Academic Paper have been outlined, below we give you a recap of each Rule, as well as the correct answer and explanation to accompanying quiz question.
最佳的寫作，必須有效選用字句、惜字如金。TPS推出的新專欄競賽 「Brevity: Valuing Each Word簡潔準則：惜字如金」，請Facebook 粉絲寫出簡潔、流暢的詞彙/句子。經過數月的競賽後，已依序公布十大簡潔英文準則，在此集結題目、正確解答與解析刊登如下。
Rule # 9: Avoid redundant phrases … An academic writer can tighten his paper and sharply increase its readability by avoiding the use of words that repeat themselves. In the sentence below, the writer employed phrases that added nothing to the sentence but extra words. How can the sentence best be written shorter and stronger?
十大簡潔英文準則九：避免多餘詞句
寫作學術文章若能避免使用重複的詞句，能使文章更簡潔，且容易閱讀得多。以下的句子中，作者使用的詞句並未增加訊息，只是徒然增加字數。該如何修改，才能讓句子更精簡有力？
題目 Contest Sentence:
“By the end of the session, it was clear the speaker was a radical fanatic about neo-socialism and unlikely to cool down his ardor any time soon.”
正確解答 Answer: We believe the best revision is… “By the end of the session, it was clear the speaker was fanatical about neo-socialism and unlikely to cool his ardor any time soon.”
This suggested revision reduces the word count to 24 from 27. It does so by addressing two sets of redundant phrases. One is “radical fanatic.” Every fanatic is, by definition, radical inasmuch as fanaticism is characterized by extreme enthusiasm and intense emotions. These are not middling conditions. They do not describe, in this case, a moderate neo-socialist. Therefore, by dropping “a radical” and turning the noun “fanatic” into the adjective “fanatical,” the sentence is slimmed and strengthened.
依照建議修改，處理兩組多餘的詞句後，句子的字數從 27 降至 24 個字。一個多餘的詞組是 “radical fanatic”（激進的狂熱分子）。狂熱就是極端的熱情與強烈的情緒，沒有中庸之道，所以每個狂熱分子原本就是激進份子，在此不會有「溫和」的新社會主義。因此，刪去 “a radical”，將名詞 “fanatic” 改成形容詞 “fanatical”，能讓句子更加簡潔有力。
The sentence contains a second redundancy in the phrase “cool down.” The word “cool” originally referred to temperature, not social status. When temperatures drop, they cool. The direction of the change—down—is understood. By the same token, one does not “heat up” the water; heating it down is impossible. Therefore, it can be said the speaker was not expected to “cool his ardor.” Eliminating “down” not only reduces the word count, it raises the reader’s regard for the writer.
第二個多餘的詞句是 “cool down”，“cool” 這個字原本與社會地位無關，而是表示溫度冷卻，單 “cool” 一字就能表現溫度是下降的。同理，將水加溫時不說 “heat up” 而說 “heat”，因為加熱不可能還讓溫度下降。因此，寫成 “cool his ardor”（熱情冷卻）就可以了，刪去 “down” 不僅能減少字數，讀者也更能看出作者的文筆。
We get caught up in redundancies in our conversations and colloquial writing. That’s because casual communication permits more emotional content. Academic writers are supposed to be disciplined in their formal expression. They are expected to avoid use of redundant clichés like “past experience” and such regrettable outbursts as “extraordinarily awesome.” While there always is a place for modifiers to clarify and emphasize, use of adjectives and adverbs should be carefully restricted—and never wasted on redundancies.
