英语看图作文的写作技巧(最新20篇)

以下是由语文迷网小精心整理提供的关于高考的英语写作技巧，一起来看看吧。

一、要善于模仿

一些同学的办法往往是背一堆范文，然后再到考场上进行一个“剪切”、“粘贴”的工作，真正的模仿重点永远要放在一定的句式结构上，而非个别的词汇。有一个句式说：“…for the simple reason that…”表示某种现象的原因是什么，用在高考(课程)写作中，我们就可以拿来解释为什么自行车在中国如此的流行：“The bicycle is very popular in China for the simple reason that…”。然而，很多同学一谈到原因仍然是“…because…”。如果要表示“总是能够”的概念，很多同学提笔就会写can always，但理想的句子应该是用双重否定表示强烈的肯定，用never fail to。

二、要灵活变通

在批改过上万份同学们英语(课程)作文中，经常能发现一些将中文生硬地翻译成英文的表达法。有一句话叫做“立志如山，行道如水”，写英文作文，一定要有决心把它写好，有信心把意思表达清楚，这是“立志如山”;但关键是遇到问题时要有个灵活的态度，能像流水一样变通解决问题。有个翻译界的故事说：在某大型国际会议的招待会上，一道菜是用鸡蛋做的。与会的客人问翻译：“What is it made of”本来是非常简单的一个问题，结果翻译太紧张，忘了“egg”这个词，但是他急中生智，回答：“It is made of Miss Hen’s son.”这里，就是一个灵活变通的范例。绕道表达，是写作中应该常常运用的一种方法。

三、要细心观察

注意英语中一些表达上的习惯。比如在正式文体的写作中，很少用 “it isn’t”这样的略缩形式，而往往是一板一眼地写作 “it is not”。同理，在正式文体中的日期一般不缩写，阿拉伯数字一般会用英文表达(特别长的数字除外)。

许多同学在写作文时，习惯于把 “since” “because” “for”这样的词放在句首引导原因状语从句。事实上，在我们见到的英语报刊杂志文章中，这样的从句一般都是放在主句之后的。另外, “and”也常常被误放在一句话的开头，表示两个句子之间的并列或递进关系。其实，经常留心地道的英语文章能发现，如果是并列关系，完全可以不用连词;如果是递进关系，用 “furthermore” “what is more”更为普遍。

四、要心有全局

英文写作如果结构意识良好，应试写作就简化成为一个填空的过程了，适当地填入观点、素材，文章就自然而然立起来了。

临考在即，同学们要牢记英语写作的基本要领，特编顺口溜如下：细审题，巧构思，列要点，防遗漏。写日记，同汉语;书信，通知格式要牢记。看清图表细梳理，写人记事按顺序;完稿后查遗漏，整洁干净莫忘记。

导语：千万不要把成功寄托在运气上，所谓的好运，往往意味着在背后下了更大的工夫，采取了更加有效的方法下面是yuwenmi小编为大家整理的作文素材，欢迎阅读与借鉴，谢谢!

1964年秋，美国乔治敦大学迎来一批新学员。由于该校收费偏高，外交专业31名新生一致联名给参议院写信，恳请给每人提供一份兼职，以缓解家庭的经济压力，同时提前适应社会。

参议院很快回复，以没有空缺岗位为由拒绝了。大家都很失望，纷纷另寻出路，唯独有个名叫威廉的小伙不想放弃，接连又寄出了八封信，但还是没结果。偶然的机会下，威廉打听到参议院主席富布赖特与自己一样来自阿肯色州，便又以老乡名义接连给他写了七封信，全都石沉大海。威廉仍不甘心，暑假结束后从家乡返校，再次给富布赖特去信。这次终于如愿以偿，他很快得到一份兼职，月薪高达3500美元。

同学们见威廉风光地出入参议院，羡慕不已，于是个个暗中给参议院去信，无一例外都遭到了拒绝。而威廉则好运连连，当上学生会主席，还被富布赖特指定为助理。同学们不禁疑惑地问："为何你总是交好运，难道真有上帝帮忙吗?"

威廉笑了，隔了很久才说："你们看到我多次写信，以为这样就能幸运地得到兼职?其实那年暑假我专程回到家乡，找到了一位与富布赖特交情很深的法官，无偿为他服务了两个月，最后才感动了他，请他帮忙给富布赖特写了封推荐信。我能得到兼职，全靠法官的推荐呀!"

威廉的全名叫威廉.杰斐逊.克林顿，此后他仍旧好运不断，直至28年后当选为第42任美国总统。这位从平凡家庭走出来的总统，常对崇拜者说："千万不要把成功寄托在运气上，所谓的好运，往往意味着在背后下了更大的工夫，采取了更加有效的方法。"

反映校园生活的作文，我们不仅可以写广大中学生丰富多彩的校园生活。也可以写浓厚的师生悄谊、紧张丰富的学生生活、平等互助团结友爱的同学友情。还可以写教育教学改革的新讯息。也就是说，从反映校园生活的作文中可以看出新时代中学生的特点。当代教师的形象，新型的师生关系，现代丰富多彩的课堂生活。那么，这些纷繁复杂的材料我们该如何选材呢?文学大师茅盾曾经说过：。园艺家常常把太多的落曹摘去，只留下二三个。这样就得到了特别大的花朵：这个比喻大致可以说明创作过程中剪裁的必要。我们围绕中心选择材料后，还要根据表达中心的需要确定哪些材料是主要的，要详写，哪些材料是次要的，要略写，以突出文章的中心。详写。可以用详细的叙述再现事悄的过程，给读者留下探刻的印象。突出中心事件;也可以通过细致的描写，刻画人物的形象，突出主要人物。略写是为了使文章脉络清晰，叙述清楚。详略要相辅相成，怡到好处。不能有详无略。或有略无详，使文章如涟水赚或策冗拖沓，影响了文章的表达。

写校园生活的文章多半是记叙文，相当多的是以记事为主的文章。那么，如何使自己的叙述有条理呢?最重要的一条就是安排好叙事的顺序。先叔述什么，后叙述什么。这样条理就会清楚了。如叙述一件事。无沦它是简单还是复杂，都要有起因、经过、结果这样一个完整的过程。在叙述一件事情时，必须先把这件事的来龙去脉弄清楚，然后按事情的起因、经过、结果的顺序来叙述。如果叙述几件事悄。就必须先理出这几件事情相互间的关系，这种联系成表现为性质上有同有异，或表现为时间上有先有后。要说清楚先后联系的几件事情，可以按照事情发生的先后顺序来写，即采用顺叙的方法;为了突出中心事件，也可以把叙事的高潮或结局放在文章的开头，整箱文章采用倒叙的方法;还可以在叙事的过程中适当地穿插其他有关内容。不管运用哪一种记叙的方法。都应当符合表现中心的需要。

学生和老师是学校的主人。在反映校园生活题材的作文中，有相当一部分是写人的记叙文。这些作文的主人公当然就是学生和老师。

[中考作文写作技巧：校园生活类

小学生的练笔也叫随笔，就是把看到、听到、读到的事、物或人，及由些而产生的感想、体会马上记下来。写“随笔”，可以积累素材，提高认识事物的能力，养成随时动笔的好习惯。以下是小编整理的二年级作文写作技巧，欢迎大家的查看。

1、较真课本，写出新意。学完《开天劈地》后，张晓锋同学的《我发现课文插图错了》，提出课文与插图有两点不符。一，课文明明说盘古左手持凿，右手握斧猛劈猛凿。而插图画的却是双手握斧乱砍乱劈。二，课文交待盘古未倒下之前天地未开混沌一片，要到身化万物后才有花草树木。而插图却在天地未分之前就有了花草山水。向编辑建议改选插图，以免误导学生。

2、较真现实，敢说真话。学生本身就是社会一分子，对现实肯定有自己的一知半解。要学会发表真实的看法。姚艳星同学面对各种繁多的考试，发出了《我喜欢这样的考试》的呼声。提出“那一张张的考卷并不一定能考出我们真实的特长和才干。”

3、梳理回顾，表现美好。生活中不泛美好的东西，让她再现，既鼓舞了自己，又影响了别人，也是锻炼自己写作水平的好机会。像《快乐的夜晚》，《难忘的游戏》《我的烦恼》都是表现自己曾经拥有的美好回顾。

4、续写改写，想象情节。每学完一节课，我都让学生发挥想象，或续写，或改写，或按自己意愿进行改写。这样既锻炼思维又训练写作能力。

5、贴近生活，想象对策。每个人都有自己的烦恼和喜好。只有让他设身处地换位思考，才能更理解人生沧桑。我让学生写《假如我是校长》，《卖火柴的小女孩来到中国》，《假如我是小警察》等，既学会了描写生活，又体验了另一个我。

6、放飞翅膀，想象未来。对于未来生活充满希望，才能珍惜现在，才能焕发努力去开创未来。我让学生依据科学预测未来，《二十年后再相会》，《未来的世界》，〈二十年后的我〉等。都让学生放飞畅想翅膀，漫游未来，写出了水平。

7、真情表达，直抒胸臆。学生最怕没经历过的好事或景观。但却喜欢向老师说悄悄话。一般写的都是真实感情。姚联辉同学在〈老师教我作人〉一文中写道：“我这个人贪玩，好动，但老师并没有一味指责，而是认为玩是儿童本性，只要不耽搁学习就好。你对我们宽宏大度，劳动时自己能做的事大都自己默契无闻地做了，对我们的淘气常常一笑了之。”

8、提供平台，愉悦作文。学生的表达欲望，决定他们的作文成败的重要因素。

要写好英语作文，还要带着敏锐的目光细心地观察，注意英语中一些表达上的习惯。小编收集了中考英语作文的写作技巧，欢迎阅读。

一、要善于模仿

对大多数学习英语的同学来说，英语的词汇量、句式的积累还极其有限，远不能达到用英文流畅表达，挥洒自如的境地。在这一阶段进行创作是不合时宜的，如果非要创造，只能写出“long time no see”这样的文字来。因此，模仿是这一阶段的必经途径。

谈到模仿，一些同学的办法就是背一堆范文，然后再到考场上进行一个“剪切”、“粘贴”的工作，效果可想而知。这不是真正意义上的模仿，充其量算是默写课文。如何模仿呢?

首先，模仿的目标要明确。模仿的重点永远要放在一定的句式结构上，而非个别的词汇。道理很简单：一个词，随着文章内容的变换，可能就不能用了;而句式结构是放置四海而皆准的东西，适用的范围广，学来对写作的帮助也就明显。

其次，模仿的材料要地道。像新概念英语这样的教材就提供了很多原汁原味的英语表达法。盲目选择文章学习，记一些不中不洋的句子，以讹传讹，浪费时间。

最后，模仿要体现在实际动笔上。比如说，新概念第三册有一个句式说：“…for the simple reason that…”表示某种现象的原因是什么，用在大学英语考试中，我们就可以拿来解释为什么自行车在中国如此的流行，表达为：“the bicycle is very popular in china for the simple reason that…”。然而，很多同学经常背了这些句式不用，一谈到原因仍然是“…because…”，等等。

二、要灵活变通

在批改英语作文的过程中，经常能发现一些将中文生硬地翻译成英文的表达法。由于中英文之间的差异和词汇量、表达法积累的不足，出现难于表达的情况是十分正常的。关键问题在于如何处理。有一句话叫做“立志如山，行道如水”，套用在这个问题上就很合适。写英文作文，一定要有决心把它写好，有信心把意思表达清楚，这是“立志如山”;但关键是遇到问题时要有个灵活的态度，能像流水一样变通解决问题。

有个翻译界的故事说：在某大型国际会议的招待会上，一道菜是用鸡蛋做的。与会的客人问翻译：“what is it made of?”本来是非常简单的一个问题，结果翻译太紧张，忘了“egg”这个词，但是他急中生智，回答：“it is made of miss hen’s son.”这里，就是一个灵活变通的范例。绕道表达，是写作中应该常常运用的一种方法。

三、要细心观察

要写好英语作文，还要带着敏锐的目光细心地观察，注意英语中一些表达上的习惯。

比如说，在正式文体的写作中，很少用 “it isn"t”这样的略缩形式，而往往是一板一眼地写作 “it is not”。同理，在正式文体中的日期一般不缩写，阿拉伯数字一般会用英文表达(特别长的数字除外)。

再比如说，翻翻新概念第三册所有的课文，会发现凡是一段文章的段首句出现转折时，转折词however都放在句子结构中的第二部分，以插入语的形式出现。分析原因，是因为段落一开始就用转折词，会时转折显得较生硬、突兀。

最后，许多同学在写作文时，习惯于把 “since” “because” “for”这样的词放在句首引导原因状语从句。事实上，在我们见到的英语报刊杂志文章中，这样的从句一般都是放在主句之后的。另外, “and”也常常被误放在一句话的开头，表示两个句子之间的并列或递进关系。其实，经常留心地道的英语文章能发现，如果是并列关系，完全可以不用连词;如果是递进关系，用 “furthermore” “what is more”更为普遍。

四、要心有全局

英文写作十分强调形式上的严谨性，特别是全局的丝丝入扣。如果写作时结构意识良好，应试写作就简化成为一个填空的过程了。框架万变不离其宗，适当地填如观点、素材，文章就自然而然地立起来了。

掌握了这些英文写作中的练习技巧，会使提高英文写作水平的努力有更大的收益。

下面智康教育跟大家分享写作的“五项基本原则” ：

1、 长短句原则

工作还得一张一驰呢，老让读者读长句，累死人!写一个短小精辟的句子，相反，却可以起到画龙点睛的作用。而且如果我们把短句放在段首或者段末，也可以揭示主题：

as a creature, i eat; as a man, i read. although one action is to meet the primary need of my body and the other is to satisfy the intellectual need of mind, they are in a way quite similar.

如此可见，长短句结合，抑扬顿挫，岂不爽哉?牢记!

强烈建议：在文章第一段(开头)用一长一短，且先长后短;在文章主体部分，要先用一个短句解释主要意思，然后在阐述几个要点的时候采用先短后长的句群形式，定会让主体部分妙笔生辉!文章结尾一般用一长一短就可以了。

2、 主题句原则

国有其君，家有其主，文章也要有其主。否则会给人造成“群龙无首”之感!相信各位读过一些破烂文学，故意把主体隐藏在文章之内，结果造成我们稀里糊涂!不知所云!所以奉劝各位一定要写一个主题句，放在文章的开头(保险型)或者结尾，让读者一目了然，必会平安无事!

特别提示：隐藏主体句可是要冒险的!

to begin with, you must work hard at your lessons and be fully prepared before the exam(主题句). without sufficient preparation, you can hardly expect to answer all the questions correctly.

3、 一二三原则

领导讲话总是第一部分、第一点、第二点、第三点、第二部分、第一点… 如此罗嗦。可毕竟还是条理清楚。考官们看文章也必然要通过这些关键性的“标签”来判定你的文章是否结构清楚，条理自然。破解方法很简单，只要把下面任何一组的词汇加入到你的几个要点前就清楚了。

1)first, second, third, last(不推荐，原因：俗)

2)firstly, secondly, thirdly, finally(不推荐，原因：俗)

3)the first, the second, the third, the last(不推荐，原因：俗)

4)in the first place, in the second place, in the third place, lastly(不推荐，原因：俗)

5)to begin with, then, furthermore, finally(强烈推荐)

6)to start with, next, in addition, finally(强烈推荐)

7)first and foremost, besides, last but not least(强烈推荐)

8)most important of all, moreover, finally

9)on the one hand, on the other hand(适用于两点的情况)

10)for one thing, for another thing(适用于两点的情况)

4、 短语优先原则

写作时，尤其是在考试时，如果使用短语，有两个好处：其一、用短语会使文章增加亮点，如果老师们看到你的文章太简单，看不到一个自己不认识的短语，必然会看你低一等。相反，如果发现亮点—精彩的短语，那么你的文章定会得高分了。其二、关键时刻思维短路，只有凑字数，怎么办?用短语是一个办法!比如：

i cannot bear it.

