原文： Ordering from the top down
Controlling the sequence in which you present your ideas is the single most important act necessary to clear writing. The clearest sequence is always to give the summarizing idea before you give the individual ideas being summarized. I cannot emphasize this point too much.

翻译： 从上到下排序

控制你展示想法的顺序是清晰写作中最重要的一个步骤。最清晰的顺序是先给出总结性的观点，然后再展示被总结的具体观点。我不能再强调这一点的重要性了。

原文： Remember that the reader (or listener) can only take the sentences in one at a time. You know he will assume that those ideas that appear together logically belong together. If you do not tell him in advance what the relationship is, but simply give the ideas one at a time, he will automatically look for similarities by which he can group the points being expressed, so that he can explain to himself the significance of the groupings.

翻译： 要记住，读者（或听众）只能一次接受一句话。他会假定那些一起出现的想法在逻辑上是属于同一组的。如果你不提前告诉他这些关系是什么，而只是逐个地表达想法，他会自动寻找相似之处，将这些观点进行分组，以便自己理解这些分组的意义。

原文： Alas, people being as diverse in background and understanding as they are, they rarely put exactly the same interpretation on your groupings as you do. Indeed, they not infrequently find that they can’t see any relationship at all between the ideas in a set. Even if they think exactly as you do, you are making their reading more difficult, since they must supply what is unstated.

翻译： 遗憾的是，由于人们的背景和理解各不相同，他们很少会完全按照你的方式去解释这些分组。事实上，他们常常会发现无法在一个组的想法中看到任何关系。即使他们的思维方式与你完全一致，你也在无意中增加了他们的阅读难度，因为他们需要去补充那些没有说出来的关系。

原文： Let me demonstrate how confusing any order other than top down is with an example. Suppose I join you to have a beer in the pub, and apropos of nothing in particular, say:

翻译： 让我通过一个例子来展示除“从上到下”以外的顺序是如何令人困惑的。假设我在酒吧与你一起喝啤酒，然后毫无特别理由地说：

原文： "I was in Zurich last week – you know what a conservative city Zurich is – and we went out to lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Do you know that within 15 minutes I must have seen 15 people with either a beard or a moustache."

翻译： “我上周在苏黎世——你知道苏黎世是一个多么保守的城市——我们在一家户外餐馆吃了午餐。你知道吗，在15分钟内我肯定看到了15个有胡子的人。”

原文： Now, I have given you a piece of information, and without realizing it you will automatically make some assumptions about the reason for my giving you that information. In other words, you will see this statement as part of a group of ideas not yet expressed, and prepare your mind to receive the rest by assuming a probable purpose behind the statement. This expectancy reduces the strain of analyzing each succeeding idea for all its attributes; you look only for the one in common with what has gone before.

翻译： 现在，我给了你一条信息，而在不知不觉中你会自动对我提供这条信息的原因做出一些假设。换句话说，你会将这句话视为尚未表达的一个思想组的一部分，并假设该句子背后有一个可能的目的，为接收后续内容做好准备。这种预期减少了你对每个后续想法进行全面分析的负担；你只会寻找与之前内容共有的点。

原文： Thus, you might think such things as, ‘She’s talking about how unconservative Zurich is getting,’ or ‘She’s going to compare Zurich with other cities,’ or even, ‘She’s hung up on beards and moustaches.’ Regardless of what reaction you have, the point is that your mind is waiting for further information on one of those same subjects, whatever it turns out to be. Seeing that blank look on your face, I then go on to say:

翻译： 因此，你可能会想，“她在谈论苏黎世变得多么不保守了，”或者“她要把苏黎世和其他城市进行比较，”甚至“她对胡子和小胡子特别执着。”无论你的反应如何，关键是你的大脑在等待关于这些话题之一的进一步信息，不管结果如何。当我看到你脸上那茫然的表情时，我接着说：

原文： "And you know, if you walk around any New York office you can rarely find even one person who doesn’t have sideburns or a moustache."

翻译： “你知道吗，如果你在纽约的任何一个办公室走一圈，你几乎找不到一个没有鬓角或小胡子的人。”

原文： Now what am I getting at? I seem to be comparing not cities as such, but cities in which we have offices; and instead of just beards and moustaches I seem to be including all manner of facial hair. ‘Probably,’ you’re thinking, ‘she disapproves of the new style. Or maybe she’s going to compare the styles in various offices. Or maybe she’s surprised at the amount tolerated in the consulting profession.’ In any case, you mutter something noncommittal in reply, and thus encouraged I go on to state:

翻译： 那么我到底想表达什么呢？我似乎并不是在比较城市本身，而是在比较我们有办公室的城市；而且我不仅仅在讨论胡子和小胡子，似乎包括了各种类型的面部毛发。“也许，”你会想，“她不赞成这种新风格。或者她打算比较不同办公室的风格。又或者她对咨询行业容忍的程度感到惊讶。”无论如何，你含糊地回应了几句，于是我受到了鼓励，继续说道：

原文： "And of course facial hair has been a part of the London scene for at least 10 years."

