I am reading articles of Prof. WuChang.Zhang recently. Maybe you

have not heard of him before, for he is teaching in HongKong

University, dean of economics and finance school, and he is also

a famous founder of new theory of property economics.

Why I write this article, you may want to know. The answer is

very obvious, for I find his articles very useful and helpful

for people like me, so I introduce some of the articles to you,

just like share a bottle of beer with a friend. In fact, share

beer with a friend is for nothing but happiness from friendship,

but for my writing this article, I have other intention. It is,

firstly practising my english, secondly promoting my ability

of logical thinking, finally for nothing but beer friendship.

Note that, I do not translate his articles word to word, but only

some important thoughts and words, so if you want to get original

words of Prof. WuChang.Zhang, you may read his articles directly.

Here is an article about how to write articles, and its original

title is < Ways of Nice Writing >.

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Ways of Nice Writing

Different languages in the world, but same ways of nice writing.

I also agree that, if someone, who understands two languages, is

good at one language, it is not possible that he is very bad in

another language.

In fact, my articles are not quite good, but fortunately, they

are clear and plain. I was not born talented, almost before the

time I was 30, I used to write over complicated and over flowery

articles, so it was not easy for others to understand me.

But one day, almost before the time I was 30, my teacher, Armen

Alchian called me to his office, and he told me formally that he

and other teachers were confident in my potential ability, but my

articles were too difficult to understand, and the most important

thing is to write clearly and plainly, or else it is difficult to

make a success.

After the interview, I thought myself that, my teacher seldom

arranged such kind of interview with his students, and he only

told me such a thing, so it was obviously of great importance.

For I studied and started to use english when I was already over

20, of course it is not possible for me to become a great writer,

but if I tried my best, I may write clearly and plainly enough.

There are many ways to write well, but you have to get rid of

your bad writing habit. Apparent bad habit is as following.

1) Over complicated and over flowery. But to write well, you have

to express yourself directly and frankly. This is very difficult

for all, by now, I write over complicated words sometime.

2) Rare and uncommon words. That is, if there are several words

able to express a same meaning, I prefer to choose the rare and

uncommon one, just as to tell people I am talented and know much

or have read many books. From the time I decide to write clearly

and plainly, I always choose the common and ordinary one.

3) Long sentences. Many people always think using long sentences

may show their talent, but it is quite mistaken. To write clearly

and plainly, you have to use short sentences, as well as short

paragraphs, which makes your articles easy to understand.

4) Pay much attention on grammar. I do not mean grammar is not

important for an article. You have to pay much of your attention

on the content and the focus, and grammar should be put in the

latter edit. If you emphasize grammar too much at the start, the

content and the most important focus may be influenced.

5) Sacrifice clearness for nicety of words. Sometime, you think

that readers may understand your articles, so you try to make the

articles nice in words, but ignore clearness, in fact readers can

not easily understand your meaning. Reading is not chinese chess,

readers can not pay much time to know your real meaning, so you

have to write clearly and plainly enought. I often sacrifice word

nicety for clearness, and I think it worth doing.

Of course, there are many other ways of nice writing. Anyway, I

think that you ought to know clearly who your reader is, and you

need not make yourself like a know-anything teacher, on the other

hand, you ought to make your reader as a friend, and you are fair

and frank to deal an issue together. Writing an article is like

talking with a friend, so being clear, frank and plain is okey.