可以用短语表达：i cannot put up with it.

i want it.

可以用短语表达：i am looking forward to it.

这样字数明显增加，表达也更准确。

5、 多变句式原则

1)加法(串联)

都希望写下很长的句子，像个老外似的，可就是怕写错，怎么办，最保险的写长句的方法就是这些，可以在任何句子之间加and, 但最好是前后的句子又先后关系或者并列关系。比如说：

i enjor music and he is fond of playing guitar.

如果是二者并列的，我们可以用一个超级句式：

not only the fur coat is soft, but it is also warm.

其它的短语可以用：

besides, furthermore, likewise, moreover

2)转折(拐弯抹角)

批评某人缺点的时候，我们总习惯先拐弯抹角说说他的优点，然后转入正题，再说缺点，这种方式虽然阴险了点，可毕竟还比较容易让人接受。所以呢，我们说话的时候，只要在要点之前先来点废话，注意二者之间用个专这次就够了。

the car was quite old, yet it was in excellent condition.

the coat was thin, but it was warm.

更多的短语：

despite that, still, however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite, notwithstanding

3)因果(so, so, so)

昨天在街上我看到了一个女孩，然后我主动搭讪，然后我们去咖啡厅，然后我们认识了，然后我们成为了朋友…可见，讲故事的时候我们总要追求先后顺序，先什么，后什么，所以然后这个词就变得很常见了。其实这个词表示的是先后或因果关系!

the snow began to fall, so we went home.

更多短语：

then, therefore, consequently, accordingly, hence, as a result, for this reason, so that

4)失衡句(头重脚轻，或者头轻脚重)

有些人脑袋大，身体小，或者有些人脑袋小，身体大，虽然我们不希望长成这个样子，可如果真的是这样了，也就必然会吸引别人的注意力。文章中如果出现这样的句子，就更会让考官看到你的句子与众不同。其实就是主语从句，表语从句，宾语从句的变形。

举例：this is what i can do.

whether he can go with us or not is not sure.

同样主语、宾语、表语可以改成如下的复杂成分：

when to go, why he goes away…

5)附加(多此一举)

如果有了老婆，总会遇到这样的情况，当你再讲某个人的时候，她会插一句说，我昨天见过他;或者说，就是某某某，如果把老婆的话插入到我们的话里面，那就是定语从句和同位语从句或者是插入语。

the man whom you met yesterday is a friend of mine.

i don’t enjoy that book you are reading.

mr liu, our oral english teacher, is easy-going.

其实很简单，同位语--要解释的东西删除后不影响整个句子的构成;定语从句—借用之前的关键词并且用其重新组成一个句子插入其中，但是whom or that 关键词必须要紧跟在先行词之前。

一、单项选择题

(1)先易后难：一些考题的答案比较容易选定，可以先从这些考题入手。平时练习时，应以基础为主，主要精力不应放在偏题、怪题上。

(2)分析考查意图、运用相关知识：应学会分析出题者考查的意图，明确相关题的测试点是什么，然后运用所学知识，进行分析、判断，再进行选择。

(3)利用暗示进行选择：注意考题涉及的语境范围。平时应注重对习惯用语表达、惯用法和中英文化差别等方面知识的积累。

(4)运用排除法：可采取语言排除、逻辑排除、语法排除或选择排除等方法。先排除较容易、较明显的错误选项，缩小范围，而后对剩余的选项进行比较分析，最后确定答案。

二、完形填空题

1、搭配判断法。

根据对以往试题的分析，搭配型考题在完形填空题中占的比例最高。搭配型问题主要测试常见搭配的熟练程度，比如说哪些词要搭配不定式、动名词或某种从句，哪些词必须与某个介词搭配。我们在复习时要特别注意短语动词和介词的固定搭配。

2、结构判断法。

结构型问题主要包括句型、句式、连接词的选择等，解题时要运用句法知识，把握关键词，从而做出迅速正确的判断。完形填空题中有很多是利用语法的正确性与逻辑的排斥性间的矛盾来设计的。因此考生应结合上下文的合理性及意义关系的逻辑性选择最佳答案。完形填空中常考的逻辑关系主要有：

(1)转折、让步关系：这种关系表明后一种观点或事实与前一种观点或事实相比有些出乎意料。

常见的表示转折、让步的词或词组有：but，still，yet，however，though，although，no matter，in spite of，anyway，even if等。

(2)因果关系：

表示原因的连词或词组有：because (of )，due to，owing to，thanks to，since，for，as等。

表示结果的词或词组有：so，therefore，then，as a result，in consequence，consequently，thus等。

(3)递进、补充关系：这种关系表示对前一事实或观点做进一步阐述。

常用的词、词组有：moreover，likewise，besides，in addition，also，too，not only…but also，apart from，what‘s more 等。

(4)对比、比较关系：对比观点或事物间的差异性，比较观点或事物间的同一性。

表示对比的词或词组有：in contrast，by contrast，on the contrary，conversely，unlike，oppositely 等。表示比较的词或词组有：like，in comparison，compare…with，as，just as等。

3、词义判断法。

词汇型问题也是完形填空的一个考点，主要测试考生在段落语篇中把握语义连贯性的能力，提供选择的词可能是近义词、近形词也可能是随意拼凑的四个选项，遇到这类题，既要联系上下文，又要具有扎实的词汇基础，有时还须根据自己的文化背景知识做出判断、选择答案。

三、阅读理解

在做阅读理解题时，除了掌握前面介绍的基本题型、基本法则外，还要进行有意识的阅读训练。提高阅读能力的训练主要可以从下面几个方面入手：词汇、方法、侧重点。

1、词汇：猜词的技巧。

在阅读过程中，不可避免地会碰到不认识的单词，考试中又不允许查词典，有些不认识的单词对文章的理解影响不大，可以忽略。但有些不认识的单词则会影响阅读者对文章理解的正确性。在这种情况下，必需猜测词的含义，这就需要利用猜词的技巧了。

最基本的猜词技巧有两种：一是根据构词法的规则猜，构词法的规则在前面的章节中已有介绍，这里就不重复了;另一种猜词的技巧是根据上下文的描述、解释、列举、比较等，运用已有的知识，分析、推断该词的含义。常用的猜词技巧可归纳为以下几种：

(1)利用词根、词缀构词法推测词义。通过构词法推测词义是最常用的方法之一。

(2)分析文中对该词的直接定义推测词义。

作者在行文中有时不得不使用某些难词、偏词，为使读者理解，作者常常会在文章中直接解释该词语。作者或通过同位语，或使用定语从句加以阐明，或用冒号、破折号、括号给出，或用语篇标志词引出，这类语篇标志词有：that is (to say); e.g.;oor，in other words;to put it in another way等。如：

She is bilingual.In other words，she speaks English and French equally well.(bilingual：会说两种语言的)。

(3)分析文中对该词的近义复述推测词义。

同一短文中前后两个句子、短语或单词通常有互释作用，可以从上下文的复述中获取与某一单词或短语相关的信息以猜测词义。如：

It is difficult t

o list all of my fathe‘s attributes because he has so many different talents and abilities.(attribute：特质;才能)

(4)分析文中对该词的对比和并列表述推测词义。

利用上下文中的对比或并列表述猜测词义是最常用、最可靠的方法。有不少句子会在上下文中给出某个生词(尤其是偏词、难词)的同义词或反义词，运用对比或并列表达对这些生词加以推测。通过了解词与词之间的连接关系，特别是一些语篇标志词，如：however;on the other hand;nevertheless等，我们不难推断这些生词的词义。如：

If you agree，write “yes”;if you dissent，write “no”。(dissent：不同意）

文题是文章的眉目，“文好题一半”，一个好的题目，可以概括全文的内容，可以体现全文的思路，可以蕴涵全文的主旨，可以表明全文的特色，能给人清新脱俗，耳目一新的感觉，能一下子抓住读者的注意力、激发起仔细阅读的兴趣，能使文章起到眉目传神的妙用。如《扬长避短，成功之道》、《“英雄”偏到“无用武之地》，这些文题巧用成语，新颖别致。又如《“钦差大臣”请下岗》、《“李鬼”打假》，这些文题巧用名人名字，耐人寻味。再如《千里马变成推磨驴》、《岂可回族街头卖猪肉》等活用修辞给人赏心悦目的感觉。

考场作文的文题，首先必须准确，要扣准话题，不能偏题离题;其次要醒目，要紧扣文章内容，让人一看一目了然，给人耳目一新的感觉;再其次要简洁，要短小简单，能给人留下深刻的印象，能给人广阔的想象空间。常见的文题有三种类型①老实型。老老实实的采用原话题的原词句，并不多加改造。如《心灵的选择》《小议诚信》。②深化型。对原话题理解的基础上，所拟文题或明确主旨，或概括内容，或体现思路，或表明特色，如《失败是种难言的美丽》《人在旅途》。③艺术型。采用一定的修辞方法，常见的如比喻式《人生也是一张答卷》《成功之花只对挑战者绽放》，夸张式《世界很小是个家》，引用式《你不该悄悄地走开》(歌曲)《横看成岭侧成峰》(诗句)，反问式《21世纪你美吗》《岂可回族街头卖猪肉》，情景式《滑铁卢上空的雄鹰》《带着三句话上路》，符号式《出发+拼搏=到达》，呼告式《妈妈，我想对你说》，对比式《英雄无用武之地与英雄有用武之地》。这三种情况以后两种为好。

英语是一种语言，从语言学角度来看，学生在掌握一定数量的词汇与语法知识后，就要用来表达自己的思想、见解，这些落实到纸面上就是书面表达。针对初中生的实际能力，书面表达为初中英语教学的一大难题，其常见形式多为看图作文。结合自己教学与写作的经验，对看图作文谈几点体会。

看图作文的写作从整体上可分为两个过程：一，感性认识过程，即通过画面直接获得信息的过程(究竟画面展示了一个什么情景);二，理性认识过程，即针对画面让学生发挥想象力，挖掘画面间的内在联系融入自己的思想与见解(画面的内涵是什么)。在实际教学过程中我将这两个过程具体渗透到五个环节(一“抓”，二“列”，三“变”，四“连”，五“检”)中去。

一“抓”为抓主题。首先，根据图片内容确定好题材与体裁 — 是写人还是写景，是说理还是叙事，是书信还是日记或其他应用文体。这一环节可采用 a, 求同法，即寻找画面中相同的人物、地点或时间等，来帮助学生确定主线，不致于跑题; b ，求异法，即启发学生观察几幅图的不同之处，挖掘出它们之间的内在联系从而确定体裁。

二“列”为列要点。由于书面表达是以一定的情景为基础，考查具有一定的针对性，因此要点要全面，无遗漏。要点主要是结合图片中的情景用自己熟悉的结构与词汇列出，忌用生疏的结构与词汇按汉语思维盲目罗列，原则“不求难，不求异，唯求准”。

三“变”为变要点为句子。将第二个环节中所罗列的要点，先按一定的时间、空间及逻辑顺序排列;然后选定恰当的主语与人称，再根据动作发生的时间与主谓关系拓词成句。结合初中生的实际，要求用他们熟悉、简单的结构来表达，避免因用长句和大量的复合句而出现过多的语法错误。如果遇到必须用长句表达时，可仿照、套用课本或各种阅读材料中出现的句型，切勿用汉语思维生造句子。

四“连”为连句成篇。这一环节是最关键的一环。首先，要根据题目所要求及画面展示确定好题材与体裁。其次，要确定好行文的人称与时态的基调。再次，要在句与句以及段与段之间加一些表转折、递进和因果等关系的关联词与过渡句，使文章前后照应，行文流畅。最后结合题目要求字数适当加入一些表达自己思想、见解的内容，使文章丰满显得有血有肉。

五“检”为文章检查。文章写成之后错误在所难免，检查这一环节不能省。检查可从如下几方面入手： 1 ，文章的体裁格式是否正确。 2 ，要点有无遗漏。 3 ，句子(人称、时态、语态、主谓一致、结构、词语搭配等)。 4 ，词汇(意义、拼写、时态语态，形容词与动词的形式，名词单复数)。 5 ，标点符号是否有遗漏与错误。

在经过以上几个环节之后，一篇符合要求的看图作文就算完成了。在这里还要提到的是，英语做为一门语言基本功的训练不可忽视，书面表达中书写尤为重要。此外，还应不断加强基础词汇与语法的积累与锤炼，只有这样书面表达才能有真正的提高。

一、遇到“很”和“非常”想一想

对于文章写不长的孩子，可以训练的另一个技巧是：遇到“很”和“非常”想一想。看过无数学生习作，指导老师发现出现频率最高的字眼包括“很，非常”，请家长提醒孩子，遇到要写这几个字时不要轻易下笔，停下来想一想，是不是非要出现这个字眼?

比如写热，别出现“很热”两个字，学会用其他的描写来体现热：骄阳似火，没有一丝风，树叶低垂毫无生气……文章自然就能写长。

二、环境里面有“真”“情”

到了五六年级孩子都要学习环境描写。如有的孩子会写：“早上天气还挺好的，放学回家时，却哗哗下起雨来。雨珠在下，泪珠在滴，老天也好像在为我哭泣。”

孩子能用环境衬托自己的心情首先要表扬。但是很多孩子只要一写环境，肯定就是小花微笑，小草点头、小鸟歌唱、小雨哭泣，成了套路，难道世界上只有小草、小鸟、小花吗?为什么不能写身边更真实的东西呢?云、雾、桌子，哪怕是电线杆都可以写，这个技巧是提醒孩子不仅要让人活在环境里，还要让人活在真实的环境里。

三、不用成语

作文为什么写不长?都是成语惹的祸!指导老师此言一出震惊四座。不是说多用成语才显得有文采吗?其实不然，在“就是不用成语”写作技巧中，阅卷老师指出：当作文中只会按照套路使用成语时，文章细节就没了，还不如让孩子老老实实把自己看到的感受都写出来。什么天高云淡、风和日丽、桃红柳绿、炯炯有神、心旷神怡……这些被用滥的成语还是少出现为妙。

比如，写春天别用“风和日丽”，而是这样写：“风儿拂过林梢，原本平静的湖面漾起了圈圈涟漪，湖边的柳树轻摇着身姿，我也忍不住张开双臂，任风抚过我的每一寸肌肤，暖暖的，痒痒的。”想办法用具体的句子替换掉别人用滥的成语，解决孩子作文写不长写不细的难题。

四、写说不单写“说”

让孩子比较以下三句话。

张三说：“……”;

张三无可奈何地说：“……”;

张三摊了摊手，一副无可奈何的样子：“……”

显然，让人物说话有多种方式，写语言可以不用出现“说”而是在语言前面加上动作和神态，通过一定的训练掌握这样的技巧让孩子的写作水平切实得到提升，让他们学会细节描写，不会仅干巴巴的地写“某某说”。

五、字数三四五

这个技巧说白了就是学习写短句。学了一段时间写作的孩子容易在作文中写长句，而长句写不好就变成病句。事实上很多作家也是以写短句见长的，像沈从文、汪曾祺。家长要提醒孩子注意控制每句话的字数，建议把十几个字几十个字的长句改成只有三四五个字的短句，孩子们会发现这样的作文有语感会舒服很多。

如某学生的原文：“高高的绿绿的草散发着诱人的清香。一根一根都看得那么清楚，很挺拔的样子。”经指导后改成：“草绿了，高了，散发着清香。一根一根，看得清清楚楚，很挺拔的样子。”是不是很有节奏感?

