对于写作者来说，写什么主题，是一个永恒的话题，江郎才尽是很头疼的问题。牛津写作指南指出，写札记(Commonplace Book)可以帮助我们积累平日的点点滴滴。有一位资深简书作者如是说“我个人经验是平时不忙时，好文好句及灵感全部分类放在私密里，随时补充修改做为日更储备。既能环游世界，又能笔耕不辍。” 你看，写札记这个好方法是跨越语言、文化和时空的。
这次节选的牛津写作指南第四章，除了介绍Commonplace Book这个做法之外，还提到了另一个重要的工具——“Journal”（日志/手帐）。那么Commonplace book和Journal在写作上有什么异同？如何实践？我们一起来精读《牛津写作指南》的第四章吧。此书没有中文版，因个人兴趣，通过精读和翻译来学习，特此和简友们分享。本贴末尾附有截止目前已完成学习的前四章内容。
《寻找写作主题》— 精读牛津写作指南（节选）
本文你将看到“原文欣赏”、“精读解析”，以及“参考译文”三部分；英文原篇节选经过逐字逐句校对确保无错漏；精读解析会穿插对文章本身的分析和背景知识引用；最后的参考译文则是将节选这本书的第四章完整翻译分享。
原文欣赏：
Looking for Subjects
People write for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's part of the job. A sales manager is asked to report on a new market, or an executive to discuss the feasibility of moving a plant to another state. A psychology student has to turn in a twenty page term paper, or a member of an art club must prepare a two-page introduction to an exhibit.
In such cases the subject is given, and the first step is chiefly a matter of research, of finding information. Even the problem of organizing the information is often simplified by by following a conventional plan, as with scientific papers or business letters. Which is not to dismiss such writing as easy. Being clear and concise is never easy. (To say nothing of being interesting!) But at least the writing process is structured and to that degree simplified.
At other times we write because we want to express something about ourselves, about what we've experienced or how we feel. Our minds turn inward, and writing is complicated by the double role we play. I am the subject, which somehow the I who writes must express in words. And there is a further complication. In personal writing, words are not simply an expression of the self; they help to create the self. In struggling to say what we are, we become what we say.
Such writing is perhaps the most rewarding kind. But it is also the most challenging and the most frustrating. We are thrown relentlessly upon our own resources. The subject is elusive, and the effect can be a kind of paralysis. And so people say, "I can't think of anything to write about."
That's strange, because life is fascinating. The solution is to open yourself to experience. To look around. To describe what you see and hear. To read. Reading takes you into other minds and enriches your own. A systematic way of enriching your ideas and experiences is to keep a commonplace book and a journal.
The Commonplace Book
A commonplace book is a record of things we have read or heard and want to remember: a proverb, a remark by a writer of unusual sensibility, a witty or a wise saying, or even something silly or foolish or crass:
Sincerity always hits me something sleep. I mean, if you try to get it too hard, you won't. (By W.H.Auden)
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the . . . power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.(By Virginia Woolf)
I hate music - especially when it's played.(By Jimmy Durante)
Shrouds have no pockets. (By English proverb)
All this - and perhaps.(By Yiddish proverb)
To keep a commonplace book, set aside a looseleaf binder. When you hear or read something that strikes you, copy it, identifying the source. Leave space to add thoughts of your own. If you accumulate a lot of entries, you may want to make an index or to group passages according to subject.
A commonplace book will help your writing in several ways. It will be a storehouse of topics, of those elusive "things to write about." It will provide a body of quotations (occasional quotations add interest to your writing). It will improve your prose. (Simply copying well-expressed sentences is one way of learning to write.) Most important, keeping a commonplace book will give you new perceptions and ideas and feelings. It will help you grow.
The Journal
A journal - the word comes from French and originally
meant "daily" - is a day-to-day record of what you see, hear, do, think, feel. A journal collects your own experiences and thoughts rather than quotations. But, of course, you may combine the two. If you add your own comments to the passages you copy into a commonplace book, you are also keeping a kind of journal.
Many professional writers use journals, and the habit is a good one for anybody interested in writing, even if he or she has no literary ambitions. Journals store perceptions, ideas, emotions, action - all future material for essays or stories. The Journals of Henry Thoreau are a famous example, as are A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf, the Notebooks of the French novelist Albert Camus, and "A War-time Diary" by the English writer George Orwell.
