NYT竞赛获奖评分标准分析

大家好，  今天我们来讲一讲如何在NYT竞赛中脱颖而出，评委更青睐于什么样的文章？ 自从你第一次学会独立阅读以来，各学科领域的老师都可能要求你对指定的课文写“读后感”，所以你可能已经对这项挑战所需的技能进行了大量的练习，因为NYT竞赛其实就是在让你写读后感。

但是，也许你的“读后感”并没有完整地表达过你的感受，一个优秀的读者反应不仅仅是“我喜欢”或“我讨厌它”，尽管这些反应很重要。

NYT评委想要看到的，是你对作品的参与度，无论该作品是小说、文章还是照片。 人们常说阅读《纽约时报》的方式和《纽约时报》的读者一样多，而这一年度挑战赛的一部分乐趣，就是从众多不同的角度体验报纸。 评委南希·沃蒂克在2016年的比赛中说：

让我印象深刻的是，这些参赛作品的主题选择范围之广！当学生们写关于动漫、围棋或锻炼如何有助于学习时，我并不感到惊讶。但也有关于杀虫剂对蜜蜂精子的影响的文章；正在消失的冰山；巴黎的一个新艺术博物馆；纽约一名年轻女子慢跑者的死亡；猎杀狮子的鱼；南苏丹的性侵犯；俄克拉荷马城雷霆等等。看到年轻人攻读这么多不同的科目，我印象深刻。你会发现什么？每周有一千多篇新文章发表在报纸上，有很多可供选择的。

根据“读者反应理论”，同样的作品，会给不同的读者带来不同的体验和信念，更何况纽约时报上有这么多不同的作品，因此要求你积极主动，注意你在阅读过程中的情绪、观察和问题。 如果这听起来很复杂，那么下面这些获奖者的例子应

可以告诉你如何去做。只要遵循以下四个简单步骤：

01、建立个人联系

参加这项竞赛，最重要的是讲述你自己与新闻或评论文章的关系，如从图表和视频中发现你自己或你所在的社区，这让让你意识到你在阅读中扮演的角色。 例如，一个宠物主人可能会因为一篇讲动物疾病的文章而感到害怕；不同球队的球迷会对同一篇体育快讯产生不同的情绪；如果报纸上讲到你家乡的烹饪，你可能会有一些不同的看法等等。

所以问问你自己： 你选择评论的作品对你来说有何特别？你注意到了吗？它与你的生活和个人历史有什么关系？在你读这篇文章之前，你对这个话题有什么了解或想法？你在阅读时意识到了什么背景知识或联想？

最好的“读后感”来自于文章和读者之间的真正联系。正如2018年评委之一艾伦·布林德（Alan Blinder）所言：

我喜欢学生们谈论文章、照片等中的主题如何与他们自己的生活相交。这些文字通常强而有力，能触及人的心灵，而且会自然流露出流畅的写作风格，给我的感觉就是，他不只是为了完成一项任务而写的这个东西。

告诉评委一个故事或者一些你的生活背景，来解释为什么一篇文章会引起你的注意，然后在这个背景下，探索这篇文章对你的影响。

这需要你或多或少地将自己展示给其他人，只要你觉得合适，并且适合这个话题。

下面两个获奖例子可以给你做个很好的示范： 例一：2018年，新泽西州普林斯顿的Lisa Mishra，选择了一篇标题为 Everyone Has an Accent 的文章，并写道：

My mother came to the U.S. not only with the desire to give me a better future but also with a heavy Indian accent. It’s the accent that made me who I am today, the accent that helped me with my math homework and comforted me when I cried. For me, it’s perfect.

As I grew up, though, I noticed smirks and giggles following my mother’s speech. I remember seeing an online ad that offered courses to “Get rid of your Indian accent today! Feel like a better American!” Knowing that there were courses designed to help people “get rid of” their accents suddenly made my mom’s pronunciation seem embarrassing.