一般對話與口語寫作往往充斥多餘的詞句，因為輕鬆的溝通帶有較多情感交流成分，寫作學術文章則應該有組織、符合標準，不要用 “past experience”（過去的經驗）等陳腔贅詞，也要避免不假思索的寫出 “extraordinarily awesome”（超棒）等糟糕的詞句。即使能用修飾語釐清或強調語意，仍應慎用形容詞和副詞，切勿讓詞句顯得冗贅。
最佳的寫作，必須有效選用字句、惜字如金。TPS推出的新專欄競賽 「Brevity: Valuing Each Word簡潔準則：惜字如金」，請Facebook 粉絲寫出簡潔、流暢的詞彙/句子。經過數月的競賽後，已依序公布十大簡潔英文準則，在此集結題目、正確解答與解析刊登如下。
Rule # 9: Avoid redundant phrases … An academic writer can tighten his paper and sharply increase its readability by avoiding the use of words that repeat themselves. In the sentence below, the writer employed phrases that added nothing to the sentence but extra words. How can the sentence best be written shorter and stronger?
十大簡潔英文準則九：避免多餘詞句
寫作學術文章若能避免使用重複的詞句，能使文章更簡潔，且容易閱讀得多。以下的句子中，作者使用的詞句並未增加訊息，只是徒然增加字數。該如何修改，才能讓句子更精簡有力？
題目 Contest Sentence:
“By the end of the session, it was clear the speaker was a radical fanatic about neo-socialism and unlikely to cool down his ardor any time soon.”
正確解答 Answer: We believe the best revision is… “By the end of the session, it was clear the speaker was fanatical about neo-socialism and unlikely to cool his ardor any time soon.”
This suggested revision reduces the word count to 24 from 27. It does so by addressing two sets of redundant phrases. One is “radical fanatic.” Every fanatic is, by definition, radical inasmuch as fanaticism is characterized by extreme enthusiasm and intense emotions. These are not middling conditions. They do not describe, in this case, a moderate neo-socialist. Therefore, by dropping “a radical” and turning the noun “fanatic” into the adjective “fanatical,” the sentence is slimmed and strengthened.
依照建議修改，處理兩組多餘的詞句後，句子的字數從 27 降至 24 個字。一個多餘的詞組是 “radical fanatic”（激進的狂熱分子）。狂熱就是極端的熱情與強烈的情緒，沒有中庸之道，所以每個狂熱分子原本就是激進份子，在此不會有「溫和」的新社會主義。因此，刪去 “a radical”，將名詞 “fanatic” 改成形容詞 “fanatical”，能讓句子更加簡潔有力。
The sentence contains a second redundancy in the phrase “cool down.” The word “cool” originally referred to temperature, not social status. When temperatures drop, they cool. The direction of the change—down—is understood. By the same token, one does not “heat up” the water; heating it down is impossible. Therefore, it can be said the speaker was not expected to “cool his ardor.” Eliminating “down” not only reduces the word count, it raises the reader’s regard for the writer.
第二個多餘的詞句是 “cool down”，“cool” 這個字原本與社會地位無關，而是表示溫度冷卻，單 “cool” 一字就能表現溫度是下降的。同理，將水加溫時不說 “heat up” 而說 “heat”，因為加熱不可能還讓溫度下降。因此，寫成 “cool his ardor”（熱情冷卻）就可以了，刪去 “down” 不僅能減少字數，讀者也更能看出作者的文筆。
We get caught up in redundancies in our conversations and colloquial writing. That’s because casual communication permits more emotional content. Academic writers are supposed to be disciplined in their formal expression. They are expected to avoid use of redundant clichés like “past experience” and such regrettable outbursts as “extraordinarily awesome.” While there always is a place for modifiers to clarify and emphasize, use of adjectives and adverbs should be carefully restricted—and never wasted on redundancies.
一般對話與口語寫作往往充斥多餘的詞句，因為輕鬆的溝通帶有較多情感交流成分，寫作學術文章則應該有組織、符合標準，不要用 “past experience”（過去的經驗）等陳腔贅詞，也要避免不假思索的寫出 “extraordinarily awesome”（超棒）等糟糕的詞句。即使能用修飾語釐清或強調語意，仍應慎用形容詞和副詞，切勿讓詞句顯得冗贅。
