6.1.

Реферирование
Двадцатый век отмечен небывалым развитием науки во всех областях знаний,
техническим прогрессом, многообразием международных связей и контактов,
чрезвычайно интенсивной общественно-политической жизнью на всех континентах.
Следствием этих процессов, происходящих в мире и обществе, явился бурный рост
информации. Составной частью информационной деятельности является обработка
документов, научных статей, реферирование и аннотирование первоисточников, несущих
информацию.
В наше время существуют сотни реферативных журналов, бюро, реферативных
отделов при библиотеках и научных учреждениях.
Что же такое реферат?
Реферат – это обобщение, сжатое изложение содержания первоисточника.
Поскольку мы будем иметь дело с реферированием исключительно иноязычного
материала, то здесь уместно сказать, что реферат – это отнюдь не сокращенный перевод и
не пересказ первоисточника.
Предполагается, что реферат отвечает на основной вопрос: какая новая
информация заключена в реферируемой работе?
Референт в отличие от переводчика сталкивается с двойной трудностью – ему
нужно, во-первых, досконально разобраться в тексте иноязычного первоисточника и, во-
вторых, изложить основные мысли реферируемого материала (статьи, монографии и т.п.)
в сжатом виде.
К сожалению, не существует унифицированных требований, предъявляемых к
реферату. Требования разнятся в зависимости от того учреждения, которое заказывает
реферат, или от лица, для которого выполняется реферат, а также от тех аспектов
материала, которые его интересуют.
Приступая к реферированию, референт должен:
1) устно или письменно перевести текст первоисточника;
2) выделить ключевые отрывки, несущие в себе основной смысл;
3) отобрать те главные факты, данные и положения, которые должны быть
отражены в реферате, и выстроить их в логической последовательности;
4) руководствуясь внутренней логикой текста и пользуясь четкими
формулировками, обобщить содержание текста-первоисточника; при этом
следует отбросить все доказательства, рассуждения, полемику, соображения
гипотетического характера, элементы авторской субъективной трактовки,
образность и эмоциональность.
Язык реферата должен быть предельно четким, точным и лаконичным. Только это
поможет избежать частностей и соблюсти специфическую литературную форму реферата.
В зависимости от характера реферируемого материала и от задания реферат может
быть рефератом-конспектом и рефератом-резюме.
Если референт имеет дело с материалом, изобилующим данными, фактами,
цифрами, именами, которыми он не может пожертвовать при обобщении, то реферат
будет носить конспективный характер, и степень обобщенности будет меньшей, нежели у
реферата-резюме, который призван отразить главное, наиболее важное в реферируемом
материале и оставить в стороне второстепенное.
Ниже мы приводим в качестве иллюстраций два реферата небольших статей из
периодики. Рефераты такого рода могут понадобиться при обзоре печати. Статьи эти
принадлежат к жанру газетной публицистики, но несут разную информацию.
Внимательно сравнив первоисточник с рефератом, можно получить представление о
технической стороне процесса реферирования.

SEPARATING KIDS AND GUNS

 Even the most hard-nosed police officers and veteran reporters wince when stories come
across their desks about children killed in accidents involving firearms. Yet the reports keep
coming in with alarming frequency. Every day, 10 American children 18 or under are killed in
handgun suicides, homicides and accidents, according to the Center to Prevent Handgun
Violence, and many more children are wounded. In larger urban areas, gunshot wounds to
children ages 16 and under have increased 300 percent since 1986. From the National Council
for Health Statistics, more chilling numbers: in 1987, one out of every 10 children who died
before the age of 20 was killed by a gun. It is enough to move concerned legislators to vote for
new safety measures – and in Virginia, the state senate has done so. If house delegates add their
votes in sufficient numbers, a sensible child-gun safety bill can go on the books.
The senate-passed proposal now before the House Courts of Justice Committee in
Virginia is a modest approach, similar to a law enacted last year in Florida. It focuses on ways to
discourage adults from leaving loaded guns accessible to children. If a child obtained an
improperly stored loaded gun and killed or wounded someone, the adult gun owner could be
guilty of a misdemeanor. The measure also would mandate that a gun-safety program be taught
in the state’s public schools beginning next year.
Supporters also note that the intent is not to put grief-stricken parents in prison for the
death of their child. Half the time, children are killed with guns owned by someone other than
their parent; 30 percent of the time, it is a neighbour’s gun. In any event, prosecutors would have
discretion whether to bring charges, and most are not insensible to the grief of parents.
Support for this bill comes from gun owners, too, who point out that the measure is not a
gun “control” bill in the sense that it would affect anyone’s ownership of a firearm. It does not
prevent children from using or possessing guns while under the supervision of an adult.
If just one child’s life were saved by this measure, the lawmakers in Virginia could be
proud to have helped. With passage by the house, the child-gun safety bill can be given the try
that it certainly merits.