The hierarchy for accents became apparent at school too. Dull English sentences were transformed into something hilarious when said in a nonnative accent. As students burst out laughing, I’d wear my unaccented English like a shield and say, “Oh I don’t talk like that, so I’m not offended!” I lie, though; even if I don’t talk like that, my family does.

This article not only put into words what has been a daily struggle for me but also gave me the strength to fight it. As the author puts it, “no one speaks without an accent,” so I shouldn’t be embarrassed of the one that raised me. The Indian accent will always be a part of my family identity, and I wouldn’t change that for anything, not even if it would make me feel like a better American.

例二：2018年的另一位获奖者，新加坡的Christine Choo，选择了一篇题为 Why Trying to Be Less Awkward Never Works 的文章，并写道：

Six-year-old me could never have imagined freezing up just because I was stuck in the train with someone I’ve met only once. I was spunky, bubbly, and definitely not awkward. I would’ve struck up a conversation that could’ve lasted for hours.

But with every new candle on a birthday cake that I blew, the bubble of self-consciousness in my body also began to blow up, and soon I found myself trapped in it. Now I actively avoid looking up from my phone on trains, so that I won’t see anyone I know (hopefully, they don’t see me too).

It’s lucky that my nerves show up in innocuous ways, like smiling excessively, so most who don’t know me well can’t tell I’m feeling awkward or panicky. But inside me, it’s always a vicious cycle of nerves. At home, I often think of everyone I talked to that day, all of whom I maybe offended. I’m afraid this sheer awkwardness, and the fear that comes with it, will develop into something worse.

I’m interested in this article because I don’t want to let my awkwardness stop me from doing things that I want to do. I’m interested because I want to form relationships which don’t have awful first memories. I’m interested because I don’t want to ignore someone who needs help just because I’m too nervous again.

I like to think that reading this is a good step in helping me find my 6-year-old self again. Maybe today, I’ll try not to glue my eyes on my phone on the train.

02、批判性地阅读，告诉评委你的想法

仅仅选择一些和你的生活有关的东西，并简单地说，“这篇文章对我来说很有趣，因为我喜欢做饭，它会帮助我做得更好。”是远远不够的。

你在阅读时一定要密切关注自己的想法，批判性地思考自己对文章的反应，并大胆发表自己的看法。

时报特约编辑、2016年担任评委的阿纳斯塔西娅·伊科诺米德斯(Anastasia Economides)曾说:

在他们这个年纪，我总是没有自信，甚至连读《纽约时报》都不敢，更不用说对那些专家才能解决的重大问题进行思考了。现在在阅读了这些经过精心处理的陈述、充满激情的观点和富有同情心的声音之后，我对我们未来的领导者有了新的信心。

所以问问你自己:这件作品对你有什么影响？它教会了你什么吗？挑战你？让你放心？动摇了你？让你生气？它激起了什么样的情绪，为什么？ 你读的时候发生了什么？你在想什么？有什么特别的台词、引语、词语或细节脱颖而出？为什么？它给你带来了什么问题？这让你想知道更多什么东西？ 你能在这篇文章和你所知道的其他东西之间建立什么联系？为什么？例如，它是否会让你想起你读过、看到或听到的其他东西？你在学校学过的东西？

当你阅读时，通过描述你所注意到的和想知道的，带评委进入你的思维过程。

比如，看看下面这位参赛者是如何理解《纽约时报》对碧昂斯的报道的，她解释了自己的关注点和思考。

例：2017年，来自纽约州锡拉丘兹的Hanna Lee，在 To Beyoncé or Not to Beyoncé: The Challenges of Confirming the Birth of Her Twins 一文中写道:

As long as you’re not living under a rock, you know Beyoncé recently had twins. That’s not news. But what was news to me was that The New York Times took great precaution when publishing the story. I mean, it’s Beyoncé! We want all the news we can get regarding her pregnancy. We don’t care if it’s just rumors! Right? Wrong.

