What is good writing?

This question has come up to my mind for quite a long time. What is good writing? What elements should be included in?

Using words, what kind of? Big words? Small words? Common ones or special ones?

Sentences, in what forms? Simple or complex? How?

Structures, how to balance them?

The basics for writing is to be undertood, the higher goal is to be art? Then how to break the bottle neck, overstepping to this acme?

Welcome to share your opnions.
Good answers are from pandaiszp and raysfire. Thank you all.

ok.let me share my own opinion. not for your score but just for fun

talking with you;) you make me recall my foreign teacher or maybe you

are a Chinese in command of good English. i am just a common person

with average English. so don't focus on my mistakes ,just on the ideas

i wanna state. as long as you can understand me , it's enough.:)
you know ,we are Chinese. China has a long history not only in

social development but also in writing. we have various sytles of

writing--anciet and modern poems,essays,lyrics,plays,novels and so on.

however,almost most Chinese consider the anciet poems as the most

beautiful and meaningful. it's pity few foreigners can understand

Chinese anciet poems and they can be hardly translated exactly.thus ,i

will take the anciet poem as an example for writing.following is my

personal opinions.
in a word,a good writing should have the nature of freedom.
for the writer,you are free to express whatever you think,but

however casual your writing is ,there is still a key point you focus

on. there is a most famous Chinese poet named Li Bai.when reading his

poems,you are like looking at a large piece of drawing. all is

beautiful ,but still there would be sth that most impresses you---

maybe his outlook of life behind the drawing or just one unique flower

of all the flowers he draws. the view may vary from person to

person,but every reader will be content to understand the poet in some

way. what i will stress here is the freedom of writer .don't pay too

much attention to What elements should be included in, Using what

kind of words or sentence stuctures. you write just because you want

to express sth. your idea has its own life. so just give life to your

idea and then let him live in his own way,but ask him not to lose his

soul. a good writing gives freedom to its writer.
for the readers,a good writing will stir your emotion, imagination

and give you sth. refreshing. you will be liberated from real life.

when reading ,you are like dreaming or leading a new life. you can

enjoy thorough freedom in your spiritual world. also take Li Bai's

poems for example. in fact, few Chinese can understand the ancient

poems thoroughly, let alone foreigners. but we can touch its soul in

some way,feeling its beauty and partial meaning. even though we can't

understand the poem at all,we still can appreciate it. that's the

charm of anciet poem . it liberates you from all chains. a good

writing gives freedom to its readers as well.
you can recall all those writings that have impressed you. do they

have similarities in diction.sentence structure or figures of speech?
as far as i am concerned, the answer is definitely "no". every writing

is unique. but we regard all of them good writing.
ye.maybe poem is of a different kind. for common writing, The basics

is to be undertood(at least to some extent). but i am sure the higher

goal is to be art. Then how to break the bottle neck? when you achieve

freedom in your spiritual world.

BTW,你既然看得懂Pandaiszp的回答。不管你是不是外国人。我想对古诗还是知道一点的吧。呵呵
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第1个回答  2009-06-17
Plain English 平实的写作

Plain English is good writing in my mind.

Plain Englsih refers to: The writing and setting out of essential information in a way that gives a co-operative, motivated person agood chance of understanding the documnet at first reading, and in the same sense that the writer meant it to be understood.
this means pitching the language at a level of sophistication that suits the readers and using appropriate sturcture and layout to help them navigate through the document. It does not mean always using simple words at the expense of the most accurate words or writing whole documents in kindergarten language.

【The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.- Voltaire】
1.keep it short and simple
Short...
The value of a document is a proportional to its weight. Your reader will not respect you more because you have written 100 pages instead of 20. In fact they are more likely to resent you for making such demands on their time.
1document=20 pages at the most
1sentence=20 words
But varying sentence length makes for more interesting reading.
【I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter. --Pascal】
Simple:Simple language will not make you seemless learned or elegant: it will make you seem more credible.
(as) better than (in view of the fact that)
(on) better than (with respect to )
(some) better than (a certain number of )
...

