要寫好一篇文章的關鍵就在於:把「段落」寫好。
 
段落是由句子所組合的,而句子是由字所組成的 (廢話)
段落與句子都是作為表達一個完整思想的單元。
每一個段落必須要使得讀者讀完之後,有感覺比閱讀前獲得更多的知識。
 
概念 1:一致性 Unity
英文 (論文) 寫作有一個很重要的概念:一個段落只能討論一個主題 (或是一個大主題的一小部分)。因此整個段落必須具有「一致性」的特徵。
 
也因為一個段落只討論一個主題,因此,內容的邏輯論述,所舉的例子,都必須圍繞在此單一的主題。如果你扯到其他的東西,那麼讀者可能會被你搞混!
 
技巧:在段落的第一句就指出本段的主要概念,標定 (indent) 出本段所要討論的獨立主題。
 
閱讀以下文字,感受一下有沒有所謂的「一致性」
 

Beginnings are apt to be shadowy, and so it is with the beginnings of that great mother of life, the sea. Many people have debated how and when the earth got its ocean, and it is not surprising that their explanations do not always agree. For the plain and inesapable truth is that none was there to see, and in the absence of eyewitness accounts there is bound to be a certain amount of disagreement. So  if I tell there is a story of how the young planet Earth aquired an ocean., it must be a story pieced together from many sources and containing many whole chapters the details of which we can only imagine. The story is founded on ihe testimony of the earth's most ancient rocks which were young when the earth was young; on other evidence written on the face of the earth's satellite, the moon; and on hints contained in the history of the sun and whole universe of star-filled space. For although no man was there to witness this cosmic birth, the stars and the moon and the rocks were there, and, indeed, had much to do with the fact that there is an ocean.

摘自 "Mother Sea: The Gray Beginnings" Rachel Carson, The Sen Around Us
 
討論 1:作者在這個段落要表達的主題是什麼?
討論 2:為什麼寫作的關鍵在把段落寫好?
附件列表