In “To Beyoncé or Not to Beyoncé: The Challenges of Confirming the Birth of Her Twins,” Maya Salam explains her process of confirming details. When the rumors first leaked, all the gossip mags and many news sources jumped to publish something about the twins. Facts couldn’t be confirmed since neither Beyoncé or Jay-Z were talking, but that didn’t stop publications. Salam contacted many sources she had deemed reliable but she came back empty-handed from most. Nevertheless, she persisted and eventually found solid information.

This made me realize that The New York Times actually cares about all its facts, even in the most trivial aspects of life. Beyoncé is famous, so gossip mags and fans don’t really pay attention to the fact that even though Queen B is sometimes seen as a goddess, she is, in fact, human. So it’s important to keep the facts about her twins straight. In this era of fake news, it’s important to stay vigilant about what we hear and read, especially on the news. And if news sources have to work hard to get the facts straight on something as lighthearted as Beyoncé, then they must work even harder to maintain the veracity of harder topics.

展示一篇文章如何改变了你的想法，或拓宽了你对一个问题的理解。

下面这位参赛选手在短短273个字里，成功地写出了对1619年计划的激动人心的、优美的表达，1619计划不仅仅是一篇文章，而是整个《时代》杂志的特别版。 例: 2019年，佛罗里达的Luis，选择了1619项目，并写道:

It’s been 400 years since the first slave ship landed in America. Four-hundred years later, the country it was built upon remains. For me, the word ‘slavery’ brings up images of people, humans, being dragged away from the only home, family, and freedom that they have ever known, and being loaded into floating wooden prisons as cargo. From that moment on, they were no longer humans, they were slaves, and they would forever be.

I thought I could fully wrap my head around the severity of it. However, truthfully, I was never one to lament slavery. I never personally felt victimized by it, though I knew that if I was born only 300 years ago, I would be a slave. When I was younger, I recall my father telling me about his country, Haiti, and how it was the only place on Earth where if a black man stepped foot there, he was free. I now understand that freedom from slavery does not come without a price, and Haiti is still paying for theirs.

America is paying off their freedom, and it is very costly. Traces of slavery are found throughout America’s health care and prison system, in the wealth gap, and in the education we receive, like scattered pieces of broken glass. And as long as those pieces remain, I will be a victim of slavery. Even though I didn’t receive the whip to my back like my ancestors did, the scars will still remain. I am now aware of them. If I continue to be, maybe my children, and their children after, won’t have to be born with those scars, too.

解释你阅读时的视角，就像Jordan Ferdman在评论一篇关于电子烟行业的文章时，探索了一条道德原则一样。 例:2019年，纽约市的ordan Ferdman，选择了一篇题为 Dozens of Young People Hospitalized for Breathing and Lung Problems After Vaping 的文章，他写道:

I couldn’t have been older than 8 years old when my parents introduced to me the concept of intent versus impact. The idea that when you hurt someone, or your actions have a negative consequence, your intent is not what matters.

I cannot help but wonder if executive James Monsees understands my parents’ guiding principle. Though he acknowledged the rampant use among underage Americans, Juul products continue to sell. The effects of this are not, by any means, difficult to find: Shelia Kaplan’s “Dozens of Young People Hospitalized for Breathing and Lung Problems After Vaping” makes this abundantly clear. The bathrooms at my school are affectionately referred to as the “Juul rooms.” A well-known — and admittedly overdone — joke passed around in the hallways is about “toilets in the Juul room.” It would be easier for me to count my friends that don’t own a Juul than to count the friends that do. The vaping device has become so ingrained in teenage life that it’s difficult to go a day without seeing one peeking out of a pencil case or smuggled up a sleeve. Several of my classmates cannot go more than an hour or two without taking a hit in the school bathroom or, in some cases, the back of a classroom.

Executives claim hooking teenagers on nicotine was not the intention of the company, which is valued at $38 billion. But it is the impact, and failure to not only own up to that but to take larger steps to mitigate its damages is a disservice to the country’s youth.

