短文写作 > 知识学习 > 写作类型 > Narration（叙述）
1. Narration（叙述）
There are four main types of writing: narration（叙述）, description（描述）, exposition（阐释）, and argumentation（论证）. As narrative and expository writings are more often used in our daily life than the other two, we should first learn to write these two kinds of essay.
A narrative is an account（叙述）of an event or a series of events. Narrative writing includes stories（故事）, biographies（传记）, histories（历史）, and news items（新闻传记）.
Sample Essay 1（Story——故事）
The Fun They Had
Margie even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed May 17,2155, she wrote: “Today Tommy found a real book!”
It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper.
They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly（起皱的）, and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to — on a screen, you know.
“Gee,” said Tommy, “what a waste. When you’re through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and it’s good for plenty more. I wouldn’t throw it away.”
“Same with mine,” said Margie. She was eleven and hadn’t seen as many tele-books as Tommy had. He was thirteen.
She said, “Where did you find it?”
“In my house.” He pointed without looking, because he was busy reading. “In the attic.”
“What’s it about?”
“School.”
Margie was scornful（轻蔑的）. “School? What’s there to write about school? I hate school.” Margie always hated school, but now she hated it more than ever. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and worse until her mother had shaken her head sorrowfully and sent for the County Inspector.
He was a round little man with a red face and a whole box of tools with dials（刻度盘）and wires. He smiled at her and gave her an apple, then took the teacher apart. Margie had hoped he wouldn’t know how to put it together again, but he knew how all right and, after an hour or so, there it was again, large and black and ugly with a big screen on which all the lessons were shown and the questions were asked. That wasn’t so bad.
The part she hated most was the slot（槽口）where she had to put homework and test papers.
She always had to write them out in a punch code they made her learn when she was six years old, and the mechanical teacher calculated the mark in no time.
The inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted her head. He said to her mother, “It’s not the little girl’s fault, Mrs. Jones. I think the geography sector was geared a little too quick. These things happen sometimes. I’ve slowed it up to an average ten-year level. Actually, the overall pattern of her progress is quite satisfactory.” And he patted Margie’s head again.
Margie was disappointed. She had been hoping they would take the teacher away altogether. They had once taken Tommy’s teacher away for nearly a month because the history sector had blanked out（作废）completely.
So she said to Tommy, “Why would anyone write about school?”
Tommy looked at her with very superior eyes. “Because it’s not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago.” He added loftily（傲慢地）, pronouncing the word carefully. “Centuries ago.”
Margie was hurt. “Well, I don’t know what kind of school they had all that time ago.” She read the book over his shoulder for a while, then said. “Anyway, they had a teacher.”
“Sure they had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular teacher. It was a man.”
“A man? How could a man be a teacher?”
“Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them homework and asked them questions.”
“A man isn’t smart enough.”
“Sure he is. My father knows as much as a teacher.”
“He can’t. A man can’t know as much as a teacher.”
“He knows almost as much, I betcha.”
Margie wasn’t prepared to dispute that. She said, “I wouldn’t want a strange man in my house to teach me.”
Tommy screamed with laughter. “You don’t know much, Margie. The teacher didn’t live in the house. They had a special building and all the kids went there.”
“And all the kids learned the same thing?”
“Sure, if they were the same age.”
“But my mother says a teacher has to be adjusted to fit the mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that each kid has to be taught differently.”
“Just the same, they didn’t do it that way then. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the book.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,”Margie said quickly. She wanted to read about those funny schools.
They weren’t even half finished when Margie’s mother called, “Margie! School!”
Margie looked up. “Not yet, mamma.”
“Now,” said Mrs. Jones. “And it’s probably time for Tommy, too.”
Margie said to Tommy, “Can I read the book some more with you after school?”
“Maybe,” he said, nonchalantly（冷淡地）. He walked away whistling, the dusty old book tucked（折叠）beneath his arm.
Margie went into the schoolroom. It was right next to her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her. It was always on the same time every day except Saturday and Sunday, because her mother said little girls learned better if they learned at regular hours.
The screen was lit up, and it said: “Today’s arithmetic（算数）lesson is on the addition of proper fractions（真分数）. Please insert yesterday’s homework in the proper slot.”
Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things so they could help one another on the homework and talk about it.
And the teachers were people...
The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: “When we add the fractions 1/2 and 1/4...”
Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.
Isaac Asimov
[Analysis]
“The Fun They Had” is an excellent narrative because it has something unique to say. The writer’s purpose is to show us the danger of overuse（过度使用）of computers in the information age. His main ideas may be summed up as follows: though there may be great advantages in using the computer in schools, it should not be made to replace a human teacher; while individual coaching（一对一辅导）in education is good, peer help should also be encouraged; and educators should not overlook children’s enjoyment of acquiring knowledge with their friends.
