很多同学动笔写文书前都有这样的疑惑：

• 文书写作的整体思路和方法是什么？

• 内容上如何体现自身的个性？

• 内容吸引人还要有故事性，该怎么讲述？

• 如何真诚的表达对事物的看法？

     ......

每年美国大学申请结束后，《纽约时报》都会邀请即将高中毕业升入大学的当季申请人递交申请文书，《纽约时报》会从中精心选出几篇刊登出来，昨天，纽约时报刊登了今年的第一波精选文书，这些文书主题都是关于“金钱”。

每年提供这些文书的学生不少被哈佛、耶鲁、普林斯顿、哥伦比亚等大学录取。

可以说，这些原汁原味的文书能够让我们看到那些被名校录取的学生真实的个人故事、经历和思想。

Despite the loud busking music, arcade lights and swarms of people, it was hard to be distracted from the corner street stall serving steaming cupfuls of tteokbokki — a medley of rice cake and fish cake covered in a concoction of hot sweet sauce. I gulped when I felt my friend tugging on the sleeve of my jacket, anticipating that he wanted to try it. After all, I promised to treat him out if he visited me in Korea over winter break.

尽管有喧闹的街头音乐、街灯和熙熙攘攘的人群，人们还是很难不被街角的小摊所吸引。小摊上卖着热气腾腾的炒年糕——一种米糕和鱼糕的混合物，上面涂着甜辣酱。我咽了一口口水，然后我感觉到我的朋友在拽我的夹克袖子，以为他想试试。 毕竟，我答应过，如果他寒假去韩国看我，我就请他出去玩。  

The cups of tteokbokki, garnished with sesame leaves and tempura, was a high-end variant of the street food, nothing like the kind from my childhood. Its price of 3,500 Korean won was also nothing like I recalled, either, simply charged more for being sold on a busy street. If I denied the purchase, I could console my friend and brother by purchasing more substantial meals elsewhere. Or we could spend on overpriced food now to indulge in the immediate gratification of a convenient but ephemeral snack.

炒年糕的杯中放着芝麻叶和天妇罗，这是一种高端街头小吃，跟我小时候吃的一点都不像。 它的价格是3500韩元，跟我记得的也不一样，只是在繁华的街道上卖的价格更高。 如果我不买我可以在其他地方买更丰盛的饭菜来安慰我的朋友和兄弟。 或者，我们可以现在就把钱花在昂贵的食物上，以享受方便但短暂的零食带来的即时满足感。  

At every seemingly inconsequential expenditure, I weigh the pros and cons of possible purchases as if I held my entire fate in my hands. To be generously hospitable, but recklessly drain the travel allowance we needed to stretch across two weeks? Or to be budgetarily shrewd, but possibly risk being classified as stingy? That is the question, and a calculus I so dearly detest.

对于每一笔看似无关紧要的支出，我都会权衡可能购买的东西的利弊，就好像我的命运掌握在自己手中一样。 慷慨好客，却不顾一切地花掉我们两周的差旅费? 或者在预算上精打细算，但可能会被归类为吝啬? 这就是我所深恶痛绝的问题。  

Unable to secure subsequent employment and saddled by alimony complications, there was no room in my dad’s household to be embarrassed by austerity or scraping for crumbs. Ever since I was taught to dilute shampoo with water, I’ve revised my formula to reduce irritation to the eye. Every visit to a fast-food chain included asking for a sheet of discount coupons — the parameters of all future menu choice — and a past receipt containing the code of a completed survey to redeem for a free cheeseburger. Exploiting combinations of multiple promotions to maximize savings at such establishments felt as thrilling as cracking war cryptography, critical for minimizing cash casualties.

