发布时间 : 星期六 文章2 Effective Reading Strategies TP更新完毕开始阅读
You should be able to recognize the commonly used icons and those in your own field of study. They can help you recognize relevant information immediately even without reading the text, which increase the efficiency of communication.
III. Distinguishing Main Points辨别要点
A paragraph in technical writing is generally composed of two kinds of sentences: a topic sentence主题句 that states the main points, and several supporting sentences辅助句 that help readers understand the relationships among ideas in a paragraph. Sometimes the main points are easy to distinguish because the writer has constructed the document so that topic sentences clearly signal the main points. Figure 2-4 is an example excerpted from a textbook of chemistry. Here each paragraph has an initial topic sentence stating the main idea. When reading such texts, readers can easily identify the main points.
Figure 2-4 Text with Main Points in Initial Topic Sentences What is Energy? Energy is the capacity of matter to do work. Energy exists in several forms; some of the more familiar forms are mechanical, chemical, electrical, heat, nuclear, and radiant or light energy. Matter can have both potential and kinetic energy. Potential energy is the energy that matter possesses due to its relative position. It is a kind of stored energy. For example, a ball located 20 ft above the ground has more potential energy than when located 10 ft above the ground and will bounce higher when allowed to fall. Water backed up behind a dam represents potential energy that can be converted into useful work in the form of electrical or mechanical energy. Gasoline is a source of chemical potential energy. When gasoline burns (combines with oxygen), the heat released is associated with a decrease in potential energy. The new substances formed by burning have less chemical potential energy than the gasoline and oxygen did. Kinetic energy is the energy that matter possesses due to its motion. When the water behind the dam is released and allowed to flow, its potential energy is changed into kinetic energy, which can be used to drive generators and produce electricity. All moving bodies possess kinetic energy. The pressure exerted by a confined gas is due to the kinetic energy of rapidly moving gas particles. We all know the results when two moving vehicles collide: Their kinetic energy is expended in the crash that occurs. Energy can be converted from one form to another form. Some kinds of energy can be converted to other forms easily and efficiently. For example, mechanical energy can be converted to electrical energy with an electric generator at better than 90% efficiency. On the other hand, solar energy has thus far been directly converted to electrical energy at an efficiency of only about 15%. In chemistry, energy is most frequently expressed as heat. Source: Adapted from Morris Hein, et al. College Chemistry, 8th ed. Brooks/Cole, 1996.
Sometimes, however, main points may not be clearly marked by any visual cues, and you must be able to distinguish the topic sentence from supporting sentences in a paragraph to find out
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the main points. The following general guidelines are used to identify the topic sentence.
? The topic sentence provides the main idea or the topic of the paragraph while
supporting sentences give detailed explanations to support the topic sentence. ? The topic sentence introduces new information into the paragraph while supporting
sentences provide information that is already known. ? The topic sentence is usually more general in meaning while supporting sentences are
more specific in meaning.
In technical writing, the topic sentence is usually placed at the beginning of the paragraph. However, it can be in the middle of the paragraph if there are transitional sentences before it; or it can be at the end of the paragraph if it is the summary or conclusion of the paragraph. Read the article in Figure 2-5 and distinguish the topic sentence from supporting sentences in each paragraph.
Figure 2-5 Text with Main Points Identified by Topic Sentences：黑体为主题句 Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention In order to treat a patient, the doctor obviously must first determine the nature of the illness—that is, make a diagnosis. A diagnosis is the conclusion drawn from a number of facts put together. The doctor must know the symptoms, which are the changes in body function felt by the patient; and the signs (also called objective symptoms) which the doctor himself can observe. Sometimes a characteristic group of signs (or symptoms) accompanies a given disease. Such a group is called a syndrome. Frequently certain laboratory tests are performed and the results evaluated by the physician in making his or her diagnosis. Although nurses do not diagnose, they play an extremely valuable role in this process by observing closely for signs, encouraging the patient to talk about himself and his symptoms, and then reporting this information to the doctor. Once the patient’s disorder is known, the doctor prescribes a course of treatment, also referred to as therapy. Many measures in this course of treatment are carried out by the nurse under the physician’s orders. In recent years, physicians, nurses and other health workers have taken on increasing responsibilities in prevention. Throughout most of medical history, the physician’s aim has been to cure a patient of an existing disease. However, the modern concept of prevention seeks to stop disease before it actually happens—to keep people well through the promotion of health. A vast number of organizations exist for this purpose, ranging from the World Health Organization (WHO) on an international level down to local private and community health programs. A rapidly growing responsibility of the nursing profession is educating individual patients toward the maintenance of total health—physical and mental. Source: Memmler and Wood. The Human Body in Health and Disease, 4th ed. Lippincott, 1977.
