維基百科:修繕評價章節
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書作、影視、遊戲條目本應通過評價章節,歸納總結媒體和業內人士的觀點。但中文維基條目該節常常欠奉,即便有也常是不加組織的堆砌引文。不少編輯渴望改善該節但沒有頭緒,這時來參考下文的步驟說明,就能對評價章節的寫法有所把握,不用為如何組織繁雜的觀點而頭暈腦脹。
- 敲定組織方式,以引言填充框架。該方法為英文維基百科電子遊戲專題所推薦,其編輯Czar還常用隱藏注釋在段前標明範圍。這種做法不但亮明了條目結構,更是告訴其他編者條目有結構。如果一時想不出條目架構,則可參看同類優特條目。
- 每段都有總起句概括主旨。正如下文例子所示,總起句不必複雜。可試問自己:若要給其他編輯解釋段落主旨,我該怎麼說?在完成下文的第3步後,請再回頭檢查總起句是否還恰如其分。通覽評論找出代表性評價前,切勿輕下「普遍好評」等結論,小心原創研究。
- 以斷言為論據,提出論點,證明各段目標。請把自己當設計師而非裝配工,你不止要安排評論展示順序,還要決定用哪些評論支撐段落論點。注意事項:
- 少寫「A稱B」。像「約翰·史密斯稱『它是檔好節目,我喜歡』,瑪利亞·卡尼薩雷斯稱『這是我今年看過最好的節目』」這般羅列,讀者很快就會厭倦。徹底避免固然不現實,但校訂時可借鑑不同表述方法。
- 變換句子節律。條目評價章節有個常見病,句子長度或結構單一,文章單調乏味。編者可參考其他條目,實現兩個基本目標:一是句子長度錯落有致,二是直接引言、間接引言和改述交替並用。
- 無需巨細靡遺。6篇評論都表達觀點X時,編者只用陳述X是普遍看法,無須一一點名。
- 直接引言莫泛濫。和加工提煉原文相比,堆砌引言誠然省力不少,只不過,論點鮮明才是編者的任務。能改述則改述,引言是點綴,不是偷懶工具。
案例
編輯下方評價章節示例展示了上述步驟的應用。歡迎您一起補充案例——可以是完美完成的評價章節,也可以是改進前後的對照案例。最好能舉不同類型作品(電子遊戲、書、電影等),方便各領域編輯參照。
案例1:黑暗的左手
編輯以下四段文字譯自英文版黑暗的左手條目評價章節,這些文字出自優秀編輯之筆。可以看到即便是優秀編輯也會有問題:
The Left Hand of Darkness received overwhelmingly positive critical responses when it was published. It won both the Nebula Award, given by the Science Fiction Writers of America, and the Hugo Award, determined by science fiction fans. In 1987, Locus ranked it number two among "All-Time Best SF Novels", based on a poll of subscribers. By 2014, the novel had sold more than a million copies in English alone. The Paris Review stated that "No single work did more to upend the genre's conventions than The Left Hand of Darkness."
Algis Budrys praised the novel as "a narrative so fully realized, so compellingly told, so masterfully executed." He found the book "a novel written by a magnificent writer, a totally compelling tale of human peril and striving under circumstances in which human love, and a number of other human qualities, can be depicted in a fresh context." Budrys would later describe Left Hand as an influence upon his own writing. Darko Suvin, one of the first academics to study science fiction, wrote that Left Hand was the "most memorable novel of the year."
Harold Bloom listed The Left Hand of Darkness in The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books in his conception of artistic works that been important and influential in influencing Western culture, saying that "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time". Bloom said in 1987 that Left Hand was Le Guin's "finest work to date," and that critics had generally undervalued the book. Charlotte Spivack stated that Left Hand established Le Guin's status as a major science-fiction writer.
Suzanne Reid wrote that at the time the novel was written, Le Guin's ideas of androgyny were unique not only to science fiction, but to literature in general. Donna White stated that Left Hand was one of the seminal works of science fiction, as important as Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, which is often described as the very first science fiction novel. Left Hand has been a focus of literary critique of Le Guin's work, along with her Earthsea fiction and utopian fiction. The novel was also a personal milestone for Le Guin, with critics calling it her "first contribution to feminism." It was one of her most popular books for many years after its publication.
我們看到文章多處都有「A稱B」問題:「巴黎評論認為……阿爾吉斯·布得利斯稱讚……哈羅德·布魯姆將之列為……布魯姆稱……夏洛特·斯皮瓦克稱……蘇珊娜·瑞德寫道……唐納·懷特認為……」。不管是用詞還是節律角度,消除重複都絕非易事。
Step one: look for natural groupings of the comments -- do some of them seem to be similar in some way? Reading through the above, there's a fairly natural breakdown into three categories:
第一步:尋找意見的天然類別——是否有意見在某方面觀點類似?通讀上文後,可以很自然的將內容歸為三類:
- 成功 -- 所獲獎項、售出冊數
- 讚揚 -- 引言和報導援引稱讚該書
- 影響 -- 該書已影響了其他作品
Grouping the quotes in paragraphs based on this breakdown isn't enough, though. If you want the reader to feel as though you're communicating with them, and not just passing the quotes to them on a tray for them to assess, you need to give each paragraph a position in the narrative. Here the basic narrative is:
Narrative
- The book was very successful, won awards, and sold lots of copies.
- People said nice things about it.
- It influenced a lot of other writers.