在我父亲的家庭里，由于无法获得工作，又要承担赡养费的沉重负担，没有任何空间让他为经济拮据或衣食无忧而感到尴尬。 自从有人教我用水稀释洗发水后，我就修改了自己的配方，以减少对眼睛的刺激。 每次去一家快餐连锁店，他们都要一张折扣券——所有未来菜单选择的参数——和一张包含已完成调查代码的之前的收据，用它来换取一个免费的芝士汉堡。 利用多种促销活动的组合来最大化这类机构的储蓄，感觉就像破解战争密码一样令人兴奋，而破解密码对于减少现金伤亡至关重要。 

However, while disciplined restriction of expenses may be virtuous in private, at outings, even those amongst friends, spending less — when it comes to status — paradoxically costs more. In Asian family-style eating customs, a dish ordered is typically available to everyone, and the total bill, regardless of what you did or did not consume, is divided evenly. Too ashamed to ask for myself to be excluded from paying for dishes I did not order or partake in, I’ve opted out of invitations to meals altogether. I am wary even of meals where the inviting host has offered to treat everyone, fearful that if I only attended “free meals” I would be pinned as a parasite.

然而，虽然在私人场合严格限制开支可能是有益的，但在外出时，甚至在朋友之间，花得越少，而在地位方面，成本却更高。 在亚洲家庭式的饮食习惯中，通常每个人都可以点一道菜，而总账单，无论你吃了什么或没吃，都是平均分配的。 因为不好意思要求自己不为我没点或没吃的菜付钱，所以我决定不接受邀请吃饭。 我甚至对邀请主人招待所有人的餐点都很警惕，担心如果我只参加“免费餐点”，我会被视为寄生虫。  

Although I can now conduct t-tests to extract correlations between multiple variables, calculate marginal propensities to import and assess whether a developing country elsewhere in the world is at risk of becoming stuck in the middle-income trap, my day-to-day decisions still revolve around elementary arithmetic. I feel haunted, cursed by the compulsion to diligently subtract pennies from purchases hoping it will eventually pile up into a mere dollar, as if the slightest misjudgment in a single buy would tip my family’s balance sheet into irrecoverable poverty.

尽管我现在可以进行t检验来提取多个变量之间的相关性，计算边际进口倾向，并评估世界其他地方的发展中国家是否有陷入中等收入陷阱的风险，但我的日常决策仍然围绕着基本的算术。 我有种挥之不去的感觉，被一种努力从购买中减去一分钱的冲动所诅咒，希望它最终会堆积成一美元，好像一次购买中最轻微的误判就会让我的家庭陷入无法弥补的贫困之中。  

Will I ever stop stressing over overspending?

我能停止为过度消费而感到压力吗?

I’m not sure I ever will.

我不确定我以后会不会。

But I do know this. As I handed over 7,000 won in exchange for two cups of tteokbokki to share amongst the three of us — my friend, my brother and myself — I am reminded that even if we are not swimming in splendor, we can still uphold our dignity through the generosity of sharing. Restricting one’s conscience only around ruminating which roads will lead to riches risks blindness toward rarer wealth: friends and family who do not measure one’s worth based on their net worth. Maybe one day, such rigorous monitoring of financial activity won’t be necessary, but even if not, this is still enough.

但我知道一点。 当我交出7000韩元,以换取两杯炒年糕，我和我的朋友,我哥哥我们三个共享，我意识到了我们仍然可以通过共享的慷慨维护我们的尊严。 把一个人的良心局限在思考哪些道路会导致财富，可能会使他对更稀有的财富视而不见:朋友和家人不以净资产来衡量一个人的价值。 也许有一天，这种对金融活动的严格监控将不再必要，但即使不是，这也足够了。  

My mom finds a baffling delight from drinking from glass, hotel-grade water dispensers. Even when three-day-old lemon rinds float in stale water, drinking from the dispenser remains luxurious. Last year for her birthday, I saved enough to buy a water dispenser for our kitchen counter. However, instead of water, I filled it with handwritten notes encouraging her to chase her dreams of a career.

我妈妈从酒店级的玻璃饮水机里喝水，发现了一种莫名其妙的快乐。 即使放了三天的柠檬皮漂浮在不新鲜的水中，喝这种柠檬水仍然是一件很奢侈的事。 去年她生日的时候，我攒了足够的钱买了一个饮水机放在我们的厨房柜台上。 然而，我在信里写满了手写的便条，鼓励她去追逐她的职业梦想，而不是水。  

As I grew older, I noticed that my mom yearned to pursue her passions and to make her own money. She spent years as a stay-at-home mom and limited our household chores as much as she could, taking the burden upon herself so that my brothers and I could focus on our education. However, I could tell from her curiosity of and attitudes toward working women that she envied their financial freedom and the self-esteem that must come with it. When I asked her about working again, she would tell me to focus on achieving the American dream that I knew she had once dreamed for herself.