A journal is not for others to read. So you don't have to worry about niceties of punctuation; you can use abbreviations and symbols like "&." But if a journal is really to help you develop as a writer, you've got to do more than compose trite commonplaces or mechanically list what happens each day. You have to look honestly and freshly at the world around you and at the self within. And that means you have to wrestle with words to tell what you see and what you feel:
July 25, Thursday. . . . Today: clear, flung, pine-chills, orange needles underfoot.
I myself am the vessel of tragic experience. I muse not enough on the mysteries of Oedipus - I, weary, resolving the best and bringing, out of my sloth, envy and weakness, my own ruins. What do the gods ask? I must dress, rise, and send my body out. (By Sylvia Plath)
But journals do not have to be so extraordinary in their sensibility or introspection. Few people are that perceptive. The essential thing is that a journal captures your experience and feelings. Here is another, different example, also fresh and revealing. The writer, Rockwell Stensrud, kept a journal as he accompanied an old-time cattle drive staged in 1975 as part of the Bicentennial celebration:
Very strict unspoken rules of cowboy behavior - get as drunk as you want the night before, but you'd better be able to get up the next morning at 4:30, or you're not living by the code of respectability. Range codes more severe than high-society ideas of manners - and perhaps more necessary out here. What these cowboys respect more than anything is ability to carry one's own weight, to perform, to get the job done well - these are the traditions that make this quest of theirs possible.(By Rockwell Stensrud)
精读解析
精读解析分为：原文、自译、解析
Looking for Subjects / 寻找写作主题
原文-01：
People write for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's part of the job. A sales manager is asked to report on a new market, or an executive to discuss the feasibility of moving a plant to another state. A psychology student has to turn in a twenty page term paper, or a member of an art club must prepare a two-page introduction to an exhibit.
自译-01：
有各种各样的原因让人们不得不写东西。有时，写东西也是工作的一部分。一位销售经理被要求写一个针对新市场的报告、或者一位高管要写东西来研讨将工厂迁至别国的可行性、一位心理学专业的学生不得不提交一份一百二十页的学期论文、某个艺术俱乐部的成员不得不为某次展会撰写一份两页纸的简介。
解析-01：
这里是第四章开头部分，上来就用排比句式举了一系列的例子来说明现实中，人们为什么不得不写东西，理解这里是指写应用文。英语词汇角度，此段行文用词比较大白话，并无深奥或不常见的单词，朗读时可以娓娓道来，属于用大白话来演讲的风格。
原文-02：
In such cases the subject is given, and the first step is chiefly a matter of research, of finding information. Even the problem of organizing the information is often simplified by by following a conventional plan, as with scientific papers or business letters. Which is not to dismiss such writing as easy. Being clear and concise is never easy. (To say nothing of being interesting!) But at least the writing process is structured and to that degree simplified.
自译-02：
在以上场景举例中，写作的主题是被指定的，写作的第一步主要就是研究工作，或者寻找信息。甚至如何组织行文的问题也经常被简化成只要遵循常规的写法即可——类似写科学论文、商业信件这些东西。但这并不意味着我们可以轻松对付这种看起来容易的写作主题。清晰和简洁绝非易事，更不用说还得做到有趣了! 但至少这些写作主题的写作过程是结构化的、一定程度上是简化的。
解析-02：
本小段也用的平实的词汇，继续分析命题作文/应用文的特点，承上启下，引出接下来的话题。有一个长难句是第二句" Even the problem of organizing the information is often simplified by by following a conventional plan, as with scientific papers or business letters. "要注意此长句翻译为中文如何表达。
原文-03：
At other times we write because we want to express something about ourselves, about what we've experienced or how we feel. Our minds turn inward, and writing is complicated by the double role we play. I am the subject, which somehow the I who writes must express in words. And there is a further complication. In personal writing, words are not simply an expression of the self; they help to create the self. In struggling to say what we are, we become what we say.
