西方現代科技八股文與中文起承轉合在醫學論文寫作應用之探討

Stereotyped Writing in Contemporary Science and Technology: Exploring the Application of a Traditional Chinese Writing Format to Contemporary Medical Writing

八股文是明、清兩代科舉考試的一種文體，其有一些弊端，因此八股思想及八股文是污名代名詞，然八股文亦並非全然一文不值，其起承轉合的概念還是值得效法。本文將八股文做一簡單回顧，並用實際的國際醫學期刊做範例，說明起承轉合之應用格式，將中國古代八股文一詞，應用於現代科技論文固定的格式，賦予八股文一詞另一有用之生命。本文針對科技論文固定格式IMRAD（Introduction、Methods、Results及Discussion之縮寫）擴展為Tasi Mr Dr八字訣（題目、作者與機關、摘要、序論、材料與方法、結果、討論、及參考文獻），將之命名為現代科技八股文，融入傳統起承轉合四字訣的行文流程，讀者可使用此概念，用於文章寫作，或方便於寫作教學。

Stereotyped writing, or the eight-part essay, is a style of traditional Chinese writing specifically used for imperial examinations during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This writing style has some major flaws; however, the fixed format, including beginning, continuing, turning and concluding, may be useful in organizing other writing. This article provides a brief overview of stereotyped writing and applies its framework of beginning, continuing, turning and concluding to evaluate examples of writing from current medical journals. We introduce stereotyped writing to contemporary science and technology by expanding the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) to TasiMrDr (an acronym for Title, Author/Affiliation, Summary/ Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and References). We hope this method can be useful for writing and for teaching about writing methods.