ОГРАДИТЬ ДЕТЕЙ ОТ ОГНЕСТРЕЛЬНОГО ОРУЖИЯ

Separating Kids and Guns
Американская общественность обеспокоена растущей статистикой самоубийств,
убийств и ранений среди детей и молодежи, совершаемых с помощью огнестрельного
оружия. В штатах Вирджиния и Флорида принимаются робкие попытки законодательным
путем обязать родителей хранить свое оружие в месте, недоступном для детей.
Предполагается, что родители должны нести ответственность за несоблюдение мер
безопасности. Законопроект, ограждающий детей от огнестрельного оружия, заслуживает
внедрения в судебную практику.

OXYGEN DEPLETION A “SERIOUS THREAT TO GLOBAL ECOLOGY”

By Michael McCarthy, environment correspondent
The depletion of the Earth’s oxygen through burning fossil fuels might be a greater threat
than increased carbon dioxide causing global warming, yet it is largely unheeded, a leading
physicist said last night.
About sixteen billion tones of oxygen are being used up every year, and this might bring
catastrophe, especially to parts of the ocean, which might be “asphyxiated” long before the
supply of oxygen has gone, Professor Freeman Dyson said. “It is possible that the depletion of
oxygen in the ocean presents as even more serious longterm threat to the global ecology than the
build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” he said.
“Reducing oxygen by 50 percent will cause more drastic damage to more species than
increasing carbon dioxide by 50 percent. A doubling of CO 2 would be for the majority of species
a tolerable insult; a reduction of oxygen in the ocean to zero would be a total catastrophe.”
 Professor Dyson, professor of natural sciences at the institute of advanced study at
Princeton, said he was surprised that the general public all over the world was not clamouring to
know how fast we were using up the oxygen.
Pointing out that eight tones of oxygen are used up for every three tones of coal, oil or
gas burned, Professor Dyson called on the international scientific community to begin a
programme of accurately measuring the depletion rate of oxygen. He said that the rate was at
present thought to be 13 parts per million per year, and although accurate measurement was not
easy, it should be possible with modern instruments.
Professor Dyson said that the biggest effects of oxygen depletion were likely to be found
in the oceans because there was a much smaller amount than in the atmosphere and effects of
depletion were consequently greater. “Catastrophe may come to parts of the ocean long before
the oxygen reservoir is exhausted. The Pacific Ocean is already seriously depleted. It contains 50
percent of the Planet’s water but only 40 percent of the dissolved oxygen.”
“So long as we are not measuring the rate of depletion year by year, we have no basis for
guessing how soon the asphyxiation of large parts of the Pacific Ocean might begin. For this
reason a programme of measurement of the oceanic oxygen fluxes is urgently necessary.”

НЕДОСТАТОК КИСЛОРОДА –
СЕРЬЕЗНАЯ ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ПРБЛЕМА
Oxygen Depletion a “Serious Threat to Global Ecology”
by Michael McCarthy

Изложено мнение проф. Дайсона из Принстонского института перспективных

исследований о необходимости непрерывного контроля за содержанием кислорода (СК) в
атмосфере Земли и особенно в океанах, где СК существенно меньше, чем в атмосфере.
Вызывает тревогу состояние Тихого океана, в водах которого СК уменьшилось до 40 % от
нормы. При отсутствии программы контроля невозможно предсказать скорость убывания
СК и предупредить умирание жизни в океане.