2.Active verbs, not passive...
Another easy step to clear English is to use verbs in the active voice("the car hit the tree") rather than the passive("the tree was hit by the car").
...expect where passives are useful
You don't have to avoid passive verbs at all costs.They can be sueful:
If there's no need to say who was responsible for the action because it's obvious.
If you want to fouce attention on the receiver of the action by putting that first.
If you want to position old or known information at the start of the sentence, so you can put new or surprising information at the end.
If you want to evade responsibility.

3.Making sense--managing stress
(1)Name the agents of each action and put the actions inthe order in which they occur.
(2)Put old or known information at the beginning of the sentence and new or complex information at the end.
(3)Make sure you sentences have storng endings-that's the bit reader will remember.
(4)Some more ways of putting important information in the best position - at the end of the sentence.

4. Use verbs, not nonus.
One simple step to clearer English is to change...
(by the introduction of ) to (by introducing)
(for the allocation of ) to (for allocating)
English prefers verbs to nouns.

5. Concrete, not abstract
English is a notoriously blunt language. Too much abstract language may make your reader suspect that something real and unpalatable is being wrapped up in verbiage.
In general, if you have a choice between a choice between an abstract word and a more concrete one that means the same, choose concrete. It will make your message more direct.
you could try this sometimes, instead of this
fix establish
highlight emphasise
...

You can take advantage of this if you want.
E.g These countries are asking for dates and facts, but all we can give them is prevarication and obfuscation.

From Tips on English Learing(取材:英语的门槛有多高)
第2个回答  2009-06-18
英文写作
1着眼于抽象表具体
2选词,这要基于平时对相同意义单词所carry的色彩有所理解,例如,我like你,和我love你的色彩明显不同
3结构,不同的句子结构意味着不同的强调部分和不同的感觉,个人觉得长句比短句更有英语味,而不是把一系列的主谓宾,主系表这样的简单句搓在一起中间再加点连接词就是一篇东西了
您提到了art,文学和语言写作水平厉害关系有限,文学很多时候着重于情节的setting,诗歌和散文除外。u mentioned that "The basics for writing is to be undertood",您也知道这只是语言在社会中的基本作用,其实个人觉得如果上升到art,那就应该是让读者不懂或是让读者很暧昧的懂,也就是似懂非懂,对于哈姆雷特的一句话评论:有一千个读者,就有一千个哈姆雷特 。就体现这种暧昧的understandig,由于莎翁时代相去久远,他当初的真实想法已经死无对证,谁能说自己真懂
还是那句老得长蛆的话:学语言在于积累
第3个回答  2009-06-17
first off, u gotta understand the tradition of the english writing, esp english essay. a good english essay is usually divided into three parts, introduction, body paragraph, and conclusion. so for the intro, wat you need to do is to write out the background, just to let the reader kinda know wat will be shown later on in the essay. in the end of the intro, write the thesis statement IN ONE SENTENCE, always always always write the thesis statement about your opinion or position on the topic. then u gotta deal w/ the bodyparagraph. in a short essay (500-1000 words or so), at least two body paragraphs need to be concluded, and be specific and convincing, but dont put out too many paragraphs, that means be organized if you've got so many scatterd points. sort them up and put one catagrory as one paragraph. k for conclusion. basically u just need to rewrite your thesis one more time, and you can also write something about the future on that topic, or anything that sounds promising or not promising.

for word choosing, all i can say is it really depends. its like personal favor. some people like fansy big words and some people dont. i have met teacheres who tend to use monster words for more confusion and professional purposes, and teacheres who abosutely hate big words and told the students "ill smach the holy spirit out of you if you use the word you got from thesaurus.com and dont even kno wat it means!" so id say choose the word that is more accurate, and avoid those words that look intelligent but also confusing.

anyways read more, practice more, and good luck!
第4个回答  2009-06-17
Are you a foreigner?
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