六、一秒钟的事写三百字

还是针对作文写不长的一种技巧训练：用三百字来描写1秒钟内发生的事。如关于破校运会跳高纪录瞬间的描写原本只有几十字：只见某某纵身一跳，一下子飞过横杆，新的校运会纪录诞生了!

怎么变成三百字?可以有条理地加上动作解剖：如何助跑、起跳、翻越、落地;加上联想：往届校运会有人挑战失败，平时如何一次次练习等等;还可以加上细节来充实，起跳前如何与同学们进行眼神交流，成功后同学如何向他祝贺……家长可以找一些1秒钟的素材让孩子进行写作练习，学会了这个技巧还怕考试写不出四五百字吗?

七、写想不出现“想”

遇到描写心理活动时，这样的句子已经被孩子们写滥：“我脑子里跳出两个小人，一个小人……另一个小人……”不用这个句子又该怎么写?最常用的就是“我心想”。如某学生写：“数学老师出了一道难题要带回家写的。我心想：天哪!这该怎么办呢?”

按照指导老师“写想不用想”的技巧，去掉：“我心想”三个字如何?“数学老师出了一道难题要带回家写的。天哪!这该怎么办呢?”是不是更简洁精练?别忘了提醒孩子要给心理描写加上适当感叹词。

八、要动连着动

文章要一波三折才好看，但现在的孩子生活都很平淡，你不能强求他们写出一波三折的内容，那就让他们学会一波三折地使用动词，就这是要动连着动——学会连续使用动词。某学生写一场乒乓球球赛：“他发了一个旋转球，让人看得眼花缭乱。”(一句话把文章就给写完了)

学会动词技巧后将修改成：“只见他高高地将球抛起，眼睛死死盯着，球接触球板的一瞬间，他手腕轻轻一抖，脚一跺，球高速旋转着，向这边飞来，让人看得眼花缭乱。”一个动词转瞬变成六七个，文字即刻灵动丰富起来。

九、一段话里至少出现6个标点

很多孩子不会用标点，习作中常只有逗号句号逗号句号，甚至逗号都没有，把老师读到断气为止。针对这个现象，可以让孩子进行“一段话至少出现6种标点”的技巧训练。比如，。?!……：“”

这些标点你的作文中都有吗?没有的话请尝试用起来。经过几次训练后，你会发现孩子的惊人变化：意味深长的句子会写了、人物语言会加进去了，心理活动结合进去了，还会用反问句了，这些句子加进去后，文章当然生动起来。一位作家就曾用这种方法对自己作文写不好的孩子进行训练，收效明显，进步很快。

十、写外貌不用“有”

作文如何写外貌?孩子的作文里总会看到类似这样的名子：“XX可漂亮了，她有一头卷卷的黄头发，有一双乌黑的葡萄般的大眼睛，有一个高高的鼻子，还有一张樱桃小嘴。”

如果你试着让他们去掉文中的“有”，把文字重新串联一遍，会发现作文顺了很多。写上段文字的同学经指导后修改如下：“XX可漂亮啦。一头卷卷的黄头发自然地披在肩上。她的眼睛太吸引人了，乌黑乌黑葡萄一般。高高的鼻子，和樱桃小嘴配合起来，有点混血的味道，同学们可喜欢她啦。”是不是读起来舒服多了?

下面是小编收集的论文写作技巧：如何把论文变成高水平论文，欢迎阅读。

几年前，在中国能发表一些英文的SCI论文就算很厉害了，现在水涨船高，科研人能看上眼的是高影响因子的论文，尤其崇拜那些能发CNS(Cell, Nature, Science)系列杂志的学人。只要论文不造假，崇尚发表好论文是个好现象，对推动科技进步将很有帮助。

但事实上，除少数科研明星外，对国内大多数科研人员来说，在CNS上发表论文依然是一个梦想。能在专业领域内国际上最好的杂志上发表一篇高水平的论文也不是件容易的事。

我们在科研中会发现这样的现象：做相似或相关的研究，付出了同样艰辛的劳动，有些实验室能经常发表许多很好的论文，而有些实验室发表的论文却在低档次水平徘徊。

为什么会发生这种现象呢?低水平论文变成高水平论文的到底难度在哪呢?

在回答这个问题前，首先归纳一下高水平论文的特点：

(1)论文的假说要新，有创造性，而且有较大的理论或实际应用价值;

(2)支持假说的证据要充分，严谨;

(3)数据解释合理，结论清楚;

(4)写作要让复杂的东西易懂，反之，则是低水平论文。

根据我写论文、审稿和阅读论文的经验体会，其实很多论文的假说创新性不错，可支持假说的证据往往不足，有些很有价值的假说提出了几十年，甚至几千年，也没有得到有力的证据支持。

也就是说：想到容易，可做到就难了。比如：“地球以外有外星人存在”这一假说已经有很久了，可至今没找到有力的证据。

再比如：“诱导型多能干细胞(iPS)可治疗截瘫”。这一假说虽然取得了一些证据，但离找到充分的证据证明iPS能安全有效的治疗截瘫尚有很长的路要走。

据Baniel W.Byrne的研究(见我的博文《论文投稿被拒的常见原因排行榜》)，71%的论文投稿因为课题设计问题被拒。课题设计的问题多是在设计时没有考虑如何获取充分而严谨的证据来支持假说，从而导致论文档次上不去。

如何获得充分而又严谨的证据?

(1)尽可能多的证据来论证同一个假说。比如：要证实A基因的过度表达可诱导癌症，可用：

(a)体外证据(体外转染A基因到正常细胞，可转化成恶性肿瘤细胞);

(b)动物体内证据(如:A基因的转基因老鼠可诱导癌症);

(c)人体证据(如:A基因在人体癌组织中表达升高)。生物医学科研最终是为解决人类疾病服务的，因此人体的证据有利于提升论文的档次和价值。

(2)尽可能提供不同的实验方法来论证：比如要证实A基因在癌细胞表达升高可用免疫组化的方法在蛋白质水平显示细胞内表达的分布情况，也可用定量逆转录PCR的方法在mRNA水平检测A基因的表达，两种或更多的不同方法同时应用来证实同一问题，这样的结果就显得更可靠。

(3)尽可能找到直接的证据：比如，要证实转录因子对下游基因的调节，单知道该转录因子可增加下游基因的mRNA或蛋白质表达是不够的，因为你不知道该转录因子是直接作用还是通过另外的基因间接起作用，要取得直接证据可用ChIP实验来证实转录因子蛋白可直接与下游基因的启动子结合，从而上调下游基因的表达。

(4)尽可能将实验数据联起来获得一个相对完整而又严谨的科学故事：现在发表高水平大论文，单做一两个，甚至几个实验是不够的，需要做一系列的实验来把你的论据和论证串通起来，形成一个不一定动听但完整而严谨的科学故事。

尽管提供好的证据来支持假说最为重要的，也是最难的，但是在论文的讨论中如何合理的解释数据结果也至关重要。经常发高水平论文的人其实也是原始数据解释的高手。

而有些人，有好数据，却因为没有合理的解释好，所得出的结论不够清楚，导致论文档次下降，这确实有点冤。

解决这一问题的办法有：

a.分析文献，看是否能从文献中得到启发;

b.请经验丰富的同行认真阅读你的论文，提出建议，可弥补你想不到的地方。

写专业性很强的科技论文，能被学科背景不是太强的半外行容易看懂很重要。前几年我投的一篇论文给杂志，三次都被拒稿，后来认真阅读了审稿人意见，发现有些审稿人并没有完全理解我们的论文。

后来我们重新修改了论文,使之更容易理解后,论文很快被接受了。我觉得，如果有两个或以上的审稿人都误解了你的论文，那一定是你写作有问题，别光骂审稿人或编辑水平臭，一定要好好从自己写作上找原因。

我的做法是，在论文完稿后让英文水平不错，但专业背景不强的人读你的论文，如果他们能读懂，说明你的论文不错，并根据他们的意见反复修改。总之,把复杂高深的科研成果用易懂而严谨的方式写出来是我们论文写作努力的方向。

实际上，议论文也确实更稳妥，不容易偏题离题。考试吧高考网搜集高考议论文的写作技巧，希望对大家有帮助。

一、要掌握核心语段的基本结构

模式：主题句+支撑句1、2、3、4……

核心语段的组合不必太繁复，应追求中心清楚，层次明晰，所以一般采取总分结构，形成“主题句+支撑句”的形式。

中心句通常位于段首。支撑句从不同角度、深度、广度来证明主题句。支撑句可以按并列、递进、转折、因果、条件、承接等关系组合。

例如：①虚怀若谷，是人高尚情操的表现，也只有具备了这一点，才是健全的品格。②三国周瑜，年少有为，才智过人，堪称一代儒将。③可是面对足智多谋“运筹帷幄决胜于千里之外”的诸葛孔明，周瑜不是虚心向他人学习，而是忌妒诸葛亮的才华，不肯承认诸葛亮比自己棋高一着的事实，反而发出“既生瑜何生亮”的慨叹，最终忧愤而死。④这一史实说明了嫉妒的危害，它就像绊脚石，阻碍我们的发展，使我们不能清楚地认识自己的缺点，更不利于健康品格的形成。

【分析】此段采用了例证法。由四个句子组成。“主题句”是①，②③④是支撑句。第2句和第3句是转折关系第3句和第4句之间是承接关系。整段话清晰明白，有理有据。

主题句即观点句。其主要内容要用概括的关键词明确表达，后面的主题句才有充分展开分述的空间，也才能给结论留下回扣的对应点。例如：

自信比相信天命更有意义。(观点句)一般人通常喜欢相信天命，在他们的意识里，任何事物都归于上天的安排(过渡句)：生命从上天获得，健康有上天保佑，饮食靠上天赏赐，利益有上天赠与。(概括叙述现象)过分地相信上天，结果把自己的主权毫无条件地送给了神明，而不知道自己的命运要靠自己主宰的道理。(分析现象的危害)只有自信才能主宰自己的命运：黑暗的可以变成光明，悲伤的可以化为幸福，崎岖不平的道路可以铺成平坦光明的坦途。(阐释道理)要相信自己的生活幸福、精神愉快、前途光明都得靠自己争取，凡事靠自己的双手去创造，比依赖神明的支配不是更加实惠吗?(揭示普遍道理)

【分析】观点要靠事实说话，但这绝不意味着可以用观点加材料的简单公式便可以自然地得出结论。要知道，再典型的事例也只是个案，现象的背后都可能包含普遍的道理，但需要科学的归纳，理性的提炼。这个归纳和提炼的过程就是从感觉中提升感悟的过程。//这种思路通常的组织形式是：①段首观点句，②引用具体的事例(可以是单个经历，也可以是多则事件;可以是百态列举，也可以是世象组合。引用事例要把握一个尺度，如果是引用单个经历可以适当详细些，如果是多则事件就要采用排比或者定语扩展的方式记述，千万不能逐一展开详细的描述)，③对事件作分析评价，④揭示出普遍的社会属性或人生道理。

例如：《还有一个苹果》

坚定的信念是摆脱困境的制胜法宝。(段首观点句)//一场突然而至的沙尘暴，让一个穿越沙漠的独行侠迷失了方向，更可怕的是他的干粮和水包不幸被风暴卷走。翻遍所有的衣袋，他只找到一个泛青的酸苹果。可就是这个不起眼的苹果让他找到了求生的信念。他走过了不知多远的路程，摔了不知多个跟头，嘴唇干裂了无数道口子，衣服经历了无数便湿了又干，干了又湿的反复折腾。他的心中一直默念着：“我还有一个苹果……”，三天后，他终于走出了沙漠。(描述一个具体的事例)//沙漠独行侠的经历让我们悟出了一个人生的命题：只要你信念的旗帜不倒，你就又走出困境的可能。//在生命的旅程中，我们常常会遇到始料不及的挫折或失败，会身陷意外的困境，心遭不测的打击，这时，不要轻易地放弃。其实，只要心存不灭的信念，努力寻找，你会惊讶地发现事情远非想象的那么糟糕。 (对事件作分析评价)//只要你有战胜困难的勇气，你一定能够找到摆脱危险，渡过难关的“苹果”，握紧她，就没有穿越不了的沙漠。(揭示普遍的规律)

【解析】观点+事例+分析探究原因、目的等+阐述意义与价值等/重要意义、危害、严重后果(正反)

二、要掌握常规的展开方式

如何展开核心语段?最好的方法就是：以事实论据为基础，综合运用假设分析、比较分析、因果分析、引用分析、类比分析等。

1、假设分析。就是写完事例论据后，用假设的方法进行推理。(事例后+假设推理)

【示例】《耐住寂寞》

德国康德是闻名世界的大哲学家。但他一生都生活在一个小镇上，远离尘嚣，没有接受任何媒体的吹捧，没有参加过什么名流聚会，没有什么领导接见的风光，他在寂寞中领悟、思考、探索天地的哲理，路不断地在寂寞下延伸。(事例)//(假设)//如果他耐不住寂寞，把时间、精力都用于出名和享受世俗的热闹上，他的一生可能会“丰富”些，但是，他能成为德国古典哲学的宗师吗?