IV. Drawing Inferences作出推断
Although technical writing values straightforward expressions, not everything that you learn from
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a text is clearly stated. Therefore, you should be able to draw inferences, that is, to understand the implied meaning of certain expression and make connections and draw conclusions beyond the words and visuals that are presented. Three specific strategies will help:
? Identify the implied assumptions on which you believe the document is based—what is
assumed but not clearly stated.什么是假设而未明言的。 ? Extend the ideas to discover reasonable but unstated implications—what is implied but
not clearly stated.什么是暗示而未明言的。 ? Reflect on the effect of the implications—what is possible but not clearly stated.什么是
可能而未明言的。
Figures of speech are the usage of words or expressions in their extended or unusual sense other than its original meaning to provide a vivid picture. Some newspaper or journal articles may use certain figures of speech to make their writings interesting and attractive. By knowing figures of speech, you can associate you common knowledge with your imagination in reading, which is a great help in drawing inferences. Commonly used figures of speech are as follows.
1. Simile明喻
Simile is an explicit comparison between two things unlike in nature that yet have something in common. Simile is usually introduced by “as” or “like”.
1) The heart is like a pump and works as a pump.
2) The cold wind cuts the flesh like the blade of a knife.
2. Metaphor暗喻
Metaphor is an implied comparison between two things unlike in nature that yet have something in common. A metaphor calls one thing by the name of another.
1) The clear night has a thousand eyes (stars). 2) The world is a stage. And everyone plays a part.
3) The heart is a muscular pump which drives the blood through the blood vessels.
3. Metonymy提喻
Metonymy is a figure of speech that calls one thing in the name of another related to it. Metaphor is founded upon likeness; metonymy is founded upon relation. The thing spoken of and the thing meant may be wholly unlike, but the relation between them is such that the mention of one suggests the other.
1) The kettle is boiling. (water in the kettle)
2) The pen is mightier than the sword. (Writing is more powerful than fighting.)
3) Nowadays, no one can claim to scholastic attainment without knowing Darwin and
Einstein. (evolution and relativity)
4. Synecdoche转喻
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Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole, or the whole stands for a part; the specific for the general, the general for the specific.
1) How to earn daily bread (= the necessaries of life) with my pen was the problem. 2) The river is congested with a thousand masts (=ships)
3) China (=the Chinese players) defeated Japan (Japanese players) in the men’s world
table-tennis championships.
Exercises
I. II.
Take this chapter as an example and practice both skimming and scanning. And then tell the differences between the two processes in method and in results.讨论题，略。
Search the Internet for icons. Bring to the class some commonly used icons in your field of study. And then discuss with your classmates about what each icon means. 例：医学图标 Caduceus Handicapped Pathology Vaccination Endoscopy General Med Pharmacy III.
Neurology Information Radiation Chemical Lab Electrotherapy Read the article below and try to identify the topic sentence in each paragraph.黑体为主题句。
Ships in the Desert Al Gore (Edited)
I was standing in the sun on the hot steel deck of a fishing ship capable of processing a fifty ton catch on a good day. But it wasn’t a good day. We were anchored in what used to be the most productive fishing site in all of central Asia, but as I looked out over the bow, the prospects of a good catch looked bleak. Where there should have been gentle blue-green waves lapping against the side of the ship, there was nothing but hot dry sand—as far as I could see in all directions. The other ships of the fleet were also at rest in the sand, scattered in the dunes that stretched all the way to the horizon. Ten years ago the Aral was the fourth-largest inland sea in the world, comparable to the largest of North America’s Great lakes. Now it is disappearing because the water that used to feed it has been diverted in an ill-considered irrigation scheme to grow cotton in the desert. The new shoreline was almost forty kilometers across the sand from where the fishing fleet was now permanently docked. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Muynak the people were still canning fish—brought not from the Aral Sea but shipped by rail through Siberia from the Pacific Ocean, more than a thousand miles away.
My search for the underlying causes of the environmental crisis has led me to travel
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