The narrative is very well written. The writer is able to awaken our interest and attract our attention from the start with the date “May 17, 2155” in the introductory paragraph. The body is made up of relevant and interesting details. They are well chosen, for they help to bring out the main ideas of the narrative. The end is short and forceful. It points out the significance of the narrative with the last words echoing（回应）the topic “the fun they had”.
As the story is perhaps written primarily for school children, the language is simple, with few big words, to suit its audience.
From the narrative we see that description often goes hand in hand with（与……配合）narration, for the writer needs to describe the old book, the mechanical teacher, the County Inspector, and Margie’s schoolroom when he tells his story.
Sample Essay 2（History——历史）
The History of the Internet
[1] The 1990s saw great changes in the way people communicate. People could send mail without going to the post office, and go shopping without leaving home. Words like e-mail and download became part of people’s vocabulary. The cause of this great change was the Internet.
[2] The idea of the Internet began in the early 1960s in the United States. The Department of Defense wanted to connect their computers together in order to share private information. In 1969, the ARPAnet (an early form of the Internet) first connected computers at four American universities. One computer successfully sent information to another. In 1972, scientists shared ARPAnet with the world. They created a way to send person-to-person messages using ARPAnet. This was the beginning of e-mail.
[3] Over the next few years, there was a lot of progress made in the world of computing, but most people were not using the Internet. Then, in the 1980s, personal computers became more common. In the early 1990s, two important things happened: the birth of the World Wide Web in 1991, and the creation of the first Web browser in 1993. The Web made it easier to find information on the Internet, and to move from place to place using links. The Web and browser made it possible to see information as a web site with pictures, sound, and words.
[4] Today, millions of people connect to the Internet to send e-mails, visit websites, or store information on servers. Computers are now an important part of our lives and are changing how we learn, work, shop, and communicate.
(From Active Skills for Reading 1 by Neil J. Anderson)
[Analysis]
“The History of the Internet” is a well-written narrative. The introductory paragraph [1], beginning with the sentence “The 1990s saw great changes in the way people communicate”, not only made clear when and to whom the action happened but also draws the reader’s attention to the subject matter. The last sentence of [1] — The cause of this great change was the Internet — echoes the first sentence and introduces Internet, the key word of the narrative. The middle, paragraphs [2] and [3], presents logically the writer’s facts, which are arranged chronologically according to what happened in the early 1960s, 1969, 1972, the 1980s, the 1990s, 1991, and 1993. In the concluding paragraph [4], the three important words in [1], change(s), communicate, and the Internet, which are related to the main idea of the narrative, appear again, giving the reader a clear impression of what the narrative intends to say — the Internet has made computers an important part of our lives, changing how we learn, work, shop, and communicate.
Five Aspects in a Narrative（记叙文五要素）
To sum up, when planning a narrative, we should consider five aspects: purpose, selection of details, context, organization, and point of view.
1) Purpose（目的）
We must have a purpose in telling a story. The purpose may be to teach a lesson, to give a warning, to illustrate a concept, to prove a theory, to praise a virtue（赞扬美德）, to condemn a vice（谴责恶行）, etc. We should make sure that the total effect of our narrative, or the final impression it leaves on the reader, agrees with our purpose. To achieve this, we must choose details and design the plot of our story carefully.
2) Selection of details（细节的选择）
A narrative is made up of details. When writing a narrative, we should provide enough details to let the reader know what happens as well as our purpose in telling the story. Only relevant details, or things that help to bring out the main ideas of the narrative, are useful and effective. So when selecting details, we should bear in mind our purpose in writing the narrative.
3) Context（来龙去脉）
When we write a narrative, we should first make clear when, where, and to whom the action in our narrative happened. The background knowledge will help the reader understand the narrative.
4) Organization（结构组织）
Events in a narrative are usually told in the order in which they occur. But it is also possible, and sometimes better, to start from the middle or even the end of the story with the event that is most important or most likely to arouse the reader’s interest, and then go back to the beginning by using flashbacks（倒叙）.
Like other types of writing, a narrative has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the beginning, we give the setting, that is, background knowledge of when, where, and to whom the action happened, as is mentioned above. The middle (the body) tells the story itself. When the story is clearly told, the narrative comes to a natural end; then there is no need for a concluding paragraph. Sometimes we may add one or two paragraphs about the significance of the story or about things that happen afterwards.
5) Point of view（视角）
We can tell a story either in the first person（第一人称）as in “Neighbors Are Dearer than Distant Relatives” or in the third person（第三人称）as in “The Fun They Had.” A first-person narrative may be more lifelike, because it is about what we ourselves have seen or experienced. But a first-person narrator cannot tell events that happen in different places at the same time. A third-person narrator is free from this limitation. Moreover, a third-person narrative may be more objective. But it is not easy to put in order things that happen to different people in different places.