原文:
"Thinking from the bottom up
If you are going to group and summarize all your information and present it in a top-down manner, it would seem your document would have to look something like the structure in Exhibit 1. "

翻译:
“从底向上思考
如果你打算将所有信息进行分组和总结，并以自上而下的方式呈现，那么你的文档看起来应该像是图一中的结构。”

原文:
"The boxes stand for the individual ideas you want to present, with your thinking having begun at the lowest level by forming sentences that you grouped logically into paragraphs. You then grouped the paragraphs into sections, and the sections into the total memorandum represented by a single thought at the top.

If you think for a moment about what you actually do when you write, you can see that you develop your major ideas by thinking in this bottom-up manner. At the very lowest level in the pyramid, you group together your sentences, each containing an individual idea, into paragraphs. Let us suppose you bring together six sentences into one paragraph. The reason you bring together those six sentences and no others will clearly be that you see a logical relationship between them. And that logical relationship will always be that they are all needed to express the single idea of the paragraph, which is effectively a summary of them. You would not, for example, bring together five sentences on finance and one on tennis, because their relevance to each other would be difficult to express in a single summary sentence.

Stating this summary sentence moves you up one level of abstraction and allows you to think of the paragraph as containing one point rather than six. With this act of efficiency you now group together, say, three paragraphs, each containing a single thought at a level of abstraction one step higher than that of the individual sentences. The reason you form a section out of these three paragraphs and no others is that you see a logical relationship between them. And the relationship is once again that they are all needed to express the single idea of the section, which again will be a summary of the three ideas in the paragraphs below them.

Exactly the same thinking holds true in bringing this entire structure together to form the document. You have three sections grouped together (each of which has been built up from groups of paragraphs, which in turn have been built up from groups of sentences) because they all relate in some way to the single idea of the memorandum, which in turn is a summary of the ideas below it."

翻译:
“如图表1所示，方框代表你想要呈现的各个独立想法，通过将句子在最低层次上形成逻辑分组，构成段落。然后你将段落分组成章节，再将章节整合成整体备忘录，并以顶部的一个总体想法为代表。

如果你仔细思考自己在写作时实际在做什么，就会发现你是以这种自下而上的方式来发展主要思想的。在金字塔的最底层，你将包含单个思想的句子组合成段落。假设你将六个句子组合成一个段落。你之所以选择这六个句子而非其他句子，显然是因为你在它们之间看到了逻辑关系。这个逻辑关系总是要求它们共同表达段落的单一思想，也就是段落的总结。你不会，例如，把五句关于财务的句子和一句关于网球的句子组合在一起，因为它们之间的相关性很难用一句总结性的话来表达。

陈述这个总结句将你提升到更高一层的抽象水平，使你可以将段落视为包含一个要点，而不是六个。通过这种效率提升的做法，现在你可以将三个段落组合在一起，每个段落都包含一个比单个句子抽象程度更高的单一思想。你将这三个段落组合成一个章节的原因是你在它们之间看到了逻辑关系。而这种关系再次要求它们共同表达章节的单一思想，这一思想将成为这三个段落中各个观点的总结。

在整合整个结构形成文件时，同样的思维方式也适用。你将三个章节组合在一起（每个章节由段落组构成，而段落组又是由句子组合而成），因为它们都在某种程度上与备忘录的单一思想相关联，而这个思想又是其下各层思想的总结。”

原文:
"Since you will continue grouping and summarizing until you have no more relationships to make, it is clear that every document you write will always be structured to support only one single thought – the one that summarizes your final set of groupings. This should be the major point you want to make, and all the ideas grouped underneath – provided you have built the structure properly – will serve to explain or defend that point in ever greater detail.

Fortunately, you can define in advance whether or not you have built the structure properly by checking to see whether your ideas relate to each other in a way that would permit them to form pyramidal groups. Specifically, they must obey three rules:"

翻译:
“由于你会继续分组和总结，直到没有更多关系可以建立，因此显然你所写的每个文档总是被结构化为支持一个单一的思想——即概括最终分组的那个思想。这应该是你想要表达的主要观点，所有在其下分组的思想——如果你已正确建立了结构——都将用于逐步详细地解释或论证这一观点。

幸运的是，你可以提前判断自己是否正确构建了结构，通过检查你的思想是否彼此关联，从而允许它们形成金字塔式的分组。具体来说，它们必须遵循三个规则：”

原文:
"1. Ideas at any level in the pyramid must always be summaries of the ideas grouped below them.
2. Ideas in each grouping must always be the same kind of idea.
3. Ideas in each grouping must always be logically ordered.

Let me explain why these rules ‘must always’ apply:

1. Ideas at any level in the pyramid must always be summaries of the ideas grouped below them. The first rule reflects the fact that the major activity you carry out in thinking and writing is that of abstracting to create a new idea out of the ideas grouped below. As we saw above, the point of a paragraph is a summary of its sentences, just as the point of a section is a summary of the points of its paragraphs, etc. However, if you are going to be able to draw a point out of the grouped sentences or paragraphs, these groupings must have been properly formed in the first place. That’s where rules 2 and 3 come in."