The narrative is not at all the same as the category list above it. The category list is just a list of nouns and definitions; the narrative is a series of assertions about the book; and even at this short length it feels like a narrative of the reception, rather than a list. Within each item more can be done to make the narrative flow, though. For the second point, the praise section, here are the sentences I think should be included:
- The Left Hand of Darkness received overwhelmingly positive critical responses when it was published.
- Algis Budrys praised the novel as "a narrative so fully realized, so compellingly told, so masterfully executed." He found the book "a novel written by a magnificent writer, a totally compelling tale of human peril and striving under circumstances in which human love, and a number of other human qualities, can be depicted in a fresh context."
- Darko Suvin, one of the first academics to study science fiction, wrote that Left Hand was the "most memorable novel of the year."
- Harold Bloom listed The Left Hand of Darkness in The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books in his conception of artistic works that been important and influential in influencing Western culture. saying that "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time". Bloom said in 1987 that Left Hand was Le Guin's "finest work to date," and that critics had generally undervalued the book.
- Charlotte Spivack stated that Left Hand established Le Guin's status as a major science-fiction writer.
Step 2: What's the argument of this paragraph? It's a list of statements that praise the book. (1) is a strong opening sentence and it could work well where the original writer had it, at the top of the whole section. It can serve as the introduction to the "success" paragraph just as well as to the "praise" paragraph. That means we'll need a new opening sentence -- perhaps "The book has been widely praised". That will do for an initial pass; we can revisit after organizing the remaining material.
Step 3: Design the paragraph's internal structure. If we look at the candidate sentences, one of the critics is different from the others: Budrys is primarily known as an sf writer; the others are academic critics. Let's make that a point of comparison: we can give Budry's opinion first, pointing out that it's that of a fellow writer, and then move on to the critics. The Suvin and Spivack quotes are pretty straightforward. The Bloom quotes are quite substantial but are given in reverse chronological order, but if that can be fixed the Bloom quotes would be a good conclusion to the paragraph. That puts Suvin and Spivack in the middle. Then for the Bloom, if we start with "In 1987 Bloom said" we can go on with "he followed this by saying Y and Z", which provides a little more connective tissue; here "followed this" is just a way to smoothly transport the reader to carry from one sentence to the next; there's really not much necessary connection between the content of Bloom's later and earlier sayings.
We also want to avoid the "A said B" problem. It can't be completely eliminated, but one way around it is to vary the verbs -- particularly avoiding "stated", which is overused and never sounds natural. These are generally opinions and assertions from academics and reviewers so we should use verbs that help convey that -- "considered", "argued", "regarded", "asserted" and "makes the claim" are examples. Verbs like "stated", "said", "wrote", and "declared" have no such connotations and give less traction to the narrative of the paragraph, which is the accumulation of like-minded opinions; it's often necessary to include verbs like that just for variety but they should not be the first choice.
Joining sentences together to vary the rhythm and help the flow also helps avoid the "A said B" problem. Here we can do that with the Suvin and Spivack statements; this also gives the sense of one statement reinforcing the previous one, which helps maintain the reader's interest.
Now let's revisit the opening sentence: "The book has been widely praised". To prefigure the structure of the paragraph, we can expand this with "...by genre commentators, academic critics, and literary reviewers"; then we should characterize Budrys as "fellow sf writer" so that the reader sees the structure of the first sentence is being followed. That sentence will carry him through the remaining comments, and the reader now sees these comments as supplying evidence for, and examples of, the critics and reviewers mentioned.
Rather than provide a similar analysis of the other two narrative paragraphs, here's the rewrite of all three. As usual, this is not "final" in any sense, and further improvements were immediately made by the primary editor of the article in question, but rather than claim this process can produce perfect prose I've left the paragraphs below as they were proposed on the article talk page.
The Left Hand of Darkness received overwhelmingly positive critical responses when it was published. It won both the Nebula Award, given by the Science Fiction Writers of America, and the Hugo Award, determined by science fiction fans. In 1987, Locus ranked it number two among "All-Time Best SF Novels", based on a poll of subscribers. The novel was also a personal milestone for Le Guin, with critics calling it her "first contribution to feminism." It was one of her most popular books for many years after its publication. By 2014, the novel had sold more than a million copies in English alone.
The book has been widely praised by genre commentators, academic critics, and literary reviewers. Fellow science fiction writer Algis Budrys praised the novel as "a narrative so fully realized, so compellingly told, so masterfully executed." He found the book "a novel written by a magnificent writer, a totally compelling tale of human peril and striving under circumstances in which human love, and a number of other human qualities, can be depicted in a fresh context." Darko Suvin, one of the first academics to study science fiction, considered Left Hand the "most memorable novel of the year", and Charlotte Spivak regards the book as having established Le Guin's status as a major science-fiction writer. In 1987 Harold Bloom described The Left Hand of Darkness as Le Guin's "finest work to date", and argued that critics have generally undervalued it; Bloom followed this up by listing the book in his The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books in Bloom's conception of artistic works that have been important and influential in influencing Western culture. In Bloom's opinion, "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time".
Critics have also commented on the broad influence of the book. Writers such as Budrys have cited it as an influence upon their own writing, but more generally it has been asserted that the work has been widely influential in the science fiction field, with the Paris Review claiming that "No single work did more to upend the genre's conventions than The Left Hand of Darkness", and Donna White, in her study of the critical literature on Le Guin, arguing that Left Hand was one of the seminal works of science fiction, as important as Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, which is often described as the very first science fiction novel.
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