Задание № 4
Напишите реферат одной из следующих статей (тексты 1, 2, 3) по вашему выбору:

Текст № 1
FIGHTING NOISE EITH ANTINOISE
By Philip Elmer-Dewitt

The oversize, black headsets look like the kind of ear protection worn by airport baggage
handlers. But these are no ordinary earmuffs. They are high-tech earphones designed for pilots of
small jets and other light (and noisy) aircraft. Rather than soften the drumming engine noise with
thick layer of plastic foam, the earphones eliminate it electronically. A tiny microphone samples
sound waves at the wearer’s ear, processes them through special circuitry and broadcasts
countertones that cancel the offending sounds in midair. Result: silence, or something close to it.
The 1965 aviation headset, made by Bose, a manufacturer of hi-fi speakers, is one of the
latest applications of antinoise, a surprising new technology that is changing the way people
block unwanted sounds – from the whine of electrical transformers to the rumble of internal-
combustion engines – while living human voices, alarm bells and other useful sounds untouched.
The technology should have many uses: the American Medical Association estimates that more
than 9 million US workers are exposed to hazardous noise levels on the job. In some professions
– notably mining, shipbuilding, food processing and printing – it is not unusual for young
workers to begin employment with perfect hearing and end up 25 years later, nearly deaf.
 The principle behind all antinoise devices is the same. Noise is basically a pressure wave
traveling through the air. Antinoise is the mirror image of that wave, an equal and opposite
vibration exactly 180° out of phase with the noise to be blocked. When noise and antinoise
collide, they interact with what is called destructive interference, canceling each other out. The
idea is not new; generations of high-school physics students have seen destructive interference
demonstrated with jump ropes. But it is only recently – with the advent of small, high-speed
signal processors – that scientists have had the computer power to make practical antinoise
devices.
There are two ways to generate an antinoise wave. The analog approach, first developed
in the 1930s using vacuum tube technology, works something like a seesaw. A mechanism
drives a loud speaker that pushes the air when incoming sound waves fall. Alternatively,
antinoise waves can be created digitally, using a signal processor to convert incoming sound
waves into a steam of numbers. Given those numbers, computers can quickly calculate the
frequency and amplitude of the mirror-image waves. Those specifications are then fed to a
conventional speaker and broadcast into the air. Sounds that the system wants to preserve, like
human voices, can be subtracted out in the beginning of the process and added back in at the end.
But no antinoise system is perfect. The digital devices¹ work well with repetitive noises,
like the sound of fans and turbines, but cannot stop random or unexpected noises. Analog system
fight low, random noises² but do it by eliminating nil low-frequency sounds, good or bad. And
none of the antinoise devices currently on the market are very good at canceling high-pitched
squeals and whistles.
¹ digital devices – цифровые устройства
² random noises – случайные шумы

Текст № 2
THE HOPE OF ESPERANTO
by J.D. Reed

In 1887 Ludovic Zamenhof, multilingual Polish oculist, published a book introducing a

new language under the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto, meaning “one who hopes”. Zamenhof
fervently wished that his invented tongue would become the world’s second language. Although
that hope is still unrealized, nearly 6,000 zealous Esperantists – the largest gathering over – from
as far away as Japan and Brazil are in Warsaw this week to honor Zamenhof on the occasion of
the 100th birthday of his language. They are doing so with a variety of events, all in Esperanto,
plus a visit to Zamenhofs hometown of Bialystok.
Many people assume that Esperanto is a dying language, a verbal experiment that has
simply not worked out. In fact, Esperantists can be found all around the world. Estimates of their
total number vary widely, from 1 million to 8 million or more. Marjorie Duncan, 65, a retired
Sydney, Australia, schoolteacher, believes the movement needs more young people. But, she
says, they would “rather drive cars or go surfing.
At a glance, Esperanto seems simple enough. It has only 16 easily memorized rules of
grammar – no exceptions – and a basic vocabulary built from mostly Indo-European roots.
Experts claim that virtually anyone can learn Esperanto in 100 hours or less. But for some,
numerous suffixes and prefixes may complicate matters. Accents always fall on the next-to-last
syllable of a word. (J sounds like y, c like ch, g like j, s like sh and u like oo). The no-frills
system¹ can handle many idiomatic phrases from other languages.
The use of Esperanto probably reached its peak in the 1920s, when idealists embraced it
as a solution to the language problem, which they left contributed to political misunderstandings;
in some British schools youngsters could study Esperanto. But interest died down after World
War II, partly because governments did not support the language, partly because English was
fast becoming the lingua franca² of business and travel. Esperantists have urged the United
Nations to adopt their language, but the organization has its hands full with six official ones
(English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian).
Humphrey Tonkin, president of the Rotterdam-based Universal Esperanto Association,
says the Lingvo Internacia is popular in lands whose languages do not travel well. Examples:
Iran, Brazil, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. A sizable concentration of
Esperantists is found in Japan, where the language has sometimes been used foe discussions by
scientists who speak different languages. China uses Esperanto to facilitate communication
between speakers of its northern and southern dialects and supports an active publishing
program. Many masterpieces of literature have been translated into Esperanto, including the
Koran and some of Shakespeare’s plays. But Mary Davies, an Esperantist who runs a hotel in
Heysham, England, complains, “We don’t have any light reading”.
When they travel, many Esperantists wear lapel pins shaped like green stars that signal
them as Esperanto speakers, in the hope of meeting fellow speakers. They also call up comrades-
in-conversation and exchange cassette tapes by mail.

