As you try to apply The Pyramid Principle to a specific writing task,
当你尝试将金字塔原理应用于具体的写作任务时，

You should on most occasions, with a bit of practice, have little difficulty in creating an overall structure for your thinking. You can generally identify your Subject without much effort, determine the reader’s Question, think through the Situation and the Complication, and proceed with a listing of your major points. With your title and major side headings decided, you can then settle to the serious business of putting it all into writing.
通过一定的练习，你通常可以轻松构建思维的总体结构。你可以轻松确定主题，界定读者的问题，思考背景和复杂性，然后列出主要观点。在确定标题和主要副标题后，你就可以专注于将所有内容写出来的严肃工作了。

---

But no matter how carefully you have done your thinking in coming up with this initial structure,
但是，无论你在构建初始结构时如何仔细思考，

You are unlikely to produce a first draft that is perfectly logical and obeys all the rules. Points that seem to group logically in pyramid form often prove to have only a tenuous connection when clothed in prose. And watertight arguments have been known to spring gaping holes when you try to marshal valid support.
你的初稿通常很难完全符合逻辑并遵循所有规则。在金字塔结构中似乎逻辑关联密切的观点，在用散文形式表达时可能仅有微弱的联系。而看似无懈可击的论点在你试图寻找有效支持时，往往会显现出明显漏洞。

---

Unfortunately, you are unlikely to be able to see these flaws without making a special effort to do so.
不幸的是，如果不付出额外努力，你可能难以发现这些缺陷。

Once you put ideas in writing, they take on an incredible beauty in the author’s eyes. They seem to glow with a fine patina that you will be quite reluctant to disturb.
一旦将想法写出来，在作者眼中它们会变得异常美丽。它们似乎散发出一种迷人的光泽，让你难以忍心去打破。

---

The most efficient way to overcome this psychological impediment is to have a checklist of rules you apply to every grouping in the structure,
克服这种心理障碍的最有效方法是为结构中的每个分组制定一套规则清单，

So that you are forced to look at it critically. In this way your parental pride is backed into abeyance, and you can be objective about what you see. (This approach applies equally effectively, of course, to reading someone else’s draft.)
以此迫使自己用批判的眼光看待内容。通过这种方式，你可以暂时放下对自己创作的“偏爱”，客观地评价所见内容。（当然，这种方法对阅读别人的初稿同样有效。）

---

There are essentially four sets of such rules available to help you focus your critical faculties:
基本上，有四组规则可以帮助你集中批判性思维能力：

1. You can question the general order of the ideas in a grouping.
   你可以质疑某一分组中想法的总体顺序。

2. You can question their particular source in your problem-solving process.
   你可以质疑这些想法在问题解决过程中的具体来源。

3. You can question your summary statement about them.
   你可以质疑关于这些想法的总结陈述。

4. You can question the prose in which you express them.
   你可以质疑你用来表达这些想法的文字形式。

---

The following chapters explain the theory and practice behind each of these techniques.
接下来的章节将解释这些技术背后的理论与实践。

In reading this material, it may strike you that some parts are both more technical and more abstract than you are used to from the earlier chapters.
阅读这些内容时，你可能会发现某些部分比之前的章节更加技术化且更抽象。

Alas, there seems to be no other way to explain the concepts clearly than to outline the theory behind them first.
遗憾的是，似乎只有先概述背后的理论，才能清楚地解释这些概念。

However, proper application of the concepts is so essential to clear writing that I’m sure you will find the extra effort required to understand the theory well worthwhile.
然而，这些概念的正确应用对清晰写作至关重要，因此我相信你会发现，为理解理论而付出的额外努力是非常值得的。