自译-03：
其它时候，写作是为了想表达一些我们自己的东西，关于我们的经历或我们的感受。 我们反求诸己、扮演双重角色，写作因此而变得复杂。“我”成了主题，写作的我必须用文字来表达主题的我。 更复杂的是，在个人写作中，文字不仅仅是对作者自我的表达，它们其实创造了自我。在挣扎着说出我们是什么的过程中，我们其实变成了和说的一样。
解析-03：
英文方面，"Our minds turn inward"这个表达值得背下来（自译为“反求诸己”，如你读到此处，觉得中文有更好的表达，请不吝在评论区留言，感谢！）。内容方面，好好体会下，可以和本书序言说的这段联系起来想一想：
Writing is a way of growing. No one would argue that being able to write will make you morally better. But it will make you more complex and more interesting — in a word, more human. 写作，是一种成长的途径。没人能保证写作能让你有更好的道德良知。但是写作，写点儿东西，能让你更有内涵，更有趣： 一言以蔽之，更有人味儿。
原文-04：
Such writing is perhaps the most rewarding kind. But it is also the most challenging and the most frustrating. We are thrown relentlessly upon our own resources. The subject is elusive, and the effect can be a kind of paralysis. And so people say, "I can't think of anything to write about."
自译-04：
上面说的这种写作，也许是最有价值的，没有之一。但这种写作也最具挑战性、最令人有挫败感。我们无情地、无休止地压榨着自己资源。这个主题是难以捉摸的，它带来的后果可能是一种江郎才尽后的麻痹。人们常说，“我想不出来还能写什么了。”
解析-04：
自译耍调皮，用了最...没有之一。想法是原文是most，不是one of the most bla bla bla...）。 反思正规译法的话，此处还是不要画蛇添足的好。英文词汇重点是"relentlessly"、"elusive"、"paralysis"这些词，要把被动词汇量转换为自己的主动词汇量——掌握怎么用这些词。
原文-05：
That's strange, because life is fascinating. The solution is to open yourself to experience. To look around. To describe what you see and hear. To read. Reading takes you into other minds and enriches your own. A systematic way of enriching your ideas and experiences is to keep a commonplace book and a journal.
自译-05：
江郎才尽这种事就奇了怪了，因为生活本身就是丰富多彩令人着迷的啊！解决之道就是放开自己，去体验、去观察自己的周围，描述你的所见所闻。还有就是，你得读书，读书会带你进入别人的思想，从而充实你自己。（在此推荐）一个系统化的方法，可以充实你的想法和阅历——那就是使用札记和日志（手帐）。
解析-05：
本段行文如流水，再次承上启下，最后一句自然引出接下来要讨论的内容，也是本章的重点推荐。
The Commonplace Book / 札记
背景知识："Commonplace" 来自拉丁语 locus communis (这个拉丁词又来自希腊语 Greek tópos koinós) 意为“”一种通用的或共同的主题"，例如一些充满智慧的谚语之类。《寻找写作主题》— 精读牛津写作指南（节选）
原文-06：
A commonplace book is a record of things we have read or heard
and want to remember:a proverb, a remark by a writer of unusual sensibility, a witty or a wise saying, or even something silly or foolish or crass:
自译-06：
札记本，用作记录我们读过的、听到的，并且想要记住的东西，例如： 一句谚语、来自不同寻常的、敏感的作家的评论、一句机智或智慧的谚语，或者甚至一些傻事、愚事，或麻木不仁的事，举例如下：
Sincerity always hits me something sleep. I mean, if you try to get it too hard, you won't. (By W.H.Auden) / 真诚总是让我昏昏欲睡。我是说，如果你太费劲地去显得真诚，这其实一点儿都不真诚。（W.H.奥登）
背景补充：Wystan Hugh Auden(1907-1973) was an English-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the . . . power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.(By Virginia Woolf) / 几百年来，女人们一直透过一种眼镜来观察男人的形象，这种眼镜可以把男人的形象放大一倍。（弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙）
背景补充：Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
I hate music - especially when it's played.(By Jimmy Durante)
我讨厌音乐——特别是当它没被演奏的时候。（吉米·杜兰特）
Shrouds have no pockets. (By English proverb)
裹尸布没有口袋（英国谚语）
All this - and perhaps.(By Yiddish proverb)
所有这些——也许。（依地语谚语）
背景补充：James Francis Durante (1893-1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian, and actor.
关于Yiddish语：
《寻找写作主题》— 精读牛津写作指南（节选）
解析-06：
在汉语中，“札记”，指随时记录下来的读书心得或见闻。感觉和本章一直在说的"commonplace book"的意思颇为意合。
原文-07：
To keep a commonplace book, set aside a looseleaf binder. When you hear or read something that strikes you, copy it, identifying the source. Leave space to add thoughts of your own. If you accumulate a lot of entries, you may want to make an index or to group passages according to subject.
