The Fax Machine 傳真機(jī)

The fax has greatly changed office work， especially in China. When you place a sheet of paper in a fax machine， the machine “reads” the writing on the page and changes the shapes of letters into electronic signals. It then sends these signals down an ordinary telephone line to another fax machine， which changes the signals hack into the shapes of letters. You can imagine how usful this is， particularly in countries like China and Japan， which use written characters not letters. It is also useful for sending pictures， designs， maps and so on.
    Sending a fax in more expensive than posting a letter， but much quicker. For example， you can send information abroad immediately， but mailing a letter might take a week or so. If you want to send a letter to an office abroad that is in a different time one， you can send a fax， and it will be received even though the office is not open. There are two other points to consider. First， remember that a fax can be read by anyone，so be careful what you send！ Second， do not start faxing everything！ It is much cheaper to post or email a long report than to fax it.
    [點(diǎn)評(píng)]
    這篇描述文說(shuō)明了傳真機(jī)是如何工作的以及它的好處。但是它也講了傳真機(jī)使用起來(lái)非常昂貴，而且人人都能讀懂所傳真的文字，所以建議我們慎用傳真機(jī)。文章有理有據(jù)，令人信服。
    [參考譯文]
    傳真機(jī)
    傳真機(jī)使辦公室的工作大為改觀了，特別是在中國(guó)。你把一張紙放進(jìn)傳真機(jī)，機(jī)器就會(huì)“閱讀”紙上的字，并把字形變?yōu)殡娦盘?hào)。然后，機(jī)器把這些電信號(hào)送入普通的電話線路，傳送到另一部傳真機(jī)上，這部傳真機(jī)就把這些信號(hào)再變成字形。你可以想像這種機(jī)器是多么有用，特別是在中國(guó)和日本這些國(guó)家，它們用的是方塊字，而不是字母。傳真機(jī)還可以用來(lái)傳送圖片、圖樣、地圖等等。
    發(fā)送傳真比郵寄信函要貴，但是快得多。比方說(shuō)，你可以把信息立刻傳送到國(guó)外，而寄信則可能需要一周左右。如果你要把一封信寄到國(guó)外不同時(shí)區(qū)的某處辦公室，你就可以發(fā)傳真，即使下班了，還是可以收到。不過(guò)有兩點(diǎn)需要考慮：第一，要記住傳真是人人都可能看的，因此要注意你傳送的內(nèi)容！第二，不要什么東西都發(fā)傳真，郵寄或用電子郵件傳遞一份長(zhǎng)的報(bào)告，要比用傳真發(fā)送便宜得多。