¹ no-frills system – простая и строгая система

² lingua franca – смешанный язык, используемый людьми из разных стран

Текст № 2
TRAINS THAT CAN LEVITATE

One item is on everyone’s list of potential benefits of high-temperature superconductors:

maglevs¹, or magnetically levitated superfast trains. It is a safe prediction, since the new
materials give promise of electromagnets far more powerful and economical than those in use
today. And it is the electromagnet that lifts and propels existing maglevs in Japan, West
Germany and Britain.
As long ago as 1979 an unmanned Japan Railway Group prototype fitted with low-
temperature superconducting electromagnets hit 321 m.p.h. on a test track; a version carrying
three passengers made it to 249 m.p.h. earlier this year. That beats any conventional rival,
including Japan’s celebrated bullet train, which goes as fast as 149 m.p.h., and the French TGV,
which provides the world’s fastest regularly scheduled rail service, at speeds of up to 186 m.p.h.
Japan’s maglev is faster because instead of pounding along a set of rails, it floats four
inches above a guideway on a cushion of magnetic force; there is no friction to slow it down, no
fear of derailment on a section of bent track. This maglev has wheels, but the only times it uses
them are while picking up speed before lift-off and while slowing down after landing.
The principle behind the maglev is simple: opposite magnetic poles attract each other;
like poles repel. In Japan’s version, eight superconducting electromagnets are built into the sides
of each train car, and thousands, of metal coils are set into the floor of the guideway. When the
train is in motion, the electromagnets on the train induce electric currents in the guideway coils,
which then themselves become electromagnets. As power is increased, the opposing sets of
magnets repel each other and lift the train into the air. Two other rows of electromagnets, one on
each wall of U-shaped guideway, repeatedly reverse polarity to push or pull on the coach’s
magnets and thus move the train forward.
In planning the train, Japanese engineers chose superconducting magnets because foe a
given input of electricity they generate more intense magnetic fields – and thus greater lifting
and propulsion power – then conventional electromagnets. The drawback: the liquid-helium
coolant needed for the superconducting magnets is expensive and a heavy compressor is required
in each coach to reliquefy the evaporating helium. That is why maglev engineers are excited by
the idea of the new high-temperature superconductors, which would use considerably less
expensive liquid nitrogen as a coolant and require far smaller compressors. The developments of
the past few months, says Research Chief Kazuo Sawada, who has been in on the project from
the beginning, are a “promising sign”.
 In West Germany, on the other hand, the new superconductors are of little interest to
maglev engineers, who abandoned superconducting magnets in 1979. They opted to use
conventional electromagnets instead. The German system is based on magnetic attraction, not
repulsion. The magnets are on assemblies attached to the cars’ undercarriages that curve around
and under the crossbar of a T-shaped track. When the magnets are energized, they pull
themselves up toward the crossbar’s metallic underside and the car is lifted into the air; magnets
in the track provide propulsion. Which technique is better? Both have advantages. The German
maglev is simpler and less expensive to operate. But so far the Japanese trains are about 100
m.p.h. faster.
¹ maglev – поезд на магнитной подушке