【示例】学会“照镜子”方能正确认识自己、提高自己。(观点)李世民懂得镜子的作用，能把魏征批评他的话写在屏风上，当作“镜子”，随时对照。又能看出“以铜为镜，可以正衣冠;以古为镜，可以知兴替;以人为镜，可以明得失。”(事例)//这难道不是一个很会“照镜子”的人吗?李世民正是做到了“以人为镜”“以古为镜”，学会在人们的各种批评、意见中认识自己，而成为一代名君。(评论)//假如当初唐太宗非但不听取魏征的逆耳忠言，而且因丑处被照，短处被揭，恼羞成怒而将“镜子”弃之，砸之，又哪能出现“贞观之治”的太平盛世?(假设推理)

▲语段模式：观点+事例+例后评论+例后假设推理

【方法点拨】(假言分析法)进行假设性的分析，如果你举的例子是正面的，那么你就从反面来假设分析;你举的例子是反面例子，你就从正面来进行假设。

2、正反对比法。就是在写完事例论据后引进比较加以分析，从而得出结论。例如《关注细节》：

列文虎克在关注细节中发现了细胞学说，齐白石在关注细节中创造了闻名中外的画法，鲁迅在关注细节中开创了中国现代小说的新时代。(事例)//相反，我们周围的一些人，对什么事都马马虎虎，对细节处毫不在意，最后一事无成。//两相比较，答案不是很明显吗?关注细节，收获精彩的人生;忽视细节，空留无穷的遗憾。(事例后+反例+比较分析)

【示例】俗话说：勤能补拙。(观点)//就拿我国明代的张溥来说吧，他小时候很“笨”，别人读一会儿就能背下来的东西，他往往要读几十遍才能背下来。但是，他并没有灰心，每拿到一篇文章，先认真抄一遍，校正好，再大声朗读一遍，然后烧掉，接着再抄。这样，一篇文章往往要抄六七遍。后来，他逐渐变得文思敏捷，出口成章。26岁写下了名扬天下的《五人墓碑记》。(正面事例)

相反，仲永5岁就能赋诗，可谓天赋出众。凭着聪明，他父亲带他四处作诗炫耀。仲永再也不思进取，长大以后，他变得庸庸碌碌，“泯然众人矣”! (反面事例，注意其转述的简洁及侧重点)

不难看出，张溥虽然很“笨”，但他肯勤学苦练，正是勤学苦练才使他的文思变得逐渐敏捷起来;而仲永虽然天赋出众，但他后来不思进取，终致庸庸碌碌，“泯然众人矣”! (分别对两个事例作对比分析论证)//由此可见，尽管先天智力因素的差异不可否认，但后天的勤奋则能弥补先天智力上的不足。(总结)

▲语段结构：观点+正面事例+反面事例+事例后的对比分析+总结

【示例】好集体不会埋没人才。(观点)//孙膑与庞涓同出于鬼谷子门下。他们二人可说是精于谋略，都是不可多得的人才。但是当孙膑来到庞涓任职的魏国时，庞涓嫉妒他的才能，表面恭敬内心狠毒，多次向魏王进谗言，以致使孙膑被挖去膝盖骨，不得施展其才能。而齐王听说孙膑之才，不惜费尽心力，将孙膑请到齐国，委以重任。齐军才有了马陵道之胜。(举一反例与一正例)

同是孙膑为何落得两种境遇呢?(抓信矛盾点，设问，因果探究)

就是因为他效劳于优劣不同的两个统治集团。在魏国，庞涓只图私利，妒贤嫉能，魏王昏庸，偏听偏信，而且缺乏识别千里马的伯乐眼光。孙膑在这样一个集体中，如何施展大志呢?而齐王任贤用能，身边的臣子也不像庞涓那样谋私，因而上下齐心，孙膑在此，正得以充分发挥作用。(因果分析法)//可见，好集体不会埋没人才。(总结，观点)

【点评】一个正面的例子，一个反面的例子放在一起，接下来要对这个例子从正反两方面进行对照分析，突出“好集体不会埋没人才”的观点。

▲语段模式：观点+事例(一反例与一正例)+例后(设问+因果分析)+总结观点

3、因果分析。就是写完事例论据后进行论据推导，得出结论。例如话题《爱心》：

《园丁之歌》中那个陶力，当初是那么的贪玩顽皮，使每一个教他的老师都感到头痛，叫苦不迭。(事例)//但是为什么他的班主任于老师能够使他走上正路，认真学习呢?(设问)//(揭示原因)//原因是于老师采取了适当的方法，使陶力有个适宜的成长环境。于老师之所以能够这样做，是因为他对学生有一颗爱心。(事例后+设问+揭示原因)

为加强论证的深度，还可以使用“因果链”的形式。例如：

因为有了诚信，所以人与人之间的关系就更为和谐;关系更为和谐，就能大大提高办事的效率;效率提高了，整个社会就能不断地进步。//可见，诚信是社会进步的明灯，是历史前进的灯塔。

【示例5】靠奋斗冲破“埋没”的压力。(观点)古今中外，许多取得了重大成就的人，很多都遭受过“埋没”的命运。爱因斯坦就曾被埋没在一个专利局中，充当小职员的平凡角色。但他没有灰心，抓紧一切机会进行研究，终于开创了物理学的新天地。华罗庚曾“埋没”在小店铺里，但他没有消沉，每天在做好营业工作后，抓紧一分一秒的时间，昼夜不停，寒暑不辨，刻苦自学，潜心钻研数学，终成著名的数学家。(事例)为什么他们没有因“埋没”而“窒息”，并且能有建树?//(设问+因果分析)//因为他们不甘心忍受被“埋没”的命运;不管在怎样不利的情况下，他们始终没有丧失向上的勇气和力量;他们坚信：不失千里之志的千里马，终有奋蹄腾飞的日子。//因此，他们在“埋没”的情况下，不是怨天尤人，而是努力拼搏奋斗，终于冲破“埋没”，脱颖而出。(分析总结)

▲语段模式：观点+事例+例后(设问+因果分析)+分析总结

【方法点拨】(探因分析法)作者在列举受因斯坦和华罗庚之例后，运用探因分析法，一层深一层地提示了他们冲破“埋没”的原因：不甘被埋没，坚信能冲破埋没，努力拼搏奋斗。从而使事例很好地论证了论点。

【示例】人贵有自知之明。对自己有准确的认识，才不会被别人的评价所蒙蔽。邹忌的妻、妾和客出于私心，异口同声地肯定邹忌比美丽的城北徐公更美，但邹忌没有被假象迷惑。为什么邹忌能透过妻、妾和客的交口称赞的表象发现问题的本质呢?因为他时刻保持着清醒的头脑，有自知之明。邹忌对自己的清醒认识，使他没有迷醉在虚假的光环之下，并借此发掘出了治国安邦的道理。由此可见，自知之明多么重要。

4、引用分析。就是写完事例论据后再引用名言、诗句等，然后结合对名言、诗句的阐释发挥和事例论据一同进行分析。例如，话题《不要为打翻的牛奶哭泣》：

明代历史学家谈迁花费二十年心血，收集大量资料，历尽许多艰难，终于完成了历史巨著《国榷》。但是刚完成时，被小偷偷走了。世间没有比这更痛苦残忍的了。面对此打击，谈迁在痛苦中毅然决定：重写《国榷》!又一个二十年过去了，一部更高水平的《国榷》展现在世人面前。(事例)//读书至此，我想到了普希金的诗句：“假如生过欺骗了你，不要悲伤，不要心急!忧郁的日子里，需要镇静。相信吧，快乐的日子将会来临!”(引用名人名言)//我们要从过去中吸取经验教训，而不要让过去成为负担，换句话说——不要为打翻的牛奶哭泣!(事例后+名人名言+围绕观点进行阐述分析)

5、类比分析。就是使用类比的方法，在话题之外引用一个类比物，通过对二者相似点的分析推理得出结论。例如论述“感情的亲疏和对事物的认知”：

其实探知也如同喝茶的艺术，我们泡茶的时候，第一遍淡洌，第二遍沉香，为什么第三遍才最爽口宜人?因为前两遍冲去了茶叶上的蜡质和灰尘，第三遍才泡出了茶叶的真纯之味。(类比物)//我们探知也是如此，(话题)//在对事物的认知上，越过感情布下的迷雾，抛过感情亲疏的羁绊，用一尘不染的心灵，轻装上路，才能取得丰硕的成果，领悟认知的真谛。(分析二者相似点推理得出结论)

(类比物+话题+分析二者相似点推理得出结论)

6、同类归纳法。所举之例应为同类例子，并且在分析论述时要紧扣论点找出相同点。

【示例三】只有付出，才有收获。(观点)左思为写《三都赋》闭门谢客，数载耕耘。三九严冬，笔耕不辍;三伏酷暑，意兴犹酣。多少白日，三餐忘食;多少夜晚，独对孤灯。“衣带渐宽终不悔”的执着，换来了丰硕的成果，《三都赋》轰动全城，一时洛阳纸贵。英国物理学家法拉第，为了揭示电和磁的奥秘整整奋斗了十年，十年中，他不懈地努力，却不断地失败;不断地失败，却又不懈地努力。十年之后，他成为揭示电磁奥秘的第一人。(事例)

左思和法拉第，不同时代，不同国籍，不同的研究领域，而他们成功的道路却是相同的——付出，无悔地付出。付出心血和汗水，付出精力和智慧。 (同类归纳评论)

▲语段模式：观点+事例后+同类归纳评论

【示例】乐观是成功的保证。(观点)牛顿发明地心引力学说的时候，全世界人反对他;哈费发明血液循环学说的时候，全世界人反对他;达尔文宣布进化论的时候，全世人反对他;贝尔第一次造电话的时候，全世界人讥笑他;莱特初用苦功于制造飞机的时候，全世界人讥笑他。讲到孙中山先生，最初在南洋演讲革命救国的时候，有一次听的人只有三个。(事例)

但这许多人都因抱着乐观主义的精神，而为后世所称道。也正因有了极强烈而有效的乐观主义精神，他们才战胜各种艰难险阻取得胜利，获得了成功。(同类归纳评论)

▲语段模式：观点+事例后+同类归纳评论

7、叙议交融法：叙述交融法即叙中有议，议在叙中的一种分析方法。

【示例】人才到处都有，问题在于是否有人去发现他们。(观点)//追溯历史，要是萧何不与韩信几天几夜地谈话，他哪里知道韩信是天下无双的奇才呢?要是左光斗不在大雪之夜微服出访巧遇苦读的史可法，他怎会发现史可法是可造之才呢?要是没有伯乐深入马群调查研究，人们又怎么能鉴别出日行千里的良马呢?//(叙中有议，议在叙中)

【方法点拨】在论证过程中，将论据的叙述融于排比兼反问的说理之中，一箭双雕。做到语言简洁有力，信息含量丰富，逻辑性强。

8、运用基本的哲学思维。

哲学是一切科学的科学，是对自然和社会一切知识的提炼和概括。哲学观点有紧急基础和上层建筑的关系、全面的观点、发展的观点、普遍联系的观点。这些基本思想派生出一些子目，如：原因与结果、偶然与必然、现象与本质、对立与统一、外因与内因、量变与质变、实践与认识、主观与客观等。如论述“近墨者未必黑”：

我们知道，事物的变化是外因和内因共同作用的结果，而外因是变化的条件，内因是变化的根据，外因只能通过内因起作用。(哲学观点)//所谓“近墨者黑”，正是忽略了事物发展的内因而过分突出外因。//屈原身为楚国大夫时整个官场腐化堕落，私己而误国，周遭一片墨黑。唯独屈原忠心耿耿，众人皆醉而他独醒，即使被小人陷害也不改其救国之志。宁可“赴常流葬乎江鱼腹中”，也不“以皓皓之白蒙世之温蠖”。包拯坐镇开封府时，权贵大臣贪污受贿成风，皇亲国戚徇私枉法为盛。而包拯却独保清廉，铁面无私。(事例)//可见，近墨者变黑与否，关键还在于近墨者本人，在于他的人格、意志、判断力等。近墨者中的很大一部分人能“出污泥而不染”，自始至终不被周围不良事物所左右。(分析推理得出结论)

(哲学观点+事例+分析推理得出结论)

●详例与概例

▲看看下列两个语段，看看它们在证明语段论点时用例有何不同。

【例1】在曲径中转身，也许能创造奇迹。//当你在曲径中跌跌撞撞，头破血流甚至奄奄一息的时候，不要放弃，只要稍事休息，来个华丽的转身，即可东山再起。//拿破仑在被反法同盟军打败后，被流放在大西洋的一个孤岛上，但他并没有因此而绝望，他重返法国，建立“百日王朝”，创造了一个神话，一个前无古人后无来者的奇迹。尽管滑铁卢之战他再次失败了，但他的这次转身却在历史上写下了厚重的一笔。//所以，即使在艰难困苦中也不要放弃，即使山重水复，只要你肯转身，相信前面定会是“柳暗花明又一村”。(以“转身”为话题的作文片段)

【例2】自卑像根受潮的火柴，难以将希望之火点燃;自负像个可怕的陷阱，一旦身陷其中即难以自拔;唯有自信自强，才能扬起生活的风帆。//我国宋朝的文豪苏洵，几次赶考都名落孙山，一些人更是对他冷嘲热讽，但他没有灰心，而是闭门苦读，终于因散文有极高的造诣而名列唐宋八大家;举世闻名的音乐家贝多芬，30岁就耳聋，他没有屈服于命运的安排，在听不见声音的情况下，创造了大量优秀作品，并谱写出时代的最强音“扼住生命的咽喉”;居里夫人，这位伟大的科学家，作为镭的发现者，荣获诺贝尔化学奖，耀眼荣誉没有使她陶醉，他仍如从前一样孜孜不倦的工作，使它成为获得这一殊荣的唯一女性。//这些伟人之所以能够取得成功，是因为他们在挫折面前毫不自卑，在成就面前毫不自负，始终有自强不息的精神。(考场优秀作文《自卑?自负?自强》)

【分析】证明语段论点时，例1在举例论证时仅用了一个事例，而且较详细，我们称之为“详例”;例2在举例论证时则用了三个事例，叙述简约，而且句式上排比，我们称之为“概例”。

▲▲1以详例证明观点

所谓详例，即用典型的具体的事例作论据来证明语段论点，叙例文字较多，即通常所说的“摆事实”“例证法”。由于这种方法是以个别事实作为前提证明一个观点的，因此，选例要有较强的说服力，列举的事实必须注意应该真实、典型。详例看似简单，但最易出问题，我们看以下病例：

【例3】欧洲有位化学家，在一次实验中，发现一种新物质，可是他没有把这种新物质提炼出来，就放弃了这个实验。后来另一位化学家也做了这样的实验，由于他坚持不懈，另一种新元素终于被他发现了。

【分析】事例语焉不详，甚至虚假。提到的两位化学家，没有写出他们的姓名，做什么实验，发现一种什么新物质，模糊不清，因此降低了论据的说服力。

【例4】法国的托尔斯泰为写《战争与和平》深入采访，光笔记就写了40万字，最后终于用60年的时间完成了这部巨著。

【分析】事例不准确，出现硬伤。托尔斯泰是俄国作家，哪个不知道?“用了60年时间完成了这部巨著”，与事实不符。事实上，托尔斯泰写《战争与和平》，一共用了7年时间。论据不真实，失去可信度，同样就没有说服力了。

【例5】做事必须要有恒心。唐代大诗人白居易在诗坛上颇负盛名，但他从不满足，从不松懈，经常深入民间把自己的新诗念给村妇老农们听，问他们听懂听不懂，虚心征求他们的意见，并加以修改。所以他的诗通俗易懂，深受广大人民喜爱。

【分析】事例与观点若即若离，打擦边球。用这个事例论证“做事要有恒心”显然是不妥的，虽然其中也有“不松懈”、“经常”等字样，却不能用来论证“有恒”。如果用它来论证“作家应该有严谨的创作态度”则是很切题的。

【例6】“有志者事竟成”的例子实在不胜枚举。西汉历史学家司马迁，年轻时遵父命写史书，遍访天下古迹，花费二十年进行资料搜寻蓄备。正当他潜心著书时，一场灾难降临了他的头上。因为他为李陵辩护而惹怒了汉武帝，被捕下狱，遭受宫刑。这一打击使他痛不欲生，几欲绝命于世。正是著写史书的大志支撑着他，使他忍辱苟活，终于完成了历史巨著《史记》。

(用例冗长，以叙代议。这是初学议论文的同学最易犯的毛病。司马迁的事迹众所周知，无须详细介绍。这样不仅拉长篇幅，成为赘语，而且冲淡了论点。)

以写人为主的记叙文主要是通过对人物外貌、语言、动作、心理活动的描写和典型事例的叙述来反映人物的思想、性格、品质、作风等特点。

要写好写人为主的记叙文，应当从以下几方面入手：

1、写好人物的形象。人物的形象，一般指人物的外貌、语言、动作、心理活动等。人物的外貌，就是人物的外形特征，包括容貌、衣着、姿态、神情等等。外貌描写首先必须从文章中心思想的需要出发，要求抓住人物的本质特征，有选择、有重点地描写。人物的语言包括人物的独白，对话，交谈以及语气。“言为心声”。人物的语言是人物内心世界的直接表现。因此成功的语言描写能恰当地表现人物的身份、年龄、思想、品质、作风和个性特点。描写人物语言时，要注意符合人物的身份，表现人物的思想感情，反映人物相互间的关系。描写人物的动作时，不仅要写出人物“做什么”，还要写出“怎么做”。心理活动是无声的语言，是直接表现人物精神面貌，思想活动的手段。描写人物的心理活动时，要注意把心理活动产生的原因叙述清楚，还要注意与外貌、动作、语言描写结合起来。外貌、语言、动作、心理活动写好了，人物的形象就突出、鲜明了。