自译-07：
为了保存札记，可以留出一本活页夹。 当你听到或读到一些打动你的东西时，抄写下来，找出来源。 页面留出空白用于添加你自己的想法。如果你积累了很多条目，你可能想要做一个索引，或者按照主题分类来对摘录的文本段落进行分组保存。
解析-07：
这说的很像小时候语文老师教导我们要准备一个好词好句的摘录本？网络时代，有很多可以做札记的工具应用Apps可以用了，你用过么？
原文-08：
A commonplace book will help your writing in several ways. It will be a storehouse of topics, of those elusive "things to write about." It will provide a body of quotations (occasional quotations add interest to your writing). It will improve your prose. (Simply copying well-expressed sentences is one way of learning to write.) Most important, keeping a commonplace book will give you new perceptions and ideas and feelings. It will help you grow.
自译-08：
札记对写作有几个方面的帮助：这将是一个写作主题仓库，尤其对那些难以捉摸的“要写的东西”来说。它会提供引用素材(时不时引经据典会增加文章的吸引力)。它会提高你的文笔辞藻的水准。(仅仅复制表达良好的句子，就是学习写作的一种方式。) 最重要的是，保存札记会带给你新的感知、新的想法、新的感觉。它会助你成长。
解析-08：
天下文章一大抄，看你会抄不会抄！做好词好句摘录本/札记本的好处，赶快用起来！
The Journal / 日志
背景知识：Journal是指日志、日记、手帐，衍生有期刊、杂志等含义《寻找写作主题》— 精读牛津写作指南（节选）
延伸相关：*Bullet Journal is a method of personal organization developed by designer Ryder Carroll.[1] The organizes scheduling, reminders, to-do lists, brainstorming, and other organizational tasks into a single notebook. *
《寻找写作主题》— 精读牛津写作指南（节选）
原文-09：
A journal - the word comes from French and originally meant "daily" - is a day-to-day record of what you see, hear, do, think, feel. A journal collects your own experiences and thoughts rather than quotations. But, of course, you may combine the two. If you add your own comments to the passages you copy into a commonplace book, you are also keeping a kind of journal.
自译-09：
日志(Journal)——这个词来自法语，最初的意思是“每天的日常”——是一个每天都要做的，记录你的所见所闻、所思所感。日志用于收集你自己的经历和想法，而不是引用（别人的）。但是，你当然可以把两者合二为一。如果你在札记(Commonplace Book)中，插入自己的评论，那这也是一种形式的日志(Journal)。
解析-09：
理解是：札记摘录来自别人和外部世界的东西，日志记录自我的东西。
原文-10：
Many professional writers use journals, and the habit is a good one for anybody interested in writing, even if he or she has no literary ambitions. Journals store perceptions, ideas, emotions, action - all future material for essays or stories. The Journals of Henry Thoreau are a famous example, as are A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf, the Notebooks of the French novelist Albert Camus, and "A War-time Diary" by the English writer George Orwell.
自译-10：
很多职业作家有使用日志（日记）的习惯，对写作感兴趣的人不论有没有文学抱负，保持这个习惯都有好处。而日志存储个人的感知、想法、情感、行动——这都是对未来的文章/故事的素材积累。亨利·梭罗的《日记》是一个著名的例子，弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫的《作家日记》、法国小说家阿尔贝·加缪的《笔记》、英国作家乔治·奥威尔的《战时日记》等等，这些都是著名的例子。
解析-10：
《瓦尔登湖》就是亨利·梭罗隐居在瓦尔登湖畔的日记整理出来的。
原文-11：
A journal is not for others to read. So you don't have to worry about niceties of punctuation; you can use abbreviations and symbols like "&." But if a journal is really to help you develop as a writer, you've got to do more than compose trite commonplaces or mechanically list what happens each day. You have to look honestly and freshly at the world around you and at the self within. And that means you have to wrestle with words to tell what you see and what you feel:
自译-11：
日志（日记）不是给别人看的。所以你不用拘泥于标点符号是否规范的小问题。你可以使用诸如“&”这样的缩写符号。但是，如果你写日记真的是为了成为一名作家，你需要做的，就不仅仅是写一些陈词滥调，或者机械地罗列每天的流水帐。你必须诚实而带着新鲜感地观察周围的世界和内在的自我。这意味着你必须努力地用文字来表达你的见闻和感受，就像下面这些：
July 25, Thursday. . . . Today: clear, flung, pine-chills, orange needles underfoot.