03引用文章中的具体细节

一位2019年的科学视频评委这么说：

如果你的反馈是基于从文本本身的细节，那么它将更有力。我们经常收到的投稿只是粗略地引用了原文，但相反，我们应该把细节作为一个故事的起点，或者是对你观点的强化。如果我们找不到证据证明学生确实读了文章并从中得到了什么，这就不是一个有效的读者反馈。

所以当你去写的时候，问问你自己: 哪些句子、文字、细节、图片、引用或段落在这篇文章中脱颖而出?对你来说，它提供了哪些新的信息、想法或观点?你最想记住什么?哪些引用最能支持你对这篇文章的看法? 时刻注意，你的“读后感”不能超过300字，那就把重点放在给你留下深刻印象的细节、引用或见解上。

例:来自宾夕法尼亚州的Ella Jenkins，选择了ScienceTake的一篇文章和一段视频，标题为 The Hummingbird as Warrior: Evolution of a Fierce and Furious Beak，并写道:

This article interested me because it completely surprised me and made me rethink everything I knew about hummingbirds.

Every year, the arrival of the hummingbirds seems to signify the start of summer. My family is always on the lookout for the familiar, startling buzz of these magnificent creatures. As a child, I was always enchanted by the rapid flutter of wings and long slender beaks that seemed to appear out of thin air. Even now, these birds still manage to capture my attention. Whenever I see a hummingbird quickly fly past the patio window or briefly rest its wings while getting a drink from the feeder, I find it nearly impossible to stop watching until it inevitably flies away.

From my many years of observing hummingbirds, I always assumed that the sole purpose of their long, graceful beaks was to allow them to drink the nectar from flowers. After reading this article however, I now know that I was missing a piece of vital information: male hummingbirds use their beaks to fight each other and also have a very violent disposition. Apparently, hummingbirds use their beaks as weapons to pull feathers, stab, and push their competition.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined these seemingly sweet birds attacking their rivals over a mate. The birds I thought I knew so well have a violent side that I was shocked to know existed.

从整篇文章中分解出一些细小的、突出的细节，这样你就能清楚地看到你读得有多仔细。

让我们看看获奖选手Brian Ham是如何嵌入这些细节的。例:2018年，韩国首尔的Brian Ham选择了一篇题为 The Rich Are Planning to Leave This Wretched Planet 的文章，写道:

What could possibly motivate someone to wear a 180-pound suit with diapers and drink tubes, rotate senselessly in a centrifuge, induce claustrophobia and risk death, all while coughing up 55 million dollars in the process? The answer is right above us: space.

For me, space is so alluring because it turns fears into works of art. Despite my thalassophobia, I still find myself attracted to the vast nothingness, the impossible emptiness of the skies. When I’m playing football at sunset on a cloudless night and look up at the infinite sky, I don’t feel distress or panic, even though I realize that I’m just a trivial speck of dust in the galaxy.

Philippe Starck, designer of a project aimed to launch millionaires into space, describes it as “a first approach to infinity.” Spending a split nanosecond in the blackness will result in instant death, and yet there’s just something so cozy about drifting in a spaceship with dangers all around but not within, the same coziness one feels snuggling under a blanket while a thunderstorm wages war on the world.

All of this is why the article “The Rich Are Planning to Leave This Wretched Planet” attracted me so much. Reading about how my seemingly impossible fantasies could come true was surprisingly relaxing and satisfying. I just have a small problem with the title; space travel shouldn’t be about escaping a miserable world, it should be about discovering and rejoicing in a new one.

