1.Don't Use Adverbs

　　1.不要用副词

　　The adverb is not your friend. Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They’re the ones that usually end in -ly. With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.

　　副词并不是你的朋友，副词是用来修饰动词，形容词或其它副词的。它们通常以ly结尾。作者通常用副词来表达那些自己无法解释清楚的意思及表明的观点。

　　There are numerous usage "rules" regarding the placement of adverbs in prose: one shouldn't split a compound verb or infinitive with them (so no "to boldly go" or "must be heartily congratulated");

　　关于在散文中放置有太多的用法规则了：我们不应该让副词出现在复合动词或动词不定式中，因而我们不能说"to boldly go"或"must be heartily congratulated"。

　　One must place them closest to the word they are modifying (so no "Quickly the news anchor corrected himself"; go with "The news anchor quickly corrected himself");

　　我们必须要把它放在离其所要修饰的词最近的地方(所以我们不能说"Quickly the news anchor corrected himself"，而应该是"The news anchor quickly corrected himself")。

　　One shouldn't start a sentence with them, especially if the adverb in question is hopefully;

　　我们不能把副词放在句首，尤其是“hopefully”这个词。

　　One should know when to use a flat adverb (like quick in "move quick" and safe in "drive safe") and when to use an inflected -ly adverb (like "quickly move aside" and "safely drive the truck");

　　我们应当知道什么时候用单纯形副词(像是 “move quick”中的“quick”,“drive safe”中的“safe”)什么时候用加ly的副词(像是"quickly move aside"中的“quickly”和"safely drive the truck"中的“safely”)

　　2. Never Use the Passive Voice

　　2.不要用被动语态

　　Never use the passive where you can use the active.

　　能用主动语态的话就不要用被动语态

　　English verbs have two voices: active and passive. We use the active voice in sentences like this one, and it shows who is doing the acting (we are) and what is being acted on (the active voice). But the passive voice is often used in more formal sentences, like this one, where the actor—here, the invisible writer of this sentence, who is the one using the passive voice—is hidden from view. Here are a few examples of sentences written in the active voice and then recast in the passive voice:

　　英语的动词有2种语态：主动语态和被动语态。我们在本句中就使用了主动语态，它能体现谁(我们)在进行动作，什么动作(主动语态)在被进行。但是被动语态却更常在正式场合中使用，像这句，演员在哪里-这里，这句话的隐形作者，也就是使用被动语态的这个人-从当前默默隐去了。以下的几个例子，都是主动语态的，并且改写成了被动语态：

　　The teacher told us to use the active voice. vs We were told to use the active voice.

　　老师告诉我们要使用主动语态 和 我们被老师告知要使用主动语态。

　　The police questioned the suspect. vs The suspect was questioned.

　　警察询问了嫌疑人 和嫌疑人被警察询问了。

　　I made a mistake. vs Mistakes were made.

　　我犯了一个错误 和 错误被犯了

　　You'll notice that the passive voice seems to distance an action from its perpetrator, or it makes the thing being acted on ("we," "the suspect," and "mistakes" above) more important than the doer. For this reason, the passive voice is very common in more formal writing, where the authors want to keep the perpetrator of the action or the speaker distant.

　　你会发现，被动语态使得一个行动和行动者分离开来，或是动作被进行的一方(“我们”“嫌疑人”和以上的“错误”)显得比进行动作的一方更加重要。因此，被动语态在正式写作中比较常见，作者想要让进行动作的一方或说话人能产生一种距离感。

　　3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

　　3.永远不要用除了 “said”的动词来进行对话

　　The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated," and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

　　对话的范畴属于人物，动词是作者非常关心的。但是，“said”这词远远不及嘟囔，喘息，警告，撒谎等词更具侵入性。我曾经注意到玛丽•麦卡锡用“她郑重地声明”来结束了一个对话，那时我不得不停止阅读去查了字典。

　　This is a rule that is often repeated, something that is supposedly the province of "showing, not telling." But this is less a rule of writing and more of a personal preference of Leonard's.

　　这是一个经常被提及的规则，有时其职责据称是“要显示，而不是讲述”。但这不太像写作的规则反正更像是伦纳德的个人喜好。

　　Of course, lots of these non-said dialogue markers are almost as old as said itself is. Check your dictionary and you’ll see that dialogue verbs like crow, yell, whisper, and groan are contemporaries of said and had ample use in Old English as well as in Modern English.