2、抓住人物的特点。每个人都有自己的特点，这个特点可以从人物的年龄、外貌、语言、动作、兴趣、个性、生活习惯等诸方面去考虑。一个人的特点是多方面的，作文时，我们应根据中心思想有所选择地写。

3、选用典型事例。人与事是分不开的。一个人做的事很多，在作文时我们应选择那些最能表现人物思想、性格和文章中心思想的典型事件。

4、运用细节描写。细节描写就是对能充分表现文章中心思想的人物外貌，语言、动作、表情等细小环节作具体、细致的描写。

小学阶段以写人为主的记叙文，一般分为三种类型;写一个人、写两个人、写几个人。其中应以写一个人为主。

一、写一个人。

记一个人的写人记叙文，大致有以下三种情况：

(一)通过写一件事写一个人。有的文章写人只写了一件事，写这一类的作文要注意以下几点：

1、要选择有代表性的生动事例画写。反映一个人的精神面貌的事例是很多的，通过一件事写人就要选取最有代表性的生动事例来写。

2、要写出事情的发展过程，使人物的形象逐步完整。

3、要把事情写具体。用一个典型事例记叙一个人，应该把这一事例写具体，这样人物形象才能丰满。

4、为了使读者对人物了解得更全面，使重点记叙的这件事有充分的依据和坚实的思想基础，使人物的形象更加丰富，文章的开头可以对人物作简要的介绍。

(二)通过几件事写一个人。

我们在生活中会接触到各种各样的人，有时使用一件事来反映一个人就显得比较单簿，不足以充分反映人物的特点及其品质，因此，必须用两三件事才可能说的明白，再现得充分。

通过几件事写一个人，要注意以下几点：

1、几件事不能相互矛盾，，人物的性格在几件事中要和谐、统一。

2、概括交代和具体描写相结合。在一篇简短的作文中要用几件事写一个人，不可能将每一件事详细叙述，因此一般可以彩杨交代和具体描写相结合的方法。即先概括交代一些事例，再具体记叙一两件事。

3、通过对比的方法写一个人。

通过对比方法写一个人，一般有三种：第一种是同一个人前后相比，说明这个人变化;第二种是对一个人的认识前后相比，说明这个人的品质;第三种是一个人同另一个人比，突出歌颂其中一个人。

通过对比的方法写一个人要注意：

(1)要突出主要人物及其主要特点。

(2)要写出人物的真实表现，不要捏造事实，采用拔高或贬低的方法。

二、写两个人

写两个人，一般是写《我和**》，**应包括亲人、同学、朋友、老师等熟悉的人，要写好这一类型的作文必须注意：

(一)要写好人物之间的联系。《我和**》，题目中突出了一个“和”字，这就要求从双方写起，通过具体的事例，写出“我”和**之间的联系。在叙事过程中，要写出彼此之间都想了些什么，说了些什么，做了些什么。只有从双方落笔，才能把握住题目要求写的重点。

(二)用对话展开情节。写《我和**》作文时，由于要写出两个人之间的关系，所以一定要写好两个人之间的对话。要用对话展开情节，用对话表现文章的中心。

三、写几个人。

写几个人是比较复杂的以写人为主的记叙文，可以写“一家子”、“这一班”，也可以写“几个小伙伴”。总之，不论是家庭的，学校的、社会的，只要是自己熟悉的几人都行。

这类作文有以下几种写法。

(一)列人物表似的介绍。

(二)有代表性的介绍。

(三)以一件事为线索写几个人。

(四)通过几件事写几个人。

要写好记叙文，就必须要明确“为何叙”，即主题要明确。要主题明确可注意三点，小编收集了优秀记叙文写作技巧，欢迎阅读。

一、为何叙

记叙文一般可分为记人、叙事、写景、咏物等几种。记人，要表现人物的思想感情和性格;叙事，要写出事件所蕴涵的意义，这些意义可以是政治思想方面的，也可以表达某种哲理，或某种情趣;写景，要通过景物描写表现出个人某种感情或深刻的感悟;咏物，或透露出世间人生的某种乐趣，或托物言志，表现对社会上某种人某种现象的情感。因此，我们写记叙文总会有一定的目的，总要表达一定的思想和感情，实际上就是我们平常所讲的“文章的主题”，主题是文章的灵魂，它像一根红线贯串于文章的始终。没有明确主题的记叙文，只能是一篇流水帐，所以要写好记叙文，就必须要明确“为何叙”，即主题要明确。要主题明确可注意三点:第一，要有积极意义，即确定的主题思想感情必须是健康的，有意义的。

B，要集中，一篇文章只能有一个主题，全文要围绕这个中心来写。有的同学作文时，既想写这，又想写那，结果写出来的文章不是漫无中心，就是几个中心，多中心则无中心。

C，可含蓄一点，不一定直露。主题要蕴涵在具体的记叙和描写之中，一般不宜用明显的话语揭示出来，如表现人物勤劳的品质，要通过具体的事和生动的细节来表现，不宜将 "勤劳"二字当成标签贴在人物身上。又如要记叙一件有意义的事，也不宜空洞抽象地把其“意义”说上一大通，而应在具体的情节中自然地显示出来。恩格斯说过，事件的意义、人物的性格写得越隐蔽，作品的艺术魅力就越强。

二、叙什么

叙什么，就是写什么内容，在写记叙文时就要考虑选择哪些材料。选材时，要坚持三个标准，一是典型性，即选择出能充分表现中心的材料;二是真实性，即选出真人真事真景，包括来自现实生活的艺术真实;三是现实性，即选出有现实积极意义的材料。在选材具体操作时，最行之有效的选材方法是展开联想，联糸生活，即选材时可通过联想，从家庭生活、学校生活、社会生活等任意一个方面选出自己熟悉、感动的人和事。如在写《谢谢您给我的爱》(南京市95年中考作文题)时，我们不妨展开联想，从家庭生活方面选出祖辈、父辈给"我"爱的材料，从学校生活方面选出老师、同学给"我"爱的材料，从社会生活方面选出邻居、路人、警察等热心人给"我"爱的材料。材料选好，还需认真剪裁，做到详略得当，所所以还要注意两点:第一，要剪去雷同的材料。有些记叙文表现中心时不止用一个材料，那么这些材料应从不同侧面表现中心，如果从同一方面表现中心，那么其中的有些材料则属于“雷同”"的材料，应该删掉。第二，要注意详略得当。与中心关糸不大的材料要略写、与中心关糸极为密切的材料要详写。

三、怎样叙

怎样叙，就意味着怎样把一篇文章具体地写出来，这就牵涉到文章的结构、表达的方式、遣词造句等表现形式。

先说文章的结构，即所要写的这篇记叙文用什么结构来表现出来。它包括这篇文章分几层写，哪些材料先写，哪些后写，哪些详写，哪些略写，如何安排过渡，于何处伏笔，在哪里呼应，如何开头，怎样结尾，等等。从整篇记叙文来看、常见的结构有顺序、倒叙、插叙。顺叙，就是按照事情发生、发展的，过程进行叙述。包括以下几种情况:其一，按时间的推移来叙述;其二，按事情的发展来叙述;其三，按认识发展的过程来叙述;其四，按作者的行踪来叙述。倒叙，就是把事情的结局，或某个突出的精彩片断提到前边写，然后再按事件发生、发展的顺序叙述。倒叙的运用有四种类型:一种是把事件的结局提前，造成悬念，然后再按时间顺序叙述事情的发生与发展;一种是把事件中最精彩的或最紧张的片断截取下来，写在前面，震动和吸引读者，然后按时间的顺序叙述事件的起因、发展与结局;一种是先写眼前的事物，由此及彼，引起回忆，再追叙往事，形成倒叙，一种是先写当前情况，再回忆过去的情况，以形成鲜明的对比，给读者留下深刻印象。插叙，是在文章的叙述中，暂时中断叙述的线索，插入一些与中心事件有关的内容，然后再继续进行原来的叙述。插叙的具体内容和形式有种种不同:有的是追叙，对过去事件片断进行回忆，有的是补叙，对有关人和事作必要的补充、解释;有的是逆叙，对有关内容由近及远、由今及古地回溯，灵活多样的插叙，可以使主题开掘得更深刻，情节展开得更充分，内容表现得更充实，人物形象刻画得更丰满，避免了平辅直叙。

再说表达的方式。记叙文一般以记叙这种表达方式为主，但记叙文写人记事，写景状物，往往需要描写。对人物和环境作适当的描写，可以把人物、事件或景物写得有血有肉，有声有色，叫人看了如见其人，如临其境。描写的类型很多，从描写的对象划分，有人物描写和景物描写，人物描写中包括肖像、语言、行动、心理等描写方式。从描写的角度划分，有正面描写与侧面描写。这要在具体的写作中灵活运用。另外，在记人叙事的记叙文中，为了突出人物的高贵品质或突出事件的意义，有时要进行抒情和议论。再则，有时作者为抒发自己的感情，在记叙的基础上直接抒情，直接表露感情，或寓情于记叙之中，在记叙的过程中处处渗透着情感。这样综合运用好表达方式，写出来的文章就会摇曳多姿，绚烂多彩。

最后说说遣词造句。一篇记叙文最终是靠一句句话组成起来的，因此，大家在语言表达上要注意准确、鲜明、生动、形象。准确就是指用词合适、恰当;鲜明指一个词用在特定的语言环境中表示出的意思清清楚楚，明明白自，一点不含糊。生动形象，就是把词用得活泼，有声有色。这一点，就要多注意运用比喻、拟人、排比、对比、反复、夸张、反问、设问等多种修辞方法。

高考已经进入倒计时了，这时候多看看写作技巧准没错。下面是语文迷为大家整理的英语写作高分技巧，希望对你有帮助。

一、把握文体

话题作文往往不限文体，允许考生自由发挥。但是，不限文体并不等于不要文体。话题作文的“文体不限”其实是指不限于一种文体，让学生有选择文体的自由。当你选定了一种文体时，还得按照这种文体的特点来谋篇布局进行写作。有的同学观察能力强，生活积累丰富，不妨将生活中精彩的片断撷取出来写成一篇生动感人的记叙文;有的同学想象丰富，擅长编写故事，不妨写写童话、寓言或科幻小说;有的同学逻辑思维能力强，擅长推理，不妨写成一篇理据充分的议论文;有的同学感情细腻丰富，不妨写成一篇优美抒情的散文，肯定会非常出色。

二、缩小范围

话题作文只提供写作的话题，而没有中心、材料、结构、文体、语言等等的限制;给了考生一个比较开放的构思空间，使考生能最大限度地发挥想象力和创造力。但是，如果不注意把握话题，缩小写作的口子，就会出现“下笔千言，离题万里”的毛病。因此，不管所给的话题多么宽泛，我们都要善于缩小“包围圈”，要选择一个小小的切入口，如一件事、一个人、一样物品、一种感受、一点看法等等，集中笔力加以突破，把你所选择的话题角度写细写深写透，做到“以小见大”。

三、拟好题目

标题是文章的“眼睛”。俗话说：“题好一半文”。话题作文允许自己拟题目，因此，我们要努力提高拟题水平，力争使自己拟的题目准确、凝炼、含蓄、新奇，使阅卷老师“一见钟情”。

四、善于联想

话题作文是一种开放性的作文形式，要求考生放开手脚，尽情地驰骋在想象的空间，善于多方位地展开联想，这样，才能生发出丰富多彩的思路来。比如话题“风”，你可以联想到自然界的风：微风、大风、狂风、飓风、龙卷风等等;你还可以联想到社会风气：拍马风、送礼风等等;你可以联想到一种像风一样的流行时尚：金庸热、韩寒热等等;你甚至可以联想到假如你是风，假如你遇到风等等。

五、写出新意

话题作文既然是应试作文，总得给评卷老师一个好的感觉，得—个好的分数。因此，写出特色、写出新意是十分重要的。我们在写作时，要善于“独辟蹊径”，也就是要求我们在立意上要有特的感悟，不入云亦云;选材上要有独到的眼光，不陈题旧话;构思上要独具匠心，不四平八稳，波澜不惊语气上要有独到的魅力，不平铺直叙泛泛而谈。

记事型作文，写不好就成了流水账，正在学写作文的小朋友要学会使用以下七个技巧，一起来看看吧。

1.要交代清楚时间、地点、人物、事件。

让读者明白文章写的是什么人，在什么时候，什么地方发生了怎样的事。

2.找出事件闪光点。

如果根据题目的要求选定了某件事，你就要对这件事进行认真的回忆，并仔细琢磨，反复思考，挖掘出这件事中含有的生活道理，或找出它闪光的地方。

3.必须把事情发生的环境写清楚。

因为任何事情总是在一定的环境中发生、发展的。环境写好了，写出特点来，还能渲染气氛，表达感情，使文章更生动。

4.一般要按事情发展顺序写。

把一件事的起因、经过、结果写清楚，不能颠三倒四，还应把事情的前因后果，来龙去脉写清楚。

5.记事中要围绕中心，抓住重点，不要面面俱到。

重点部分（一般指事情发展高潮处）要详写，写具体，写详尽，给读者以深刻的印象。

6.写事不能离不开写人。

同此在记事过程中，一定要把人物的语言、神态、动作、心理活动等写细致，写逼真，这样才能表达出人物的思想品质，才能更好地表达这件事所包含的意义，即文章的中心思想。

7.必须把事情发生的环境写清楚。

因为任何事情总是在一定的环境中发生、发展的。环境写好了，写出特点来，还能渲染气氛，表达感情，使文章更生动。

作文语言要精彩，首先要灵活地调动语言的表现力;其次是运用好的修辞，把生动的比喻，大气磅礴的排比，下面是小编整理的作文写作技巧：语言表达技巧，欢迎阅读。

中考作文语言要精彩，首先要灵活地调动语言的表现力;其次是运用好的修辞，把生动的比喻，大气磅礴的排比，风趣幽默的仿词，语意含蕴曲折的双关等穿插全文;再次是用心调配句式，将长句短句、整句散句巧妙配合，营造音韵美。

1. 精心锤炼词语。要使语言鲜明生动，新颖脱俗，应尽可能选用那些具体、形象、内涵丰富的词语来写景状物、表情达意，尤其要重视对动词、形容词的锤炼。

2. 巧用修辞。巧妙运用修辞手法，可化抽象为具体，变枯燥为生机，化腐朽为神奇。如比喻的巧妙运用：

“如血的残阳像一位戴着红斗笠的侠客。”“晚霞飘落在天边，宛如一匹红丝绸，召唤着从远古走来的吹箫人。”这是描写“飞天”壁画而运用的绝妙比喻，不能不佩服作者比喻的新奇，想象力的丰富。又如比喻加排比：

生活如海，宽容作舟，泛舟于海，方知海之宽阔;

生活如山，宽容为径，循径登山，方知山之高大;

生活如歌，宽容是曲，和曲而歌，方知歌之动听。

3. 独创巧妙佳句。这是根据文章表达的需要创新语言的一种方法。比如：“班主任老师又在喋喋不休地向我们批发人生意义的补充版。”

“天醉了，映红了天边，云是山的使者吧，把风扯来醒酒，却弄醒水波粼剡。”上述创新出来的佳句妙语，读后如饮醇酒，给人以极美的艺术享受。

4.力求含蓄蕴藉。含蓄的语言耐人寻味，含英咀华，如嚼橄榄。

比如：“海浪不回避礁石的撞击，才得以壮观;人生不拒绝遗憾的存在，才得以明达。”

“认识自己是每个人的必修课，否则我们就会像乌云下生长的花儿，失去了充满阳光的世界。请牢记：是鱼儿，就不要向往天空;是鸟儿，就不要留恋海洋。”这类警策性的话语，于形象中蕴涵哲思，含蓄隽永，优美凝练。

试想，阅卷老师看到有如此成熟思想的文字，怎能不为之动情呢?

