A Study On Xu Tongshen And His Theories Of Official Documents

Xu Tongshen was the master in official documents science during the period of the Republic of China,who engaged himself in practical writing for several decades and spent a lot of time writing his academic works The Historical Research about Official Documents(Gong Du Xue Shi).He is the first one to advocate official documents science and study the history of official documents.It is a pity that Xu's theories is hardly known and his works is rarely read by people,so I take the liberty of doing some research about it and write this paper.As usual,the part of introduction includes the background,literature review,intention,significance and methods about this paper,and the main body is divided into five chapters:The old saying goes that understand the writers and comment on their times,so if we want to have a deeper comprehension about Xu,we should know his lifetime,family background,information about his teachers and friends,and his works.All these are about Chapter One.The Historical Research about Official Documents is Xu's prime works which reflects his theories about official documents,so we should summarize its main idea and know different editions of the book.And Xu started to state his own theories in his two books Common Sense about Official Documents Writing(Zhi Du Xu Zhi)and General Explanation of Official Documents(Gong Du Quan Yi),which have a close relation with The Historical Research about Official Documents and we should pay attention to it.All these are about Chapter Two.I think Xu's theories can be divided into two parts: one is the thought about official documents witting,and the other is the thought about history of official documents.The thought about official documents witting tells us how to write official documents.If we want to write official documents,we should know what official documents is,so firstly we explore the definition of official documents.The genres of official documents are so diversity that sometime we can't distinguish them with each other,so we should do some research on the genres of official documents.In different times,different people have different styles of official documents,but there is something common among them,so we should focus on the styles of official documents.Official documents differ from literary works,and they have their special characteristics and writing skill,so we should realize the skill of official documentswriting.The cultural quality of a person plays a key role in official documents writing,so we should keep our eyes on the cultural quality of official documents writers.All these are about Chapter Three.The thought about history of official documents tells us how to write the history of official documents.The Historical Research about Official Documents is quite groundbreaking and has been having an important influence on the development of records science.If we have a clear view about it intention,type and historical division,analyze the arrangement of order and the selecting of historical materials,comment on the use of adduction and whether the expression is detailed or brief,and know the inheritance and innovation,we will understand Xu's thoughts about history of official documents.All these are about Chapter Four.Although Xu's theories about official documents are ignored by people for a long time,they are quite helpful and valuable,especially in official documents writing,development of official documents writers' cultural quality and the compilation of official documents history.All these are about Chapter Five.