issue38【背水一戰將要決戰】第六次作業上交[v2]by yang1989

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謝謝云飛揚和FIRE的大力支持！~

呃，發現copy過來紅色表示更改的地方都沒有了咧。。。

TOPIC: ISSUE38 - "In the age of television, reading books is not as important as it once was. People can learn as much by watching television as they can by reading books."

提綱：1. 電視能夠提供更瞬時、更生動的信息。
2. 但是書籍不僅僅提供信息，還給予智慧。
3. 電視節目多經選擇，符合大眾口味。書籍更加嚴肅，給予智性的樂趣；給予時間思考。

Making floods of vivid information to hand, television programs now enjoys tremendous popularity throughout the world, looking forward to rivaling the traditional knowledge source, the books. Some people, including the speaker, even asserts the arrival of an era of television, contending watching television has superseded reading books and probably more beneficial. However, while watching television has its merits to some degree, I hold a reserved disagreement on the speaker’s point, with regards to reading’s irreplaceable role in experiencing quality intellectual pursuits.

To begin our discussion, it's true that television has provided a much more friendly access to information than books do, especially when it comes to the current fads, international news or up-to-date issues. In the first place, television, as its name suggests, concerns with broadening people's visions by virtue of showing images from far away. Without enduring hardships of a journey, or paying for transportation fees, people can enjoy a feast of views around the globe within his little room, informed about a current election, whether it is taking place in United States or in Iraq. A book, however new it may be, is less likely to satisfy people's curiosity of new things happening around. In the second place, television uses image to convey information, which is more appealing than words printed on books, requiring special efforts to decode the abstract characters. Therefore, people are inclined to seek a more readily and interesting way, in terms of watching television, to learn things around. Another typical case is to learn to speak a foreign language. While books fail to provide real situations when using a language, television programs offer them with great convenience. As a result, we do have to admit television programs play a undeniable role of informing us in a more clear and vivid way.

But a frequently neglected fact is that we read books not so much for gaining information as for experiencing a unique way of thinking that of the author. Reading the lines, thoroughly wrote by a serious writer, is a matter more of communicating thoughts than of learning something we don't know. We read to be knowledgeable and sophisticated well-being, in pursuit of wisdom. It's true we're able to know what is happening about the proceeding presidency election and are informed of the success of Barack Obama in virtue of watching television, but we know little about its history, its meaning nor its potential profound influence. Only if we turn to the days of founders of the United States, the Independent declaration by Thomas Jefferson and the Federalists Papers by Abraham Lincoln, etc, can we have a grasp of the significance of Mr. Obama's success. By conversing with the most brilliant minds ever in human's history, we ourselves become better brains too. Virtually, this is not what television could provide.

What's more, seldom does a really serious reader feel satiated with those limited television programs, selected by the producer and catering for the mediocre taste of the mass. The television industry, as an important component of the mass culture, is earnest for profits and thus produces programs for taking up as large a market as possible. Consequently, the screen of television is fraught with soap operas, live shows and advertisements, devoid of intellectual challenges. Books, on the other hand, though may also be influenced by the public trends, offer steady, adequate and trustworthy sources of all kinds of human's knowledge. Besides, they make it possible for readers to taste and ponder upon particular sentences as long as they would like to.  Thanks to these purchasable wells of wisdom, individuals can really delve into an ocean of knowledge to have what they want.

To draw a conclusion, while televisions cover the distance between individuals and events happening far away, books make the minds of greatest people living in the past accessible. For those in pursuit of wisdom rather than information, who are bored with the mediocre of the masses, books are certainly the way into an oasis of a restless world.