下面一例节选自一篇论说文，它较为清晰地显示了论说文体的主要特点：

Science and Ethics

Science impinges upon ethics in at least five different ways.

In the first place, by its application it creates new ethical situations. Two hundred years ago the news of a famine in China created no duty for Englishmen. They could take no possible action against it. Today the telegraph and the steam engine have made such action possible, and it becomes an ethical problem what action, if any, is right. Two hundred years ago a workman generally owned his own tools. Now his tool may be a crane or steam hammer, and we all have our own views as to whether these should belong to shareholders, the State, or guilds representing the workers.

Secondly, it may create new duties by pointing out previously unexpected consequences of our actions. We are all greed that we should not run the risk of spreading typhoid by polluting the public water supply. We are probably divided as to the duty of vaccinating our children, and we may not all be of one mind as to whether a person likely to transmit club foot or cataract to half his or her children should be compelled to abstain from parenthood.

Thirdly, science affects our whole ethical outlook by influencing our views as to the nature of the world-in fact, by supplanting mythology. One man may see men and animals as a great brotherhood of common ancestry and thus feel an enlargement of his obligations. Another will regard even the noblest aspects of human nature as products of a ruthless struggle for existence and thus justify a refusal to assist the weak and suffering. A third, impressed with the vanity of human efforts amid the vast indifference of the universe, will take refuge in a modified epicureanism. In all these attitudes and in many others there is at least some element of rightness.

Fourthly, in so far as anthropology is becoming scientific, it is bound to have a profound effect on ethics by showing that any given ethical code is only one of a number practiced with equal conviction and almost equal success; in fact, by creating comparative ethics. But, of course, any serious study of the habits of foreigners, whether scientific or not, had this effect, as comes out plainly enough in the history of ancient Greek ethics. Hence science is not wholly responsible for the ethical results of anthropology.

这篇论说文的主题句是Science impinges upon ethics in at least five different ways.作者分别从四个方面来说明这一主题思想，逻辑清晰、层次分明，读后让人一目了然。

翻译英语论说文，应注意以下几点

1(世博英文翻译公司)） 理清原文的篇章结构。论说文的篇章结构往往较为复杂，因此在着手翻译前译者应首先分析一下原文的结构与布局，理清段与段之间的关系，以便从整体上把握全文的脉络。

2） 谨慎遣词造句。论说文在遣词造句上有其明显的特点，因此翻译中译者必须最大限度的体现原文在字、词、句方面的文体特征。在措词方面，一定要使译文与原文在语域上相适应。在句法方面，译文在避免翻译腔的同时应反映原文的句法特征，以体现论说文严谨、慎密的特点。此外，译文还应尽量再现原文的修辞特征，例如，原文如有排比结构，则译文也应设法以排比结构将之译出，以体现原文的气势与感染力。

3(世博北京翻译公司)） 如果原文作者引经据典，译者在翻译中可采取加注或.释义的方法。如译一般论说文，以上2种方法则可视情况选用。如译演讲或发言，应以后一种方法为主。这主要是考虑到译文的语篇功能应与原文对等。当然，如果我们翻译一篇演讲或发言，只为他人参考或为了研究等别的目的，那么译者在处理典故时，不妨多用加注的方法，以便读者参考或弄清出处。

试看下面这篇论说文及其译文：

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a large sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave men, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 翻译公司 (责任编辑：世博翻译公司)