随着年龄的增长，我注意到母亲渴望追求自己的爱好，为自己赚钱。 她做了多年的家庭主妇，尽可能地限制我们的家务，自己承担责任，这样我和我的兄弟们就可以专注于我们的教育。 然而，我可以从她对职业女性的好奇和态度中看出，她羡慕她们的经济自由和随之而来的自尊。 当我问她关于重新工作的事情时，她会告诉我专注于实现美国梦，我知道她曾经为自己梦想过美国梦。 

For years, I watched her effortlessly light up conversations with both strangers and family. Her empathy and ability to understand the needs, wants and struggles of a diverse group of people empowered her to reach the hearts of every person at a dinner table, even when the story itself did not apply to them at all. She could make anyone laugh, and I wanted her to be paid for it. “Mom, have you ever thought about being a stand-up comedian?”

多年来，我看着她毫不费力地点亮了我与陌生人和家人的对话。 她的同情心和理解不同群体的需求、欲望和挣扎的能力使她能够触及餐桌上每个人的心，即使故事本身并不适用于他们。 她能让任何人发笑，我希望她为此得到报酬。 “妈妈，你有没有想过成为一名单口喜剧演员?”  

She laughed at the idea, but then she started wondering aloud about what she would joke about and how comedy shows were booked. As she began dreaming of a comedy career, the reality of her current life as a stay-at-home mom sank in. She began to cry and told me it was too late for her. I could not bear to watch her struggle between ambition and doubt.

听到这个想法，她笑了起来，但随后她开始大声地想她会拿什么开玩笑，喜剧节目是如何被预订的。 当她开始梦想着自己的喜剧生涯时，她明白了现在全职妈妈的现实生活。 她开始哭泣，告诉我她已经太迟了。 我不忍心看着她在野心和怀疑之间挣扎。  

Her birthday was coming up. Although I had already bought her a present, I realized what I actually wanted to give her was the strength to finally put herself first and to take a chance. I placed little notes of encouragement inside the water dispenser. I asked my family and her closest friends to do the same. These friends told her other friends, and eventually I had grown a network of supporters who emailed me their admiration for my mom. From these emails, I hand wrote 146 notes, crediting all of these supporters that also believed in my mom. Some provided me with sentences, others with five-paragraph-long essays. Yet, each note was an iteration of the same sentiment: “You are hilarious, full of life, and ready to take on the stage.”

她的生日快到了。 虽然我已经给她买了一份礼物，但我意识到我真正想给她的是最终把自己放在第一位并抓住机会的力量。 我在饮水机里放了一些鼓励的小纸条。 我让我的家人和她最亲密的朋友也这样做。 这些朋友告诉了她的其他朋友，最终我有了一个支持者网络，他们通过电子邮件向我表达了对我母亲的钦佩之情。 从这些邮件中，我手写了146个笔记，感谢所有这些同样相信我妈妈的支持者。 有的给我提供句子，有的给我提供五段长的文章。 然而，每个音符都重复着同样的情绪:“你很幽默，充满活力，是时候上台表演了。”  

On the day of her birthday, my mom unwrapped my oddly shaped present and saw the water dispenser I bought her. She was not surprised, as she had hinted at it for many years. But then as she kept unwrapping, she saw that inside the dispenser there were these little notes that filled the whole thing. As she kept picking out and reading the notes, I could tell she was starting to believe what they said. She started to weep with her hands full of notes. She could not believe the support was real, that everyone knew she had a special gift and believed in her.