I myself am the vessel of tragic experience. I muse not enough on the mysteries of Oedipus - I, weary, resolving the best and bringing, out of my sloth, envy and weakness, my own ruins. What do the gods ask? I must dress, rise, and send my body out. (By Sylvia Plath)
七月二十五日，星期四...
我自己就是悲剧经历的容器。我对俄狄浦斯的神秘，思虑得还不够——我疲惫不堪，解决掉最好的东西，把自暴自弃从懒惰、嫉妒和虚弱中救出来。诸神在问什么？我必须穿好衣服、站起来，把我的身体送出去。（西尔维亚·普拉斯）
clear, flung, pine-chills, orange needles underfoot.这些词的含义未理解透彻，暂时不译，彻底搞明白后再更新译文。
解析-11：
写日记时可以体会下“You have to look honestly and freshly at the world around you and at the self within.”（你必须诚实而带着新鲜感地观察周围的世界和内在的自我。）这是本段对Journal(日志/日记）的最精辟的论述了。
原文-12：
But journals do not have to be so extraordinary in their sensibility or introspection. Few people are that perceptive. The essential thing is that a journal captures your experience and feelings. Here is another, different example, also fresh and revealing. The writer, Rockwell Stensrud, kept a journal as he accompanied an old-time cattle drive staged in 1975 as part of the Bicentennial celebration:
自译-12：
但是，写日志（日记）这种事，不必在敏感性或自省方面非得显得如此与众不同。几乎没人有那么敏锐的洞察力。重要的是：日志（日记）能抓取你的经历和感受。这是另一个虽有不同，但是同样鲜活和发人深省的例子：作家罗克维尔·斯坦斯鲁德(Rockwell Stensrud)当初参加1975年的一场古老的赶牛活动时，一边赶牛，一边写日记，这成了当时200周年庆典的一部分：
Very strict unspoken rules of cowboy behavior - get as drunk as you want the night before, but you'd better be able to get up the next morning at 4:30, or you're not living by the code of respectability. Range codes more severe than high-society ideas of manners - and perhaps more necessary out here. What these cowboys respect more than anything is ability to carry one's own weight, to perform, to get the job done well - these are the traditions that make this quest of theirs possible.(By Rockwell Stensrud)
牛仔的行为规则是非常严格的——你可以在前一晚想喝多醉就喝多醉，但你最好能在第二天凌晨四点半起床，要不然，你的生活就是对牛仔行为规则的冒犯。游侠们的行为准则比上流社会对礼仪的想法更严格——或许是更有必要的。这些牛仔们更尊重能管好自己体重的人、能执行任务的人、能把活儿干得漂亮的人——这些都是他们的传统，使他们的追求得以实现。(罗克韦尔 · 斯坦斯鲁德)
解析-12：
本章到此结束，重要的是，写日记，一定要体现真情实感。
请注意，以下参考译文来自对上面的每小节的“自译”段落进行汇总，如您不方便付费，也可自行汇总以上所有小节的译文通读，当然，如能得到简书平台朋友们的大力支持和鼓励打赏，那会是最美好的事情了，没有之一。
参考译文
寻找写作主题
有各种各样的原因让人们不得不写东西。有时，写东西也是工作的一部分。一位销售经理被要求写一个针对新市场的报告、或者一位高管要写东西来研讨将工厂迁至别国的可行性、一位心理学专业的学生不得不提交一份一百二十页的学期论文、某个艺术俱乐部的成员不得不为某次展会撰写一份两页纸的简介。
在以上场景举例中，写作的主题是被指定的，写作的第一步主要就是研究工作，或者寻找信息。甚至如何组织行文的问题也经常被简化成只要遵循常规的写法即可——类似写科学论文、商业信件这些东西。但这并不意味着我们可以轻松对付这种看起来容易的写作主题。清晰和简洁绝非易事，更不用说还得做到有趣了! 但至少这些写作主题的写作过程是结构化的、一定程度上是简化的。
其它时候，写作是为了想表达一些我们自己的东西，关于我们的经历或我们的感受。 我们反求诸己、扮演双重角色，写作因此而变得复杂。“我”成了主题，写作的我必须用文字来表达主题的我。 更复杂的是，在个人写作中，文字不仅仅是对作者自我的表达，它们其实创造了自我。在挣扎着说出我们是什么的过程中，我们其实变成了和说的一样。
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