5.巧妙引用活用。名言名句，是语言的精华，对于文章创作有着非凡而绝妙的效用。适当引用能使文章意蕴深厚，神采飞扬。如：

李商隐有诗日：“夕阳无限好，只是近黄昏。”我惊讶于他的洞察力，然而，夕阳下互相搀扶的老夫老妻却是天底下最美的风景。

在这个充满活力的岁月里，好想好想划着竹筏，迂回于“山如碧玉簪，水作青罗带”的绮丽风光，穿梭于“两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山”的画廊，或许这里的某个地方会出现“天街小雨润如酥，草色遥看近却无”的奇丽景象，或许还有人愿再作一次“只缘身在此山中”的妙论。

“黄发垂髫，并怡然自乐”，这是五柳先生心中和谐美丽的桃源美景;“舍南舍北皆春水，但见群鸥日日来”，这足杜陵野老浣花溪畔的安宁生活;“浓妆淡抹总相宜”，这是东坡居士留给西湖的最和谐、最完美的评价。

6.凸显个性特色，写出自己的个性如果你是多愁善感的人，那么尽量写诗意的文字;如果你以能言善辩见长，那你不妨多些议论;如果你天性活泼幽默感强，那也不要浪费自己的特点，就多些生动的叙述和描写吧。

一：用介词短语替代从句，例：

原句：While they were playing tennis， she started an argument that lasted all morning.

修改后：During tennis she started an argument that lasted all morning.

原句：When you come to the second traffic light， turn right.

修改后：At the second traffic light turn left.

二：删除诸如"who is"或"that is"之类的关系代词，变从句为短语，例：

句：The novel， which is written in three parts， told a story that took place in the Middle Ages.

修改后：The three-part novel told a story set in the Middle Ages.

注：把句中的"three parts"改用形容词来表达，节省了四个不必要的单词"which is written in"。我们经常可以将关系代词如"that"去掉，这只会引起最少的变动。

三：剔除你不需要的单词，例：

Two joint partners will present their views over a long-distance telephone call. 写完这样的句子后，你自己再读一遍，挑出单词"joint"和"telephone"，注意删去不必要的词。

第一步：“装”。我这里所说的“装”，也可以理解为“装傻”，指的是我们明明知道某一样事物的存在，但在写作时却要表现出完成不知道或者是没有发现的样子。以《美，就在身边》或者《原来，这也是一种美》为例，我们身边的一处美景、一件好事、一个心灵美的人物等凡是可以挖掘出“美”的特点的都可以成为我们写作的对象。但在确定好写作对象之后，我们先不要急着去阐述这一种“美”，而是有意地采用对比或者欲扬先抑的表现手法，反映出我们认为它不美或者根本就没有觉察到这一种美的存在，甚至还可以表现出自己对身边的美视而不见，反而苦苦地去追寻所谓的“美”。

第二步：“转”。我这里所说的“转”，包含两个方面：一是在行文结构上的过渡，也就是承上启下;二是因为某一件事情的发生促使我在认识或是思想上有了根本性的转变。也就是要告诉读者：前面所写的是我对某一样事物最初的认识或是它给我留下的坏印象，而这些都因为接下来发生的这件事情使我在认识或是思想上发生了重要的转变。这一步是文章的重点，除了要处理好过渡句或是过渡段之外，重中之重还是要写好这一件令我发生转变的非比寻常的事情，因此最好能够在这一件事情上交待清楚记叙文的六要素。

第三步：“醒”。我这里所说的“醒”，指的是在经历了第二步所写的某件事情之后，在认识上的颠覆或者是思想上的醒悟，或者说是由此开始“卖乖”。具体说来，就是要交待清楚自己对第一步所提到事物(写作对象)有了什么不一样的看法或是新的认识?获得了什么样的启示?明白了什么样的道理或是思想上有了什么样的转变?从“卖乖”的角度来说，就是要告诉读者你从此变得懂事了、变好了、积极向上了，目光不会再像以前一样短浅、人也不会再像以前一样不懂事了。

想成为下一个海明威吗?或许只是想在校刊有自己的豆腐块，让自己的博客富有动人文字?那么，你需要先把自己的文笔犀利起来。而且成为一位优秀的作家并不是一件容易的事情。下面是小编为大家整理的15条技巧提高你的写作技巧，欢迎大家阅读!

一、阅读优秀的作品：这是显而易见的，但立竿见影的方法。如果你不读更多的好作品，你就不知道如何写出更好的作品。优秀的作家都是从阅读别人的佳作开始，接着开始模仿，最后超越他们，形成自己的风格。尽可能的多读名著，在看内容的时候，更要留意文章的问题和写作的技巧。

二、尽可能多的写：每天都写，如果可能话，每天写几次。你写得多了，也就写得好了。学习如何写作和其他的学问道理是一样的，熟能生巧。写写你自己，写写博客，向出版社投稿。只是写，全情投入的写，练得越多，你的写作水平就提升得越快。

三、随时随地记下你的灵感：随身带一本小笔记本(纳博科夫身上装满了小卡片)，当你对你构思的小说，文章，或是小说里的人物有什么灵感的时候，马上记下来。当你听别人谈话时的只言片语而所有顿悟时，或看到一段散文诗或是一句歌词让你很感动时，都可以马上当他们记下来。灵感总是转瞬即逝，你及时的记录下来，便可以成为你写作的素材。我的习惯是，为我的博客要写的文章列一个清单，不断的补充它。

四、专门的写作时间：每天找一个没有任何打扰的时间段作为专门的写作时间，让这成为习惯。对我而言，清晨的时间是最佳的，午饭，傍晚，或者深夜的那段时间也可以。无论你是做什么工作的，把写作当作每天必须完成的任务去做。每天至少写半个小时，当然有一个小时更好。若你同我一样，是一个全职的作家，那么你需要写更多的小时，请你不要担心，这只会让你写得更好。

五、随便涂鸦：面对整张的白纸，整版的白屏，无从开始，肯定恐怖。你会想：我还是看看邮件或是小憩一会了吧!先生，千万别这样。马上开始写，马上打字，你写什么没有关系，只是让我听到你敲键盘的声音吧。只要你开始写了，什么都好办了。像我的话，我喜欢先敲上我的名字和文章的标题，这应该不难吧，然后再慢慢的展开情节，全身心地融入进去…关键是：开始可以随便写写，随便涂鸦，但是尽快开始写正文。

六、集中精神：写作是一件一心一意的事情，在嘈杂的环境或是同时干着别的事情，是不可能写好的。写作需要一个安静的环境，需要一点点柔和的背景音乐。即使是最低要求，你也需要在全屏(没有其他软件得干扰)的条件下，使用WriteRoom， DarkRoom，Writer这些写作软件，不受打扰的写作。关掉邮箱，关点MSN和Gtalk，关掉电话和手机，关掉电视，清理掉书桌上无用的东西。清除与写作无关的一切杂念，现在就是写作的时间，好像把自己放进一个盒子里，在没有任何打扰下进入写作状态。

七、先计划，再写： 这好像和“随便涂鸦”有些矛盾，实际上不是这样。在坐下来正式写之前，先做个计划或是脑子里先预演一下，这是非常管用的办法。每天跑步的时候想想要写的东西，或是散步的时间来个头脑风暴;然后把想到的记下来，做一个扼要的提纲;等真正准备好开始写了，可以很快的展开，因为思路和想法都有了。这里，有一个构思小说的三部曲，可以参考这个：Snowflake Method.

八、创新： 你需要模仿名家，这并不意味你要跟他们写得一模一样。你可以试试新的写法，从这里学一点，从那里学一点。渐渐地，你就会有了自己的风格，自己的文体，自己的思路。试试一些不一样的表达，或创造一些与众不同的表达方式，每一方法你都可以尝试，看看它到底怎么样，不好就不用呗。

九、修改： 你开始构思你的文字，然后试着写，让故事情节展开，最后你需要回过头再看看你都写了什么。这点很重要，很多写手一旦写好就不想修改，已经费时费力地写好了，还要再花时间修改，实在是一件吃力不讨好的活。但如果你想写得更好，你就要学会如何修改。好的作品是经过反复的推敲和修改而成的，这会让你的作品从平庸中脱颖而出。看看你写的东东，不仅仅是那些拼写和语法错误，还有那些无意义的词，混乱的结构，和让人搞不懂的句子。修改的目标是：更清晰，更直接，更鲜活。

十、简明扼要： 这是你在修改的过程中，最重要的一件事情。一句句，一段段的修改，把无关主题的统统都删掉。一个短句比一段冗长的废话更具说服力，大白话比晦涩的专业术语更受欢迎。记得：简单就是力量。

十一、富于感染力的句子：在短句中使用富有感染力的动词，当然，并没有要求每一句都是这样，你需要变化。但是，多试试能够吸引人的句子。而且，你没有必要等到你要修改的时候再用，你刚开始写的时候就要考虑这个问题。

十二、获取别人的反馈： 闭门造车不会有任何进步，让别人读读你的文章给你回馈，最好有经验的作家和编辑。他们见多识广，会给你很中肯和有见地的建议。认真的听，即使是一些批评，也接受它，忠言逆耳，这样只会让你写得更好。

十三、是骡子还是马，拉出来溜溜：就你而言，你需要让别人读到你的作品。你的作品不是你想谁看谁就看的，让所有的人都读到你的文章。你就要出版自己的书，发表自己的短篇小说和诗歌，给出版社供稿。如果你已经开始写博客了，恭喜你，这是一个好的开始。若现在还没有人浏览过，你就需要把它放到流量更大的博客服务网站上去，让读者给你留言，给你提出建议。所有的人都会看你写东西，也许刚开始时会是件伤脑筋的事情，但这是每一位作家成长的必由之路，马上发表你的文字吧。

十四、采用对话式的文体： 很多人的写作都很正式，但是我发现像我们说话一样写作会使文章更流畅(没有叹生词)。这样一来，读者看起来会更舒服。刚开始这么写并不容易，你需要坚持这么做。也许，会带来另一个问题，为了读起来更口语化，你需要打破一些语法规则(就像我的前一句那样)。因为如果生搬硬套语法，会让你的文章看起来很不自然。若没有其他原因，就不要破坏语法规则。你需要知道你在做什么和为什么这样做。

十五、好开头和结尾： 开头和结尾是文章的重点。特别是开头。如果你不能在故事的开始就吸引读者，那他们就很难有耐心把整篇文章读完。所以投入更多的时间去考虑怎么写好开头，读者一旦对你开头感兴趣，他们会想知道得更多...写好开头后，再弄一个精彩的结尾，这会让读者更加期待你的下一篇佳作。

想成为下一个海明威吗?或许只是想在校刊有自己的豆腐块，让自己的博客富有动人文字?那么，你需要先把自己的文笔犀利起来。而且成为一位优秀的作家并不是一件容易的事情。下面是小编收集的15条提高写作水平的技巧，欢迎阅读。

阅读优秀的作品：这是显而易见的，但立竿见影的方法。如果你不读更多的好作品，你就不知道如何写出更好的作品。优秀的作家都是从阅读别人的佳作开始，接着开始模仿，最后超越他们，形成自己的风格。尽可能的多读名著，在看内容的时候，更要留意文章的问题和写作的技巧。

尽可能多的写：每天都写，如果可能话，每天写几次。你写得多了，也就写得好了。学习如何写作和其他的学问道理是一样的，熟能生巧。写写你自己，写写博客，向出版社投稿。只是写，全情投入的写，练得越多，你的写作水平就提升得越快。

随时随地记下你的灵感：随身带一本小笔记本(纳博科夫身上装满了小卡片)，当你对你构思的小说，文章，或是小说里的人物有什么灵感的时候，马上记下来。当你听别人谈话时的只言片语而所有顿悟时，或看到一段散文诗或是一句歌词让你很感动时，都可以马上当他们记下来。灵感总是转瞬即逝，你及时的记录下来，便可以成为你写作的素材。我的习惯是，为我的博客要写的文章列一个清单，不断的补充它。

专门的写作时间：每天找一个没有任何打扰的时间段作为专门的写作时间，让这成为习惯。对我而言，清晨的时间是最佳的，午饭，傍晚，或者深夜的那段时间也可以。无论你是做什么工作的，把写作当作每天必须完成的任务去做。每天至少写半个小时，当然有一个小时更好。若你同我一样，是一个全职的作家，那么你需要写更多的小时，请你不要担心，这只会让你写得更好。

随便涂鸦：面对整张的白纸，整版的白屏，无从开始，肯定恐怖。你会想：我还是看看邮件或是小憩一会了吧!先生，千万别这样。马上开始写，马上打字，你写什么没有关系，只是让我听到你敲键盘的声音吧。只要你开始写了，什么都好办了。像我的话，我喜欢先敲上我的名字和文章的标题，这应该不难吧，然后再慢慢的展开情节，全身心地融入进去…关键是：开始可以随便写写，随便涂鸦，但是尽快开始写正文。

集中精神：写作是一件一心一意的事情，在嘈杂的环境或是同时干着别的事情，是不可能写好的。写作需要一个安静的环境，需要一点点柔和的背景音乐。即使是最低要求，你也需要在全屏(没有其他软件得干扰)的条件下，使用WriteRoom， DarkRoom，Writer这些写作软件，不受打扰的写作。关掉邮箱，关点MSN和Gtalk，关掉电话和手机，关掉电视，清理掉书桌上无用的东西。清除与写作无关的一切杂念，现在就是写作的时间，好像把自己放进一个盒子里，在没有任何打扰下进入写作状态。

先计划，再写： 这好像和“随便涂鸦”有些矛盾，实际上不是这样。在坐下来正式写之前，先做个计划或是脑子里先预演一下，这是非常管用的办法。每天跑步的时候想想要写的东西，或是散步的时间来个头脑风暴;然后把想到的记下来，做一个扼要的提纲;等真正准备好开始写了，可以很快的展开，因为思路和想法都有了。这里，有一个构思小说的三部曲，可以参考这个：Snowflake Method.