生日那天，妈妈打开我那件形状奇怪的礼物，看到了我给她买的饮水机。 她并不感到惊讶，因为多年来她一直在暗示这一点。 但当她继续打开包装的时候，她看到自动售货机里面有一些小纸条，把整个东西都填满了。 当她不断地挑选和阅读笔记时，我可以看出她开始相信他们所说的。 她开始哭，手里拿满了纸条。 她不相信这种支持是真的，不相信每个人都知道她有特殊的天赋并相信她。  

Within two months, my mom performed her first set in a New York comedy club. Within a year, my mom booked a monthly headlining show at the nation’s premier comedy club.

不到两个月，我妈妈就在纽约的一家喜剧俱乐部表演了她的第一场演出。 不到一年，我妈妈就在全国一流的喜剧俱乐部预定了一个月的头条秀。 

I am not sure what happened to the water dispenser. But I have read the notes with my mom countless times. They are framed and line the walls of her new office space that she rented with the profits she made from working as a professional comedian. For many parents, their children’s careers are their greatest accomplishment, but for me my mom’s is mine.

我不知道饮水机如何， 但是我已经和妈妈无数次读过这些纸条了。 在她租用的新办公室的墙上，镶着镜框，排成一排。这是她作为一名职业喜剧演员获得的利润。 对许多父母来说，孩子的事业是他们最大的成就，但对我来说，我妈妈的事业就是我的。

“Pull down your mask, sweetheart, so I can see that pretty smile.”

"摘下你的面具，亲爱的，让我看到你美丽的笑容"  

I returned a well-practiced smile with just my eyes, as the eight guys started their sixth bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. Their carefree banter bordered on heckling. Ignoring their comments, I stacked dishes heavy with half-eaten rib-eye steaks and truffle risotto. As I brought their plates to the dish pit, I warned my female co-workers about the increasingly drunken rowdiness at Table 44.

当那八个人开始喝他们的第六瓶布鲁奈洛迪蒙塔尔奇诺时，我用眼睛报以一个熟练的微笑。 他们无忧无虑的戏谑近乎起哄。 我不理会他们的评论，把吃了一半的肋眼牛排和松露意大利调味饭堆在盘子里。 当我把她们的盘子端到盘子池时，我警告了我的女同事，44号桌越来越多的酒后喧闹。  

This was not the first time I’d felt uncomfortable at work. When I initially presented my résumé to the restaurant manager, he scanned me up and down, barely glancing at the piece of paper. “Well, you’ve got no restaurant experience, but you know, you package well. When can you start?” I felt his eyes burn through me. That’s it? No pretense of a proper interview? “Great,” I said, thrilled at the prospect of earning good money. At the same time, reduced to the way I “package,” I felt degraded.

这不是我第一次在工作中感到不舒服。 当我最初将我的简历提交给餐厅经理时，他上下打量了我一下，几乎没有看那张纸。 “嗯，你没有餐馆的经验，但是你知道，你包装得很好。 你什么时候可以开始上班?” 我感到他的眼睛灼烧着我的身体。 就这些吗? 没有假装成正式的采访? “太好了，”我说，想到能挣到好多钱，我激动不已。 与此同时，沦落到我“包装”的方式，我觉得自己受到了贬低。  

I thought back to my impassioned feminist speech that won the eighth-grade speech contest. I lingered on the moments that, as the leader of my high school’s F-Word Club, I had redefined feminism for my friends who initially rejected the word as radical. But in these instances, I realized how my notions of equality had been somewhat theoretical — a passion inspired by the words of Malala and R.B.G. — but not yet lived or compromised.

我回想起我在八年级演讲比赛中赢得的那篇充满激情的女权主义演讲。 作为高中时f字俱乐部的领导，我为朋友们重新定义了女权主义，这些朋友最初拒绝用“激进”这个词。 但在这些情况下，我意识到我的平等观念多少有点理论化——一种受到马拉拉和R.B.G话语启发的激情——但还没有真正存在或妥协。  

The restaurant has become my real-world classroom, the pecking order transparent and immutable. All the managers, the decision makers, are men. They set the schedules, determine the tip pool, hire pretty young women to serve and hostess, and brazenly berate those below them. The V.I.P. customers are overwhelmingly men, the high rollers who drop thousands of dollars on drinks, and feel entitled to palm me, a 17-year-old, their phone numbers rolled inside a wad of cash.