翻译： “当然，面部毛发至少在过去10年里一直是伦敦的标志之一。”

原文： ‘Ah,’ you think, ‘at last I see what she’s getting at. She’s trying to make the point that London is ahead of all the other cities,’ and you tell me so. Perfectly logical, but it’s wrong; that’s not what I was getting at at all. In fact, what I was getting at was this:

翻译： “啊，”你想，“我终于明白她的意思了。她是想说伦敦比其他城市更领先，”你这样告诉我。完全合乎逻辑，但却是错的；这完全不是我想表达的。实际上，我真正想说的是：

原文： You know it’s incredible to me the degree to which facial hair has become such an accepted part of business life.
In Zurich . . .
In New York . . .
And of course in London . . .

翻译： 你知道吗，我觉得很不可思议，面部毛发在商业生活中被如此广泛接受。
在苏黎世……
在纽约……
当然也在伦敦……

原文： See how much more easily you can comprehend the group of ideas in the way I mean you to once the framework within which to judge the relationship between them has been given to you? In a manner outside anyone’s control, the reader is going to look for a structure connecting the ideas as they come to him. To make sure he finds the one you intended, you must tell him in advance what it is – to make sure he knows what to look for.

翻译： 当我为你提供了判断这些想法之间关系的框架后，你是否发现理解这些想法的方式变得更容易了？在一种无法控制的情况下，读者会试图寻找将这些想法连接在一起的结构。为了确保他找到你想表达的意思，你必须提前告诉他——以确保他知道该期待什么。

原文： Look for. Otherwise he is likely either to see an unintended relationship, or worse, none at all, in which case you have both wasted your time.

翻译： 否则，他很可能会看到一个非预期的关系，或者更糟的是，完全没有看到关系，在这种情况下，你们都浪费了时间。

原文： As an example of this latter situation, look at the main points of the opening paragraphs of an article on equal pay for women:

翻译： 以后一种情况为例，请看一篇关于女性同工同酬文章开头段落的主要内容：

原文： Granted equal pay, women could finish off worse than before – i.e., there could be a wider rather than narrower gap between average earnings of women and men than today.

翻译： 即使实现了同工同酬，女性的境遇可能比以前更糟糕——也就是说，男女平均收入之间的差距可能会比今天更大而不是更小。

原文：

• Equal pay means equal pay for the same job or equal pay for equal value of work (to the employer).

翻译：

• 同工同酬的意思是对相同的工作支付相同的薪水，或者对等价值的工作支付相同的薪水（对雇主而言）。

原文：

• Applying either interpretation means either:

• Compelling employers to act in their own self-interest, or

• Ending restrictive practices by male workers.

翻译：

• 应用以上任何一种解释都意味着：

• 迫使雇主出于自身利益行事，或者

• 结束男性工人的限制性做法。

原文： Here you are given five ideas between which the connecting relationship is unclear, despite the fact that the author has ‘started at the top,’ as he sees it. Can you not feel your mind scrabbling about trying to find a relationship, coming to the conclusion that there is none, and giving up in disgust? The mental strain is simply too great.

翻译： 在这里，作者提供了五个想法，但它们之间的关联关系不明确，尽管作者认为自己是“从上到下”开始的。你是否感觉到自己的大脑在努力寻找关系，最终得出没有关系的结论，并因此放弃？这种思维负担确实过于沉重。

原文： You must recognize that a reader, no matter how intelligent he is, has only a limited amount of mental energy available to him. Some of it will be used up just recognizing and interpreting the words, a further amount seeing the relationships between the ideas, and whatever is left comprehending their significance.

翻译： 你必须认识到，无论读者多么聪明，他的精神能量都是有限的。一部分能量会用于识别和理解词语，另一部分用于观察想法之间的关系，而剩余的能量则用于理解其意义。

原文： You can economize his need to spend time on the first two activities by presenting the ideas so that they can be comprehended with the least possible mental effort. To sequence them instead so that the mind has to go backward and forward to make connections is simply bad manners, and most readers react by refusing to do so.

翻译： 你可以通过合理呈现这些想法，减少读者在前两项活动上所需的时间，使他们能够以最小的脑力理解内容。相反，如果以一种需要读者来回寻找联系的方式排列它们，这种做法不仅不礼貌，而且大多数读者会选择拒绝去理解。

原文： To summarize, a reader remembers from the top down as a matter of course. He also comprehends more readily if ideas are presented from the top down. All of this suggests that the clearest written documents will be those that consistently present their information from the top down, in a pyramidal structure.

翻译： 总结来说，读者自然会从上到下进行记忆。如果观点是从上到下呈现的，读者也会更容易理解。所有这些都表明，最清晰的书面文件是那些始终从上到下、以金字塔结构呈现信息的文件。