创新： 你需要模仿名家，这并不意味你要跟他们写得一模一样。你可以试试新的写法，从这里学一点，从那里学一点。渐渐地，你就会有了自己的风格，自己的文体，自己的思路。试试一些不一样的表达，或创造一些与众不同的表达方式，每一方法你都可以尝试，看看它到底怎么样，不好就不用呗。

修改： 你开始构思你的文字，然后试着写，让故事情节展开，最后你需要回过头再看看你都写了什么。这点很重要，很多写手一旦写好就不想修改，已经费时费力地写好了，还要再花时间修改，实在是一件吃力不讨好的活。但如果你想写得更好，你就要学会如何修改。好的作品是经过反复的推敲和修改而成的，这会让你的作品从平庸中脱颖而出。看看你写的东东，不仅仅是那些拼写和语法错误，还有那些无意义的词，混乱的结构，和让人搞不懂的句子。修改的目标是：更清晰，更直接，更鲜活。

简明扼要： 这是你在修改的过程中，最重要的一件事情。一句句，一段段的修改，把无关主题的统统都删掉。一个短句比一段冗长的废话更具说服力，大白话比晦涩的专业术语更受欢迎。记得：简单就是力量。

富于感染力的句子：在短句中使用富有感染力的动词，当然，并没有要求每一句都是这样，你需要变化。但是，多试试能够吸引人的句子。而且，你没有必要等到你要修改的时候再用，你刚开始写的时候就要考虑这个问题。

获取别人的反馈： 闭门造车不会有任何进步，让别人读读你的文章给你回馈，最好有经验的作家和编辑。他们见多识广，会给你很中肯和有见地的建议。认真的听，即使是一些批评，也接受它，忠言逆耳，这样只会让你写得更好。

是骡子还是马，拉出来溜溜：就你而言，你需要让别人读到你的作品。你的作品不是你想谁看谁就看的，让所有的人都读到你的文章。你就要出版自己的书，发表自己的短篇小说和诗歌，给出版社供稿。如果你已经开始写博客了，恭喜你，这是一个好的开始。若现在还没有人浏览过，你就需要把它放到流量更大的博客服务网站上去，让读者给你留言，给你提出建议。所有的人都会看你写东西，也许刚开始时会是件伤脑筋的事情，但这是每一位作家成长的必由之路，马上发表你的文字吧。

采用对话式的文体： 很多人的写作都很正式，但是我发现像我们说话一样写作会使文章更流畅(没有叹生词)。这样一来，读者看起来会更舒服。刚开始这么写并不容易，你需要坚持这么做。也许，会带来另一个问题，为了读起来更口语化，你需要打破一些语法规则(就像我的前一句那样)。因为如果生搬硬套语法，会让你的文章看起来很不自然。若没有其他原因，就不要破坏语法规则。你需要知道你在做什么和为什么这样做。

好开头和结尾： 开头和结尾是文章的重点。特别是开头。如果你不能在故事的开始就吸引读者，那他们就很难有耐心把整篇文章读完。所以投入更多的时间去考虑怎么写好开头，读者一旦对你开头感兴趣，他们会想知道得更多...写好开头后，再弄一个精彩的结尾，这会让读者更加期待你的下一篇佳作。

下面的材料旨在丰富学生在是非问题写作方面的思想和语言，考生在复习时可以先分类阅读这些篇章，然后尝试写相关方面的作文题。

对于素材中用黑体字的部分，特别建议你熟读，背诵，因为它们在语言和观点上都值得吸收。学习语言的人应该明白，表达能力和思想深度都靠日积月累，潜移默化。从某种意义上说，提高英语写作能力无捷径可走，你必须大段背诵英语文章才能逐渐形成语感和用英语进行表达的能力。这一关，没有任何人能代替你过。

因此，建议你下点苦功夫，把背单词的精神拿出来背诵文章。何况，并不是要求你背了之后永远牢记在心：你可以这个星期背，下个星期忘。这没有关系，相信你的大脑具有神奇的能力。背了工具箱里的文章后，你会惊讶的发现：I can think in English now！

1.?????? Proverbs

1. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that individuality is the key to success.

2. The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s time.

3. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

4. The classroom--not the trench--is the frontier of freedom now and forevermore.

5. Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

6. It is the purpose of education to help us become autonomous, creative, inquiring people who have the will and intelligence to create our own destiny.

7. You see, real ongoing, lifelong education doesn’t answer questions; it provokes them.

8. People will pay more to be entertained than educated.

9.the most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.

10. The essence of our efforts to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each as equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind, and spirit he or she possesses.

11. A great teacher never strives to explain his vision-he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.

12. If you can read and don’, you are an illiterate by choice.

2. Damaging Research

A study by National Parent-Teacher Organization revealed that in the average American school, eighteen negatives are identified for every positive that is pointed out. The Wisconsin study revealed that when children enter the first grade, 80 percent of them feel pretty good themselves, but by the time they get to the sixth grade, only 10 percent of them have good self-images.

3. Education and Citizenship

An important aspect of education in the United States is the relationship between education and citizenship. Throughout its history this nation has emphasized public education as a means of transmitting democratic values, creating equality of opportunity, and preparing new generations of citizens to function in society. In addition, the schools have been expected to help shape society itself. During the 1950s, for example, efforts to combat racial segregation focused on the schools. Later, when the Soviet Union launched the first orbiting satellite, American schools and colleges came under intense pressure and were offered many incentives to improve their science and mathematics programs so that the nations would not fall behind the Soviet Union in scientific and technological capabilities.

Education is often viewed as a tool for solving social problems, especially social inequality. The schools, t is thought, can transform young people from vastly different backgrounds into competent, upwardly mobile adults. Yet these goals seem almost impossible to attain. In recent years, in fact, public education has been at the center of numerous controversies arising from the gap between the ideal and the reality. Part of the problem is that different groups in society have different have different expectations. Some feel that children should be taught basic job-related skills; still others believe education should not only prepare children to compete in society but also help them maintain their cultural identity (and, in the case of Hispanic children, their language). On the other hand, policymakers concerned with education emphasize the need to increase the level of student achievement and to improve parents in their children’s education.

Some reformers and critics have called attention to the need to link formal schooling with programs designed to address social problems. Sociologist Charles Moscos, for example, is a leader in the movement to expand programs like the Peace Corps, Vista, and Outward Bound into a system of voluntary national service. National service, as Moscos defines it, would entail “the full-time undertaking of public duties by young people whether as citizen soldiers or civilian servers-who are paid subsistence wages” and serve for at least one year. In return for this period of service, the volunteers would receive assistance in paying for college or other educational expenses.

Advocates of national service and school-to-work programs believe that education does not have to be confined to formal schooling. In devising strategies to provide opportunities for young people to serve their society, they emphasize the educational value of citizenship experiences gained outside the classroom. At this writing there is little indication that national service will become a new educational institution in the United States, although the concept is steadily gaining support among educators and social critics.

4. The Teacher’s Role

Given the undeniable importance of classroom experience, sociologists have done a considerable amount of research on what goes on in the classroom. Often they start from the premise that, along with the influence of peers, students’ experiences in the classroom are of central importance to their later development. One study examined the impact of a single first-grade teacher on her students’ subsequent adult status. The surprising results of this study have important implications. It is evident that good teachers can make a big difference in children’s lives, a fact that gives increased urgency to the need to improve the quality of primary-school teaching. The reforms carried out by educational leaders like James Comer suggest that when good teaching is combined with high levels of parental involvement the results can be even more dramatic.

Because the role of the teacher is to change the learner in some way, the teacher-student relationship is an important part of education. Sociologists have pointed out that this relationship is asymmetrical or unbalanced, with the teacher being in a position of authority and the student having little choice but to passively absorb the information provided by the teacher. In other words, in conventional classrooms there is little opportunity for the students to become actively involved in the learning process. On the other hand, students often develop strategies for undercutting the teacher’s authority: mentally withdrawing, interrupting, and the like. Hence, much current research assumes that students and teachers influence each other instead of assuming that the influence is always in a single direction.

5. Education Philosophy

For the past fifty years our schools have operated on the theories of John Dewey (1859-1953), an American educator and writer. Dewey believed hat the school’s job was to enhance the natural development of the growing child, rather than to pour information, for which the child had no context, into him or her. In the Dewey system, the child becomes the active agent in his own education, rather than a passive receptacle for facts.

Consequently, American schools are very enthusiastic about teaching “life skills” –logical thinking, analysis, creative problem--solving. The actual content of the lessons is secondary to the process, which is supposed to train the child to be able to handle whatever life may present, including all the unknowns of the future. Students and teachers both regard pure memorization as an uncreative and somewhat vulgar.

In addition to “life skills”, schools are assigned to solve the ever growing stoke of social problems. Racism, teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, drug use, reckless driving, and are just a few of the modern problems that have appeared on the school curriculum.

This all contributes to a high degree of social awareness in American youngsters.

6. Student Life

To the students, the most notable difference between elementary school and the higher levels is that in junior high they start “changing classes”. This means that rather than spending the day in one classroom, they switch classrooms to meet their different teachers. This gives them three or four minutes between classes in the hallways, where a great deal of the important social action of high school traditionally takes place. Students have lockers in these hallways, around which thy congregate.

Society in general does not take the business of studying very seriously. Schoolchildren have a great deal of free time, which they are encouraged to fill with extracurricular activities—sports, clubs, cheerleading, scouts—supposed to inculcate such qualities as leadership, sportsmanship, ability to organize, etc. those who don’t become engaged in such activities or have afterschool jobs have plenty of opportunity to “hang out”, listen to teenager music, and watch television.

Compared to other nations, American students do not have much homework. Studies also show that American parents have lower expectations for their children’s success in school than other nationalities do. (Historically, there has not been much correlation between American school success and success in later life.) “He’s just not a scholar”, the American parents might say, content that their son is on the swim team and doesn’t take drugs. (Some of the young do choose to study hard, for reason of their own, such as determining that the road to riches lies through Harvard Business School.)

What American schools do effectively teach is the competitive method. In innumerable ways children are pitted against each other—whether in classroom discussion, spelling bees, reading groups, or tests. Every classroom is expected to produce a scattering of A’s and F’s (teachers often grade A=excellent; B=good; C=average; D=poor; and F=failed). A teacher who gives all A’s looks too soft—so students are aware that they are competing for the limited number of top marks.

Foreign students sometimes don’t understand that copying from other people’s papers or from books is considered wrong and taken seriously. Here, it is important to show that you have done your own work and are displaying your own knowledge. It is more important than helping your friends to pass, whom we think do not deserve to pass unless they can provide their own answers. Group effort goes against the competitive grain, and American students do not study together as many Asians do. Many Asians in this country consider their group study habits a large contributor to their school success.

7. Adult Education

After complaining about many aspects of American life, a 40-year-old woman from Hong Kong concluded, “But where else could someone my age go back to school and get a degree in social work? Here you can change your whole life, start a new business, do what you really want to do.”

So at least to this person, school requirements weren’t inhibiting. And to millions of others, adult education is the path to a new career, or if not to a new career, to a new outlook. Schools generally encourage the older person who wants to start anew, and besides regular classes, schedule evening classes in special programs. Today there are so many people of retirement age in college that it is no longer remarkable.

8. Moral Relativism in American

Improving American education requires not doing new things but doing (and remembering) some good old things. At the time of our nation’s founding, Thomas Jefferson listed the requirements for a sound education in the Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia. In this landmark statement on American education, Jefferson wrote of the importance of education and writing, and of reading history, and geography. But he also emphasized the need “to instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests, and duties, as men and citizens.” Jefferson believed education should aim at the improvement of both one’s “morals” and “faculties”. That has been the dominant view of the aims of American education for over two centuries. But a number of changes, most of them unsound, have diverted schools from these great pursuits. And the story of the loss of the school’s original moral mission explains a great deal.

Starting in the early seventies, “values clarification” programs started turning up in schools all over America. According to this philosophy, the schools were not to take part in their time-honored task of transmitting sound moral values; rather, they were to allow the child to “clarify” his own values (which adults, including parents, had no “rights” to criticize). The “values clarification” movement didn’t clarify values; it clarified wants and desires. This form of moral relativism said, in effect, that no set of values was right or wrong; everybody had an equal right to his own values; and all values were subjective, relative, and personal. This destructive view took hold with a vengeance.

In 1985 The York Times published an article quoting New York area educators, in slavish devotion to this new view, proclaiming, “They deliberately avoid trying to tell students what is ethically right and wrong.” The article told of one counseling session involving fifteen high school juniors and seniors. In the course of that session a student concluded that a fellow student had been foolish to return one thousand dollars she found in a purse at school. According to the article, when the youngsters asked the counselor’s opinion, “He told them he believed the girl had done the right thing, but that, of course, he would not try to force his values on them. ‘If I come from the position of what is wrong,’ he explained, ‘then I’m not their counselor.’”

Once upon a time, a counselor offered counselor, and he knew that an adult does not form character in the young by taking a stance of neutrality toward questions of right and wrong or by merely offering “choices” or “options”.

In response to the belief that adults and educators should teach children sound morals, one can expect from some quarters indignant objections (I’ve heard one version of it expressed countless times over the years): “Who are you to say what’s important?” or “Whose standards and judgments do we use?”

The correct response, it seems to me, is, is we ready to do away with standards and judgments? Is anyone going to argue seriously that a life of cheating and swindling is as worthy as a life of honest, hard work? Is anyone (with the exception of some literature professors at our elite universities) going to argue seriously the intellectual corollary, that a Marvel comic book is as good as Macbeth? Unless we are willing to embrace some pretty silly position, we’ve got to admit the need for moral and intellectual standards. The problem is that some people tend to regard anyone who would pronounce a definitive judgment as an unsophisticated Philistine or a closed-minded “elitist” trying to impose his view on everybody else.

The truth of the real world is that without standards and judgments, there can be no progress. Unless we are prepared to say irrational things—that nothing can be proven more valuable than anything else or that everything is equally worthless—we must ask the normative question. It may come, as a surprise to those who fell that to be “progressive” is to be value-neutral. But as Matthew Amold said, “the world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things” and if the world can’t decide what the best things are, at least to some degree, then it follows that progress, and character, is in trouble. We shouldn’t be reluctant to declare that some things, some lives, books, ideas, and values are better than others. It is the responsibility of the schools to teach these better things.

At one time, we weren’t so reluctant to teach them. In the mid-nineteenth century, a diverse, widespread group of crusaders began to work for the public support of what was then called the “common school”, the forerunner of the public school. They were to be charged with the mission of school felt that the nation could fulfill its destiny only if every new generation was taught these values together in a common institution.

The leaders of the common school movement were mainly citizens who were prominent in their communities—businessmen, ministers, local civic and government officials. These people saw the schools as upholders of standards of individual morality and small incubators of civic and personal virtue; the founders of the public schools had faith that public education could teach good moral and civic character from a common ground of American values.

But in the past quarter century or so, some of the so-called experts became experts of value neutrality, and moral education was increasingly left in their hands. The commonsense view of parents and the publicthat schools should reinforce rather than undermine the values of home, family, and country, was increasingly rejected.

There are those today still that claim we are now too diverse a nation, that we consist of too many competing convictions and interests to instill common values. They are wrong. Of course we are a diverse people. We have always been a diverse people. And as Madison wrote in FederalistNo.10, the competing, balancing interests of a diverse people can help ensure the survival of liberty. But there are values that all American citizens share and that we should want all American students to know and to make their own: honesty, fairness, self-discipline, fidelity to task, friends, and family, personal responsibility, love of country, and belief in the principles of liberty, equality, and the freedom to practice one’s faith. The explicit teaching of these values is the legacy of the common schools, and it is a legacy to which we must return.

9. Schools Should Teach Values

People often said, “Yes, we should teach these values, but how do we teach them?” this question deserves a candid response, one that isn’t given often enough. It is by exposing our children to good character and inviting its imitation that we will transmit to them a moral foundation. This happens when teachers and principals, by their words and actions, embody sound convictions. As Oxford’s Mary Warnock has written, “You cannot teach morality without being committed to morality yourself; and you cannot be committed to morality yourself without holding that some things are right and others wrong.” The theologian Martin Buber wrote that the educator is distinguished from all other influences “by his will to take part in the stamping of character and by his consciousness that he represents in the eyes of the growing person a certain selection of what is, the selection of what is ‘right’, of what should be.” It is in this will, Buber says, in this clear standing for something, that the “vocation as an educator finds its fundamental expression.”