餐厅已经成为我现实世界的教室，等级制度透明且不可改变。 所有的经理和决策者都是男性。 他们制定时间表，决定小费数额，雇佣年轻漂亮的女人来服务和招待，还厚颜无耻地斥责职位低于自己的人。 贵宾客户绝大多数是男性，他们是挥金如金的人，在酒上花上数千美元，他们觉得有资格向我这个17岁的孩子的手里塞进他们的电话号码，卷在一沓现金里。  

Angry customers, furious they had mistakenly received penne instead of pane, initially rattled me. I have since learned to assuage and soothe. I’ve developed the confidence to be firm with those who won’t wear a mask or are breathtakingly rude. I take pride in controlling my tables, working 13-hour shifts and earning my own money. At the same time, I’ve struggled to navigate the boundaries of what to accept and where to draw the line. When a staff member continued to inappropriately touch me, I had to summon the courage to address the issue with my male supervisor. Then, it took weeks for the harasser to get fired, only to return to his job a few days later.

愤怒的顾客们误拿了通心粉而不是玻璃，一开始让我很恼火。 从那以后，我学会了安抚别人。 我培养了自信对待那些不戴口罩或粗鲁得惊人的人。 我很自豪能控制自己的桌子，每天工作13个小时，挣到自己的钱。 与此同时，我也在挣扎着去把握该接受什么以及该在哪里划清界限。 当一名员工继续以不恰当的方式触摸我时，我不得不鼓起勇气向我的男上司提出这个问题。 骚扰者几周后被解雇，几天后又回到了工作岗位。  

When I received my first paycheck, accompanied by a stack of cash tips, I questioned the compromises I was making. In this physical and mental space, I searched for my identity. It was simple to explore gender roles in a classroom or through complex characters in a Kate Chopin novel. My heroes, trailblazing women such as Simone de Beauvoir and Gloria Steinem, had paved the road for me. In my textbooks, their crusading is history. But the intense Saturday night crucible of the restaurant, with all the unwanted phone numbers, catcalls and wandering hands, jolted me into an unavoidable reckoning with feminism in a professional world.

当我拿到第一份薪水，还有一堆现金小费时，我对自己做出的妥协提出了质疑。 在这个物质和精神的空间里，我寻找我的身份。 探索课堂上的性别角色，或者通过凯特·肖邦小说中的复杂人物，都很简单。 我心目中的英雄们是开拓性的女性，如波伏娃和斯泰纳姆，为我铺平了道路。 在我的教科书里，他们的十字军东征已经成为历史。 但周六晚上餐馆里的激烈考验，充斥着所有不需要的电话号码、嘘声和流浪的手，让我在职业世界里不可避免地想到了女权主义。  

Often, I’ve felt shame; shame that I wasn’t as vocal as my heroes; shame that I feigned smiles and silently pocketed the cash handed to me. Yet, these experiences have been a catalyst for personal and intellectual growth. I am learning how to set boundaries and to use my professional skills as a means of empowerment.

我常常感到羞愧; 遗憾的是我不能像我的英雄们那样大声疾呼; 羞愧的是，我假装微笑，默默地把递给我的现金装进了口袋。 然而，这些经历一直是个人和智力成长的催化剂。 我正在学习如何设定界限，并利用我的专业技能作为授权的一种手段。  

Constantly re-evaluating my definition of feminism, I am inspired to dive deeply into gender studies and philosophy to better pursue social justice. I want to use politics as a forum for activism. Like my female icons, I want to stop the burden of sexism from falling on young women. In this way, I will smile fully — for myself.

不断重新审视自己对女权主义的定义，启发我深入研究性别研究和哲学，更好地追求社会正义。 我想把政治作为激进主义的论坛。 就像我的女性偶像一样，我想阻止性别歧视的重担落在年轻女性身上。 这样，我将充分地微笑-为我自己。  

一篇好的文书一定要不断的打磨才算完成，对此，杜克大学招生官Willie对文书写作提出了四点建议：