04用你自然的声音写作，尝试个人风格

虽然“读后感”与正式的论文写作有一些相同的特点——例如，提出论点并举出论据——但你的写作的语体风格要非正式得多。评委希望看到你真实的声音和个性能够展现出来，就像下面的作品中展示的那样。你会看到，不管他们选择的主题是什么，这些作者似乎都很有趣。

问问你自己: 你会如何向你的朋友推荐这件作品?在你的写作中，你真实声音的哪些元素可以体现出来? 例如，如果你很风趣，那就表现在文字里。如果你使用俚语，那就使用俚语(当然得在合理的范围内)。如果你倾向于建立狂野的联系或创造性的类比，评委也很欢迎。关键是，通过你的文字来表现你是谁。

你怎样放松下来，让文字变得有趣、充满实验性？这篇文章中有哪些方面可以激发你自己的写作风格？怎么做？ 这个话题把你的想象力带到了哪里？这些想法能成为你评论的一部分吗？

在你选择的作品中找点乐趣。

例如，看看下面Cody Busch-Weiss使用标点的方式，作为对一篇有关标点的文章的恰当回应。

例:2019年，加利福尼亚州圣巴巴拉市的ody Busch-Weiss选择了一件题为 Em Dash divide 的时尚作品，并写道:

The glorious em dash — the king of all punctuation marks! The em dash is bold, daring, and versatile. What other punctuation mark can be a semicolon, colon, comma, and parentheses?

Semicolons are by the book foot soldiers; they do a good job linking two would-be sentences. The em dash, on the other hand, is a colorful punctuation mark — it can be used to make a strong point! The comma is great for describing, listing, and linking clauses, but it is easy for commas to flood a sentence. The em dash comes to the rescue when the commas take over a sentence — saving it from sinking in a sea of commas. Parentheses describe details about a sentence (usually making the details seem less important). An em dash makes the details seem like part of the sentence — an important part of the sentence. Em dashes can still be overused — they can distract the reader from the point of the sentence — in many cases ruining the point — and in others just making the sentence hard to read — also ruining the point. A good sentence should have lots of kinds of punctuation marks — not just one — and keep the punctuation as subtle as possible; the punctuation should allow the sentence to be helped by the punctuation, not dominated by it, as the article suggests.

For all the good an em dash can do, it’s not on your keyboard. Just like other good things, you have to know where to find it. The em dash — the Swiss Army knife of punctuation — can greatly improve your writing — just don’t overdo it!

不要担心打破所谓正式写作的“规则”。例如，看看Claire McClannan是如何用一个词的句子开始她的作品的，还有她幽默的双关语，都是评委乐于见到的。例:2016年，Claire McClannan选择了一篇题为 The World’s Disappearing Sand 的科学文章，并写道:

Sand. The most boring thing you never thought about. But as it turns out, our cities depend on it, and we’re running out.

I never thought I’d be intrigued by sand. Yet here I am, about to tell you why sand is interesting. Not interesting so much as problematic. Because you can’t just build cities upon any old run-of-the-mill desert sand. It has to be from riverbeds, flood plains, or beaches. Which damages the environment. A whole bunch of animals have been killed and two dozen little islands in Indonesia have all but disappeared! The cherry on top of this gritty ice-cream sand-dae is that activists and government officials trying to fight against this destruction are being killed by sand gangs, which are things now, apparently.

Another thing that spells bad news is that sand is heavy. Therefore, it is real expensive to transport. Since more and more communities in America are banning sand mining, that means it needs to be transported even farther. Which brings up even more environmental problems with pollution.

I used to only think of sand as the thing that gets uncomfortably wedged in your swimsuit. But now I’m concerned about it. This issue affects anybody who wants to move into an apartment. Or work in an office. Or do literally anything that includes concrete, roads, or windows.

最后一个建议 《纽约时报》读者中心记者皮娅·彼得森(Pia Peterson)给了参赛者们这样的建议:

今天的学生通过阅读这些文章，对世界产生了兴趣，或者扩大了他们在某些主题上的知识基础，想到这些我总是很高兴，我总是鼓励学生多读书。《纽约时报》的报道让人着迷，但这并不是阅读的终点。

如果你对一篇文章感兴趣，谷歌一下这个主题、谷歌作者、四处看看、找一本关于这个主题的书、发表些不同的看法、和专家谈谈、和你的祖父母谈谈……只要你想，那就总有更多的东西要学！