　　当然了，这些非言语类的对话标识本身也像“said”这词一样的老。查你的字典看看，你会发现，这些对话动词比如，crow,啼叫，yell叫喊，whisper低语，和groan咆哮虽都是当代的言语词，但在古英语和现代英语中都有着广泛的应用。

　　4.Omit Needless Words

　　4.删掉多余的单词

　　Along with advice about the passive voice and keeping your writing in the same verb tense is this often-quoted axiom: omit needless words.

　　和在写作中对被动语态的建议及要保持时态一致一样被经常引用的还有：删掉多余的单词。

　　The question is, of course, what’s a needless word and who gets to say? Take this paragraph:

　　那么问题就是，什么叫多余的单词，谁说了算?我们拿下面这段来举例：

　　Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena thinks, “I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama a-walking. A fur piece.” Thinking although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been before. I am now further from Doane’s Mill than I have been since I was twelve years old.

　　坐在路边，看着货车爬上了她这边的山丘，莉娜心想，“我来自于阿拉巴马这么一个皮毛之地。阿拉巴马所有的路都必须得步行。一个皮毛之地啊。”尽管我离家还不到一个月，我已经到了密西西比，比我以前任何时候都离家远。这比我12岁那年离多恩的磨房要更远了。

　　If we have words in our language (and our dictionaries), then it is because they are needful, not needless. And though we tend to focus on the meaning of words, we can’t deny that they can have extra-semantic uses.

　　如果我们的语言中(字典中)出现单词，那是因为它们是必需的。尽管我们关注的常常是单词的意思，但我们不可否认它们也有额外的语义作用。

　　5.Avoid Colloquial Language

　　5.避免口语化

　　Slang is everywhere. When we use it in everyday life to communicate with friends informally, it’s usually fine. In fact, sounding too formal around our friends is kinda weird. Slang, or colloquial language—to use the formal term—is not appropriate in academic writing and many professional communication situations.

　　俚语无处不在。在非正式场合我们跟朋友们进行日常交流时，用俚语还是不错的。实际上，和朋友在一起时用很正式的语言交流有一点奇怪。俚语，或是口语-用在正式的场合下-出现在学术写作和许多专业沟通时却是很不合时宜的。

　　Some writing teachers tell their students to avoid certain classes of words: slang, jargon, new words whose meaning isn’t apparent. The idea behind this is that you don’t want the words you use to snag the audience’s attention and detract from the point you’re making. This is a guideline that many of us learn as we go through school, where most of our writing is more formal and academic, and it’s a good guideline to follow in academic and formal writing.

　　一些写作老师告诉他们的学生要避开特定的某类单词：俚语，术语，意思模糊的新词。言下之意就是，你也不想在使用这些词语时吸引了读者的注意力，却使得他们在理解你的观点时分了心。这是我们很多人在学校学到的写作原则，在学校里我们大部分的写作还是比较正式且学术的，在学术和正式的写作时，这个原则非常受用。

　　But context is everything. Sometimes writers and editors will forget that not all writing is academic writing, and they’ll expand on the rule a bit to say that one shouldn’t use words that aren’t entered into a dictionary (regardless of what one is writing).但是内容至上。有时候作者和编辑会忘记并非所有的写作都跟学术有关，他们会阐述说不要用字典里不存在的单词。(不管是在写什么)。

　　Dictionaries follow the language. A new word appears; people begin to use that word more and more; it shows up consistently in edited prose; we eventually enter it into the dictionary. If writers are supposed to avoid words that aren’t entered into the dictionary, then the whole process falls apart at the third step.

　　字典是追随着语言的。新词出现了，人们用的越来越多了，它在编选的散文中一直出现着，新单词才被收录进字典。如果作者们都避免用字典里没有的单词，那么这整个过程在第三步时就崩塌了。

　　In short, keep your audience in mind, but certainly use words that aren’t in the dictionary. We like reading them as much as we like collecting them.

　　简言之，我们要把读者放在心里，但我们肯定是要用到字典里没有出现过的词。我们喜欢阅读且收集它们。

（编辑：何莹莹）