There is no escaping the fact that young people need as example principals and teachers who know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and who themselves exemplify high moral purpose.

As Education Secretary, I visited a class at Waterbury Elementary School in Waterbury, Vermont, and asked the students, “Is this a good school?” They answered, “Yes, this is a good school.” I asked them, “Why?” Among other things, one eight-year-old said, “The principal Mr. Riegel, makes good rules and everybody obeys them.” So I said, “Give me an example.” And another answered, “You can’t climb on the pipes in the bathroom. We don’t climb on the pipes and the principal doesn’t either.”

This example is probably too simple to please a lot of people who want to make the topic of moral education difficult, but there is something profound in the answer of those children, something education should pay more attention to. You can’t expect children to take messages about rules or morality seriously unless they see adults taking those rules seriously in their day-to-day affairs. Certain must be said, certain limits lay down, and certain examples set. There is no other way.

We should also do a better job at curriculum selection. The research shows that most “values education” exercises and separate courses in “moral reasoning” tend not to affect children’s behavior; if anything, they may leave children morally adrift. Where to turn? I believe our literature and our history are a rich quarry of moral literacy. We should mine that quarry. Children should have at their disposal a stock of examples illustrating what we believe to be right and wrong, good and bad—examples illustrating what are morally right and wrong can indeed be known and that there is a difference.

What kind of stories, historical events, and famous lives am I talking about? If we want our children to know about honesty, we should teach them about Abe Lincoln walking three miles to return six cents and conversely, about Aesop’s shepherd boy who cried wolf if we want them to know about courage, we should teach them about Joan of Arc, Horatius at the bridge, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. If we want them to know about persistence in the face of adversity, they should know about the voyages of Columbus and the character of Washington during the Civil War. And our youngest should be told about the Little Engine That Could. If we want them to know about respect for the law, they should understand why Socrates told Crito: “No, I must submit to the decree of Athens.” If we want our children to respect the rights of others, they should read the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’ “Letter from Birmingham jail.” From the Bible they should know about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, Jonathan’s friendship with David, the Good Samaritan’s kindness toward a stranger, and David’s cleverness and courage in facing Goliath.

These are only a few of the hundreds of examples we can call on. And we need not get into issues like nuclear war, abortion, creationism, or euthanasia. This may come as a disappointment to some people, but the fact is that the formation of character in young people is educationally a task different from, and prior to, the discussion of the great, difficult controversies of the day. First things come first. We should teach values the same way we teach other things: one step at a time. We should not use the fact that there are many difficult and controversial moral questions as an argument against basic instruction in the subject.

After all, we do not argue against teaching physics because laser physics is difficult, against teaching American history because there are heated disputes about the Founders’ intent. Every field has its complexities and its controversies. And every field has its basics, its fundamentals. So they are too with forming character and achieving moral literacy. As any parent knows, teaching character is a difficult task. But it is a crucial task, because we want our children to be healthy, happy, and successful but decent, strong, and good. None of this happens automatically; there is no genetic transmission of virtue. It takes the conscious, committed efforts of adults. It takes careful attention.

10. College Pressures

Mainly I try to remind that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don not want to hear such liberating news. They want a map—right now – that they can follow unswervingly to career security, financial security, Social Security and, presumably, a prepaid grave.

What I wish for all students is some release from the clammy grip of the future. I wish them a chance to savor each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a grim preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world.

My wish, of course, is na?ve. One of the national gods venerated in our media—the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive—and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old.

I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villains—to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, and the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains: only victims.

“In the late 1960s.” one dean told me. “The typical question that I got from students was ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world’ or ‘how I can make a contribution?’ Today it’s ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?’” many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said: “They are trying to find an edge—the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal.”

Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale’s official system of grading, A means “excellent” and B means “very good.” Today, looking very good is no longer good enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practices where they will make a lot of money. They also know that the odds are harsh. Yale Law School, for instance, matriculates 170students from an applicant pool of 3,700; Harvard enrolls 550 from a pool of 7,000.

It’s all very well for those of us who write letters of recommendation for our students to stress the qualities of humanity that will make them good lawyers or doctors. And it’s nice to think that admission officers are ready reading our letters and looking for the extra dimension of commitment or concern. Still, it would be hard for a student not to visualize these officers shuffling so many transcripts studded with As that they regard a B as positively shameful.

The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the “gentleman’s C.” when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses-music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion—that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I do not know if they are getting As or Cs, and I do not care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They cannot.

Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now come to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Tuition covers only 60 percent of what it costs to educate a student, and ordinarily the remainder comes from what college receives in endowments, grants, and gifts. Now, the remainder keeps being swallowed by the cruel costs—higher every year—of just opening the doors. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health-premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in American the creation of a brotherhood of paupers—colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debt.

Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part time at college and full time during the summer, to accrue $5,000 in loans after four years—loans that he must start to repay within one year after graduation. Exhorted at commencement to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? I have used “he,” incidentally, only for brevity. Women at Yale are under no less pressure to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. In fact, they are probably under more pressure. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society has not yet caught up with this fact.

Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.

I see many students taking pre-medical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know tem in other corners of their life as cheerful people.

“Do you want to medical school?” I asked them.

“I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or “Not really.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They are paying all this money and …”

Poor students, poor parents, they are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean will; they are trying to steer their sons and draughts toward a secure future. But the sons and daughter want to major in history or classics or philosophy—subjects with no “practical” value. Where’s the payoff on the humanities? It’s not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics—an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective—are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many fathers would rather put their money on courses that point toward specific profession—courses that are pre-law, pre-medical, pre-business, or, as I sometimes heard it put, “pre-rich.”

But the pressure on students is severe. They are truly torn. One part of them feels obliged to fulfill their parents’ expectations; after all, their parents are older and presumably wiser. Another part tells them that the expectations that are right for their parents are not right for them.

I know a student who wants to be an artist. She is very obviously an artist and will be a good one—she has already had several modest local exhibits. Meanwhile she is growing as a well-round person and taking humanistic subjects that will enrich the inner resources out of which her art will grow. But her father is strongly opposed. He thinks that an artist is a “dumb” thing to be. The student vacillates and tries to please everybody. She keeps up with her art somewhat furtively and takes some of the “dumb” courses her father wants her to take—at least they are dumb courses for her. She is a free spirit on a campus of tense students—no small achievement in it—and she deserves to follow her muse.

Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year.

“I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I could not tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”

The story is almost funny—except that it is not. It is symptomatic of all the pressure put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they would sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clacking of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?”

Probably they won’t. They will get blocked. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out.

Part of the problem is that they are expected to do. A professor will assign five page papers. Several students will start writing ten page papers to impress him. Then more students will write ten page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment.

“Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “It’s bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic work, psychologically.”

Why cannot the professor just cut back and not accept longer papers? He can, and he probably will. But by then the term will be half over and the damage done. Grade fever is highly contagious and not easily reversed. Besides, the professor’s main concern is with his course. He knows his students only in relation to the course and does not know that they are also overexerting in their other courses. Nor is it really his business. He did not sign up for dealing with the student as a whole person and with all the emotional baggage the student brought along from home. That’s what deans, masters, chaplains, and psychiatrists are for.

To some extent this is nothing new: a certain number of professors have always been self-contained islands of scholarship and shyness, more comfortable with books than with people. But the new pauperism has widened the gap still further, for professors who actually like to spend time with students do not have as much time to spend. They are also overexerting. If they are young, they are busy trying to publish in order not to perish, hanging by their figure nails onto a shrinking profession.

If they are old and tenured, they are buried under the duties of administering departments—as departmental chairmen or members of committees—that have been thinned out by the budgetary axe.

Ultimately it will be the students’ own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing into themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future.

“Violence is being done to the undergraduate experience,” says Carlos Hortas. “College should be open-ended: at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choices narrow as they go along. It’s almost as if they think that the country has been codified in the type of jobs that exist-that they’ve got to fit into certain slots. Therefore, fit into the best paying slot.”

“They ought to take chances. Not taking chances will lead to life of colorless mediocrity. They’ll be comfortable. But something in the spirit will be missing.”

I have painted too drab a portrait of today’s students, making them seem a solemn lot. That is only half of their story; if they were so dreary I wouldn’t so thoroughly enjoy their company. The other half is that they are easy to like. They are quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They are not introverts. They are usually kind and are more considerate of one another than any student generation I have known.

Nor are they so obsessed with their studies that they avoid sports and extracurricular activities. On the contrary, they juggle their crowded hours to play on a variety of teams, perform with musical and dramatic groups, and write for campus publications. But this in turn is one more cause of anxiety. There are too many choices. Academically, they have 1,300 courses to select from; outside class they have to decide how much spare time they can spare and how to spend it.

This means that they engage in fewer extracurricular pursuits than their predecessors did. If they want to row on the crew and play in the symphony they will eliminate one; in the ‘60s they would have done both. They also tend to choose activities that are self-limiting. Drama, for instance, is flourishing in all twelve of Yale’s residential colleges, as it never has before. Students hurl themselves into these productions—as actors, directors, carpenters, and technicians—with a dedication to create the best possible play, knowing that the day will come when the run will end and they can get back to their studies.

They also cannot afford to be the willing slave of organizations like the Yale Daily News. Last spring at the one-hundredth anniversary banquet of that paper—who’s past chairmen include such once and future kings as Potter Stewart, Kingman Brewster, and William F. Buckley, Jr.—much was made of the fact that the editorial staff used to be small and totally committed and that “newsies” routinely worked fifty hours a week. In effect they belonged to a club; Newsies is how they defined themselves at Yale. Today’s students will one or two articles a week, when he can, and he defines himself as a student. I’ve never heard the word Newsie except at the banquet.

If I have described the modern undergraduate primarily as a driven creature who is largely ignoring the blithe spirit inside who keeps trying to come out and play, it’s because that’s where the crunch is, not only at Yale but throughout American education. It’s why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age.

I tell students that there is no one “right” way to get ahead—that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell neither them that change is a tonic and that all the slots are not codified nor the frontiers closed. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. They are heads of companies or ad agencies, editors of magazines, politicians, public officials, television magnates, labor leaders, business executives, Broadway products, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians—a mixed bag of achievers.

I asked them to say a few words about how they got started. The students assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by a circuitous route, to their surprise, after many detours. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not pre-planned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail.

11. To Err Is Wrong

In the summer of 1979, Boston Red Sox first baseman Carl Yastrzemski became the fifteenth player in baseball history to reach the three thousand hit plateaus. This event drew a lot of media attention, and for about a week prior to the attainment of this goal, hundreds of reports covered Yaz’s every more. Finally, one reporter asked, “Hey Yaz, aren’t you afraid all of this attention will go to your head?” Yastrzemski replied, “I look at this way: in my career I’ve been up to bat over ten thousand times. That means I’ve been unsuccessful at the plate over seven thousand times. That fact alone keeps me from getting a swollen head.”?

Most people consider success and failure as opposites, but they are actually both products of the same process. As Yaz suggest, an activity that produces a hit may also produce a miss. It is the same with creative thinking; the same energy that generates good creative ideas also produces errors.

Many people, however, are not comfortable with errors. Our educational system, based on “the right answer” belief, cultivates our thinking in another, more conservative way. From an early age, we are taught that right answers are good and incorrect answers are bad. This value is deeply embedded in the incentive system used in most schools:

Right over 90% of the time = “A”

Right over 80% of the time = “B~”

Right over 70% of the time = “C~” Right over 60% of the time = “D~” Less than 60% correct, you fail.

From this we learn to be right as often as possible and to keep our mistakes to a minimum. We learn, in other words, that “to err is wrong.

Playing It Safe

With this kind of attitude, you aren’t going to be taking too many chances. If you learn that failing even a litter penalizes you (e.g., being wrong only 15% of the time garners you only a “B” performance), you learn not to make mistakes. And more important, you learn not to put yourself to situation where you might fall. This leads to conservative thought pattern designed to avoid the stigma our society puts on “failure”.

I have a friend who recently graduated from college with a Master’s degree in Journalism. For the last six month, she has been trying to find a job, but to no avail. I talked with her about situation, and realized that her problem is that she doesn’t know how to fail. She went through eighteen years of schooling to try any approaches where she might fail. She has been conditioned to believe that failure is bad in and of itself, rather than a potential stepping-stone to new ideas.

Look around. How many middle managers, housewives, administrators, teachers, and other people do you see who are to try anything new because of this failure? Most of us have learned not to make mistakes in public. As a result, we remove ourselves from many learning experience except for those occurring in the most private of circumstances.

Different Logic

From a practical point of view, “to err is wrong” makes sense. Our survival in the everyday world requires us to perform thousand of small tasks without failure. Think about it: you wouldn’t last very long if you were to step out in front of traffic or stick your hand a pot of boiling water. In addition, engineers whose bridges collapse, stock brokers who lose money for their clients, and copywriters whose ad campaigns decrease sales won’t keep their jobs very long.

Nevertheless, too great an adherence to the belief “to err is wrong” can greatly undermine your attempts to generate new ideas. If you are more concerned with producing right answers than generating original ideas, you’ll probably make uncritical use of the rules, formulae, and procedures used to obtain these right answers. By doing this, you’ll by-pass the germinal phase of the creative process, and thus spend litter time testing assumptions, challenging the rules, asking what-if questions, or just playing around with the problem. All of these techniques will produce some incorrect answers, but in the germinal phase errors are viewed as a necessary by-product of creative thinking. As Yaz would put it, “if you want the hits, be prepared for the misses.” That’s the way the game of life goes.

Errors as Stepping Stones

Whenever an error pops up, the usual response is “Jeez, another screw up, what went wrong this time?” the creative thinker, on the other hand, will realize the potential value of errors, and perhaps say something like, “Would you look at that! Where can it lead our thinking?” and then he or she will go on to use the error as a stepping stone to a new idea. As a matter of fact, the whole history of discovery is filed with people who used erroneous assumptions and failed ideas as stepping-stones to new ideas. Columbus thought he was finding a shorter route to India. Johannes Kepler stumbled on to the idea of interplanetary gravity because of assumptions that were right for the wrong reasons. And, Thomas Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a light bulb.

The following story about the automotive genius Charles Kettering exemplifies the spirit of working through erroneous assumptions to good ideas. In 1912, when the automobile industry was just beginning to grow, Kettering was interested in improving gasoline engine efficiency. The problem he faced was“knockthe phenomenon in which gasoline takes too long to burn in the cylinder-thereby reducing efficiency.

Kettering began searching for ways to eliminate the “knock.” He thought to him, “How can I get the gasoline to combust in the cylinder at an earlier time?” the key concept here is “early”. Searching for analogous situations, he looked around for models of “things that happen early.” He thought of historical models, physical models, and biological models. Finally, he remembered a particular plant, the trailing arbutus, which “happens early,” i.e., it blooms in the snow (“earlier” than other plants). One of this plant’s chief characteristics is its’ red leaves, which help the plant retain light at certain wavelengths. Kettering figured that it must be the red color, which made the trailing arbutus bloom earlier.

Now came the critical step in Kettering’s chain of thought. He asked himself, “How can I make the gasoline red?” perhaps I’ll put red dye in the gasoline—maybe that’ll make it combust earlier.” He looked around his workshop, and found that he didn’t have any red dye. But he did happen to have some iodine—perhaps that would do. He added the iodine to the gasoline and, lo and behold, the engine didn’t “knock”.

[英语作文写作的需要背诵的部分