若不先抓出文章結構,看起來就是似乎每個字重要性都一樣的普通文章。但若我們可以主動並有意識地試著找出上述 " 策略 " 部份討論過的問題,那麼文章結構就清楚易見了: [ 標題 – Yahoo 公司禁止員工遠距上班 ] The future of telecommuting Corralling the Yahoos Technology allows millions of people to work from home. A big tech firm is trying to stop them [ 首段開場 – 此 Yahoo 公司議題之事情緣由 ] “YOU can't have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you,” writes Marissa Mayer, the boss of Yahoo , in a blurb for a book called “Rebooting Work”. But not, it seems, if you are a Yahoo employee and working from home is really important to you. As part of her efforts to reboot the ailing internet firm, Ms Mayer has decreed that from June all the company's staff will be expected to come into its offices to do their jobs. [ 延續首段 – Yahoo 公司的決定引發各界 , 包括支持者與反對者 , 的討論 ] The news of Ms Mayer's ban on telecommuting surfaced in the form of a memo to employees sent by Yahoo's head of human resources. It was promptly leaked to All Things D , a technology-industry blog, and unleashed a fevered debate in the blogosphere and on Twitter . Supporters saw it as the brave act of a boss determined to rid the company of slackers. Critics lambasted the firm for an antediluvian attitude towards the workplace. [ 延續上段 – 列舉出名人所討論的內容來當實際例子 ] Among the latter was Sir Richard Branson , a British entrepreneur who wrote in a blog post that the decision was “a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever”. “Yours truly has never worked out of an office,” added the bearded boss of the Virgin Group, “and never will.” On the other side, Donald Trump , an American television showman and property magnate, tweeted that Ms Mayer was “right to expect Yahoo employees to come to the workplace vs. working at home.” [ 以下列三段說明目前的 telecommuting 廣被採用的成長趨勢 , 並提到確切的數據來當證據 ] The decision touched a raw nerve in Silicon Valley because it is in the midst of a bout of soul-searching about the workplace. Why, many people are asking, have so few women risen to the top of the tech world? (Ms Mayer herself is a rare exception.) The news has also triggered a broader discussion about how much freedom workers should be given to decide where to spend their working hours. Fans of telecommuting point out that it is on the rise almost everywhere. A survey of over 11,000 workers in 24 countries published last year by Ipsos, a polling firm, found that almost a fifth of respondents who said they are connected online to their workplaces telecommute frequently; 7% of those polled said they worked from home every day. That fridge looks tempting Ipsos also discovered that telecommuting is more prevalent in emerging markets than in rich ones, but it is growing in the latter, too. According to figures published last October by the US Census Bureau, American workers who spend most of their time toiling from home rose from 3.6% of the workforce in 2005 to 4.3% in 2010. The bureau also noted that home-based work in computer, engineering and science is rising particularly fast, growing almost 70% between 2000 and 2010. Given that many technology firms produce the devices and software that make working from home a breeze , it seems sensible to let their employees use them. [ 作者以下列三段表達 Yahoo 逆勢操作 , 不准員工方便地在家透過網路工作的危險性 ] Why, then, has Ms Mayer put telecommuting on hold at Yahoo? The leaked memo said the habit has slowed the firm down and made it harder to have serendipitous meetings that can give birth to new ideas. Yet plenty of innovative technology firms such as Facebook move pretty fast while allowing some people to work from home. Banning telecommuting outright punishes good employees as well as bad, says Joan Williams, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. [ 不准員工在家透過遠距工作會影響生產力 ] A growing body of evidence suggests it harms productivity, too. A recent study by academics at Stanford University and the University of Beijing reports the results of an experiment at CTrip, an online travel company in China that is quoted on America 's NASDAQ stock market. The firm split some of its call-centre workers into two teams. One team worked at home for nine months; the other in the company's offices. At the end of the period, the academics found the telecommuters had handled calls more efficiently, taken fewer breaks and had been 13% more productive than their peers. Job satisfaction was also much higher among the home-workers. [ 這是冒險的行為 , 並會將公司推入危險處境 ] Admittedly, Ms Mayer's staff are highly skilled people, such as programmers, who may need more face time with colleagues. They may also telecommute in exceptional circumstances. But insisting that everyone normally show up is risky at a time when tech firms are ruthlessly poaching talent from rivals. Since she took over at Yahoo last July, Ms Mayer has pushed her battered firm's share price up 35%. Her latest decision could put those gains in peril. 看出來了嗎?我們不需要地毯式地查字典瞭解每個單字,也可以僅藉由段落中的 " 要點句 "( 黑體字之句子 ) 來推斷出全文所要表達的意思呢! 此文的作者先說明議題,列舉支持者和反對者的兩方意見,討論目前的趨勢,最後表達 Yahoo 逆勢操作可能會陷公司於險境的看法。由此可知,文章的結構 / 全貌和重點意見,才是會影響到讀者理解文章內容的關鍵喔! 原文參見: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21572804-technology-allows-millions-people-work-home-big-tech-firm-trying-stop |