翻译:
“1. 金字塔中任何层级的思想必须始终是其下分组思想的总结。
2. 每个分组中的思想必须始终是相同类型的思想。
3. 每个分组中的思想必须始终按逻辑顺序排列。

让我解释一下这些规则‘必须始终’适用的原因：

1. 金字塔中任何层级的思想必须始终是其下分组思想的总结。第一个规则反映了思考和写作的主要活动，即通过抽象将下层分组的思想提炼成一个新的思想。正如前文所述，一个段落的主旨是其句子的总结，而一个章节的主旨是其段落主旨的总结，依此类推。然而，要从分组的句子或段落中提炼出一个观点，首先必须正确地形成这些分组。这就是规则2和3的作用所在。”

原文:
"2. Ideas in each grouping must always be the same kind of idea. If what you want to do is raise your thinking only one level of abstraction above a grouping of ideas, then the ideas in the grouping must be logically the same. For example, you can logically categorize apples and pears one level up as fruits; you can similarly think of tables and chairs as furniture. But what if you wanted to group together apples and chairs? You cannot do so at the very next level of abstraction, since that is already taken by fruit and furniture. Thus, you would have to move to a much higher level and call them ‘things’ or ‘inanimate objects,’ either of which is far too broad to indicate the logic of the grouping.

In writing you want to state the idea directly implied by the logic of the grouping, so the ideas in the grouping must all fall into the same logical category. Thus, if the first idea in a grouping is a reason for doing something, the other ideas in the same grouping must also be reasons for doing the same thing. If the first idea is a step in a process, the rest of the ideas in the grouping must also be steps in the same process. If the first idea is a problem in the company, the others in the grouping must be related problems, and so on.

A shortcut in checking your groupings is to be sure that you can clearly label the ideas with a plural noun. Thus, you will find that all the ideas in the grouping will turn out to be things like recommendations, or reasons, or problems, or changes to be made. There is no limitation on the kinds of ideas that may be grouped, but the ideas in each grouping must be of the same kind, able to be labeled with a plural noun."

翻译:
“2. 每个分组中的思想必须始终是相同类型的思想。如果你想要将思维提升一个抽象层次，则分组中的思想必须在逻辑上保持一致。例如，你可以将苹果和梨合理地归类为水果；同样，你可以将桌子和椅子归为家具。但如果你想要将苹果和椅子放在一起分组呢？在下一个抽象层次上，这样做并不合理，因为水果和家具已经各自占据了一个分类。因此，你必须移动到一个更高的层次，称它们为“物体”或“无生命的物体”，而这些分类过于宽泛，无法清晰地表达分组的逻辑。

在写作中，你需要直接陈述分组逻辑所暗示的思想，因此分组中的思想必须都属于同一逻辑类别。因此，如果分组中的第一个思想是做某事的原因，那么同一分组中的其他思想也必须是相同的原因。如果第一个思想是某个过程中的步骤，那么分组中的其他思想也必须是该过程中其他的步骤。如果第一个思想是公司中的一个问题，那么分组中的其他思想必须是相关的问题，依此类推。

检查分组的一个快捷方式是确保你可以用复数名词清晰地标记这些思想。因此，你会发现分组中的所有思想都将是诸如建议、原因、问题或需要更改的内容。对于分组的思想种类没有限制，但每个分组中的思想必须是相同类型的，可以用复数名词标记。”

原文:
"3. Ideas in each grouping must always be logically ordered. That is, there must be a specific reason why the second idea comes second, and cannot come first or third. How you determine proper order is explained in detail in Chapter 7, Questioning the Order of the Ideas. Essentially it says that there are only four possible logical ways in which to order a set of ideas:

• Deductively (major premise, minor premise, conclusion).

• Chronologically (first, second, third).

• Structurally (Boston, New York, Washington).

• Comparatively (first most important, second most important, etc.).

The order you choose reflects the analytical process you used to form the grouping. If it was formed by reasoning deductively, the ideas go in argument order; if by working out cause-and-effect relationships, in time order; if by commenting on an existing structure, the order dictated by the structure; and if by categorizing, order of importance. Since these four activities – reasoning deductively, working out cause-and-effect relationships, dividing a whole into its parts, and categorizing – are the only analytical activities the mind can perform, these are the only orders it can impose.

Essentially, then, the key to clear writing is to slot your ideas into this pyramidal form and test them against the rules before you begin to write. If any of the rules is broken, it is an indication that there is a flaw in your thinking, or that the ideas have not been fully developed, or that they are not related in a way that will make their message instantly clear to the reader. You then can work on refining them until they do obey the rules, thus eliminating the need for vast amounts of rewriting later on."

翻译:
“3. 每个分组中的思想必须始终按逻辑顺序排列。也就是说，第二个思想之所以在第二位而非第一或第三位，必须有一个具体的原因。如何确定正确的顺序在第七章《质疑思想的顺序》中有详细解释。本质上，只有四种可能的逻辑方式可以对一组思想进行排序：

• 演绎顺序（大前提、小前提、结论）。

• 时间顺序（第一，第二，第三）。

• 结构顺序（波士顿，纽约，华盛顿）。

• 重要性顺序（最重要的，次重要的，等等）。

你选择的顺序反映了你用于形成分组的分析过程。如果是通过演绎推理形成的分组，思想就按照论证顺序排列；如果是通过因果关系推导出来的，则按时间顺序排列；如果是对现有结构的评论，则顺序由结构决定；如果是通过分类，则按重要性排列。由于这四种活动——演绎推理、因果关系分析、整体分解和分类——是思维所能进行的唯一分析活动，所以它们是唯一可以强加的顺序。

因此，清晰写作的关键是将思想纳入这种金字塔结构，并在写作前根据规则进行检验。如果任何规则被违反，这表明你的思维存在缺陷，或者这些思想尚未完全发展，或者它们之间的关系不足以让信息对读者一目了然。这样，你可以对它们进行精炼，直到它们遵循这些规则，从而避免日后大量重写的需求。”