英語四六級考試寫作之段落寫法標準分析

　　B. 按位置遠近排列(spatial arrangement)。例如：

　　From a distance, it looked like a skinny tube, but as we got closer, we could see it flesh out before our eyes. It was tubular, all right, but fatter than we could see from far away. Furthermore, we were also astonished to notice that the building was really in two parts: a pagoda sitting on top of a tubular one-story structure. Standing ten feet away, we could marvel at how much of the pagoda was made up of glass windows. Almost everything under the wonderful Chinese roof was made of glass, unlike the tube that it was sitting on, which only had four. Inside, the tube was gloomy, because of the lack of light. Then a steep, narrow staircase took us up inside the pagoda and the light changed dramatically. All those windows let in a flood of sunshine and we could see out for miles across the flat land.

　　本段的寫法是由遠及近，從遠處(“from a distance”)寫起，然后“get closer”，再到(“ten feet away”)，最后是“inside the pagoda”……當然，按位置遠近來寫不等于都是由遠及近。根據(jù)需要，也可以由近及遠，由表及里等等。

　　C. 按邏輯關(guān)系排列(logical arrangement)

　　a. 按重要性順序排列(arrangement in order of importance)

　　If you work as a soda jerker, you will, of course, not need much skill in expressing yourself to be effective. If you work on a machine, your ability to express yourself will be of little importance. But as soon as you move one step up from the bottom, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken or the written word. And the further away your job is from manual work, the larger the organization of which you are an employee, the more important it will be that you know how to convey your thoughts in writing or speaking. In the very large business organization, whether it is the government, the large corporation, or the Army, this ability to express oneself is perhaps the most important of all the skills a man can possess.

　　這一段談的是表達能力，它的重要性與職業(yè)，身份有關(guān)，從“not need much skill”或“of little importance”到“more important”，最后是“most important”。

　　b.由一般到特殊排列(general-to-specific arrangement)

　　If a reader is lost, it is generally because the writer has not been careful enough to keep him on the path. This carelessness can take any number of forms. Perhaps a sentence is so excessively cluttered that the reader, hacking his way through the verbiage, simply doesn’t know what it means. Perhaps a sentence has been so shoddily constructed that the reader could read it in any of several ways. Perhaps the writer has switched tenses, or has switched pronouns in mid-sentence, so the reader loses track of when the action took place or who is talking. Perhaps sentence B is not logical sequel to sentence A ---- the writer, in whose head the connection is clear, has not bothered to provide the missing link. Perhaps the writer has used an important word incorrectly by not taking the trouble to look it up. He may think that "sanguine" and "sanguinary" mean the same thing, but the difference is a bloody big one. The reader can only infer what the writer is trying to imply.

　　這一段談的是a writer’s carelessness，先給出一個general statement作為主題句，然后通過5個 "perhaps"加以例證。

　　c. 由特殊到一般排列(specific-to-general arrangement)

　　I do not understand why people confuse my Siamese cat, Prissy, with the one I had several years ago, Henry. The two cats are only alike in breed. Prissy, a quiet, feminine feline, loves me dearly but not possessively. She likes to keep her distance from people, exert her independence and is never so rude as to beg, lick, or sniff unceremoniously. Her usual posture is sitting upright, eyes closed, perfectly still. Prissy is a very proper cat. Henry, on the other hand, loved me dearly but possessively. He was my shadow from morning till night. He expected me to constantly entertain him. Henry never cared who saw him do anything, whether it was decorous or not, and he usually offended my friends in some way. The cat made himself quite comfortable, on the top of the television, across stranger’s feet or laps, in beds, drawers, sacks, closets, or nooks. The difference between them is imperceptible to strangers.

　　本段的主題句是段首句，它僅提出一個問題：為什么兩只貓會被搞混。然后對兩者進行比較，末句才下結(jié)論。

　　2)、形連

　　行文的邏輯性常常要靠適當?shù)霓D(zhuǎn)換詞語及其他手段來實現(xiàn)。請讀下面這一段文字并找出文中用以承上啟下的詞語：

　　Walter’s goal in life was to become a successful surgeon. First, though, he had to get through high school, so he concentrated all his efforts on his studies --- in particular, biology, chemistry, and math. Because he worked constantly on these subjects, Walter became proficient in them; however, Walter forgot that he needed to master other subjects besides those he had chosen. As a result, during his junior year of high school, Walter failed both English and Latin. Consequently, he had to repeat these subjects and he was almost unable to graduate on schedule. Finally, on June 6, Walter achieved the first step toward realizing his goal.

　　本文中起承上啟下的詞語有兩種，一種是轉(zhuǎn)換詞語(transitional words or phrases)，另一種是起轉(zhuǎn)換作用的其他連接手段(linking devices)。前者依次有：first, though, so, in particular, and, because, however, besides, as a result, both…and, consequently, and, finally.后者依次是：he, he, his, his, he, these, them, he, those, his, he, these, his. 本段中共有詞匯105個，所使用的轉(zhuǎn)換詞語及其他連接用語共26個詞，約占該段總詞匯量的四分之一。由此可見，掌握好transitions不僅對行文的流(smoothness)有益，而且對于學生在半個小時內(nèi)寫足四級短文所要求的120個詞也是不無好處的。