Excerpt
Yet I suggest several conditions that apply to both good reviewing and good criticism.
Critics should like——or, better still, love——the medium they are reviewing.
Don't give away too much of the plot.
A third principle is to use specific detail. This avoids dealing in generalities, which, being generalities, mean nothing.
In book reviewing this means allowing the author's words to do their own documentation. Quote a few of his gaudy and unusual sentences and let the reader see how quirky they are.
A final caution is to avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver. Good criticism needs a lean and vivid style to express what you observed and what you think.
Criticism is a serious intellectual act.
If you want to be a critic, steep yourself in the literature of the medium you hope to make your specialty.
As a critic you can presuppose certain shared ares of knowledge with the men and women you are writing for.
Stylish, allusive, disturbing.
A good critic can make sense of what happened by writing good English.
One lubricant in criticism is humor.
You must make an immediate effort to orient your readers to the special world they are about to enter.
What is common to all the forms is that they consist of personal opinion.
这章讲如何进行艺术类文章的写作。
艺术类文章写作又分两种，一种只是单纯的reviewing，另一种则要更学术一些。不过不论哪种文章，最重要的一点还是言之有物，有自己的观点。
Vocabulary
1.They will trot out the hard-won words of their college education.
trot out: If you say that a person trots out old ideas or information, you are criticizing him or her for repeating them in a way that is not new or interesting.反复说，重复说
trot: 1)If you trot somewhere, you move fairly fast at a speed between walking and running, taking small quick steps.小步走，快步走
2）When an animal such as a horse trots, it moves fairly fast, taking quick small steps. You can also say that the rider of the animal is trotting .骑马小跑
2.So don't be deluded that criticism is an easy route to glory.
delude: 1)If you delude yourself, you let yourself believe that something is true, even though it is not true. 欺骗（自己）2)To delude someone into thinking something means to make them believe what is not true.欺骗（他人）
3.Page after page of pedestrian prose marches.
pedestrian:
n A pedestrian is a person who is walking, especially in a town or city, rather than travelling in a vehicle.（尤指城镇）行人
adj If you describe something as pedestrian, you mean that it is ordinary and not at all interesting.平庸的，乏味的
