They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein

• At the core of this book is the premise that good argumentative writing begins not with an act of assertion but an act of listening, of putting ourselves in the shoes of those who think differently from us. As a result, we advise writers to begin not with what they themselves think about their subject but with what others think.
• Experienced writing instructors have long recognized that writing well means entering into conversation with others. Academic writing in particular calls upon writers not simply to express their own ideas, but to do so as a response to what others have said.
• The central rhetorical move that we focus on in this book is the "they say/I say" template that gives our book its title. In our view, this template represents the deep, underlying structure, the internal DNA as it were, of all effective argument.
• Since reading and writing are deeply reciprocal activities, students who learn to make the rhetorical moves represented by the templates in this book figure to become more adept at identifying these same moves in the texts they read.
• In our experience, students best discover what they want to say not by thinking about a subject in an isolation booth, but by reading texts, listening closely to what other writers say, and looking for an opening through which they can enter the conversation. In other words, listening closely to others and summarizing what they have to say can help writers generate their own ideas.
• Often without consciously realizing it, accomplished writers routinely rely on a stock of established moves that are crucial for communicating sophisticated ideas.
• What makes writers masters of their trade is not only their ability to express interesting thoughts but their mastery of an inventory of basic moves that they probably picked up by reading a wide range of other accomplished writers.
• If there is any one point that we hope you will take away from this book, it is the importance not only of expressing your ideas but of presenting those ideas as a response to some other person or group.
• Broadly speaking, academic writing is argumentative writing, and we believe that to argue well you need to do more than assert your own position. You need to enter a conversation, using what others say (or might say) as a launching pad or sounding board for your own views.
• A writer needs to indicate clearly not only what his or her theses is, but also what larger conversation that thesis is responding to.
• To keep an audience engaged, a writer needs to explain what he or she is responding to-either before offering that response or, at least, very early in the discussion.
• When is comes to constructing an argument, we offer you the following advice: remember that you are entering a conversation and therefore need to start with "what others are saying," and then introduce your own ideas as a response.
• It is generally best to summarize the ideas you're responding to briefly, at the start of your text, and to delay detailed elaboration until later.
• By reminding readers of the ideas you're responding to, return sentences ensure that your text maintains a sense of mission and urgency from start to finish. In short, they help ensure that your argument is a genuine response to others' views rather than just a set of observations about a given subject.
• To be responsive to others and the conversation you're entering, you need to start with what others are saying and continue keeping it in the reader's view.
• Because writers who make strong claims need to make their claims relative to those of other people, it is important to know how to summarize effectively what those other people says.
• As a general rule, a good summary requires balancing what the original author is saying with the writer's own focus. Generally speaking, a summary must at once be true to what the original author says while also emphasizing those aspects of what the author says that interest you, the writer.
• To write a really good summary, you must be able to suspend your own beliefs for a time and put yourself in the shoes of someone else.
• When a writer fails to provide enough summary or to engage in a rigorous or serious enough summary, he or she often falls prey to what we call "the closest cliche syndrome", in which what gets summarized is not the view the author in question has actually expressed but a familiar cliche that the writer mistakes for the author's view.
• If the summary ignores or misrepresents the source, its bias and unfairness will show.
• Once a summary enters your text, you should think of it as joint property--reflecting both the source you are summarizing and your own views.
• A key premise of this book is that to launch an effective argument you need to write the arguments of others into your text. One of the best ways to do so is by not only summarizing what "they say", but by quoting their exact words.
• Be careful not to select quotations just for the sake of demonstrating that you've read the author's work; you need to make sure they support your own argument.
• The one piece of advice about quoting that our students say they find most helpful is to get in the habit of following every major quotation by explaining what it means.
• Though there's certainly no substitute for expertise and for knowing as much as possible about on'es topic, the arguments that finally win the day are built, on some very basic rhetorical patterns that most of use on a daily basis.
• It is always a good tactic to begin your response not by launching directly into a mass of details but by stating clearly whether you agree, disagree, or both, using a direct, no-nonsense formula such as: "I agree", "I disagree", or "I am of two minds. ..."
• Disagreeing can also be the easiest way to generate an essay: find something you can disagree with in what has been said or might be said about your topic, summarize it, and argue with it.
• You need to do more than imply assert that you disagree with a particular view; you also have to offer persuasive reasons why you disagree.
• To move the conversation forward (and, indeed, to justify your very act of writing), you need to demonstrate that you have something to contribute.
• Like disagreeing, agreeing is less simple than it may appear. Just as you need to avoid simply contradicting views you disagree with, you also need to do more than simply echo views you agree with.
• If good academic writing involves putting yourself into dialogue with others, it is extremely important that readers be able to tell at every point when you are expressing your own view and then you are stating someone else's.
• To avoid confusion in your own writing, make sure that at every point your readers can clearly tell who is saying what.
• When readers cannot tell if you are summarizing your own views or endorsing a certain phrase or label, they have to stop and think.
• Getting in the habit of using voice markers will keep you from confusing your readers and help alert you to similar markers in the challenging texts you read.
• Once you see writing as an act of entering a conversation, you should also see how opposing arguments can work for you rather than against you.
• Often the best way to overcome an objection is not to try to refute it completely but to agree with part of it while challenging only the part you dispute.
• Regardless of how interesting a topic may be to you as a writer, readers always need to know what is at stake in a text and why they should care. All too often, however, these questions are left unanswered--mainly because writers and speakers assume that audiences will know the answers already or will figure them out on their own.
• For readers to follow your train of thought, you need not only to connect your sentences and paragraphs to each other, but also to mark the kind of connection you are making.
• Transitions are usually placed at or near the start of sentences so they can signal to readers where your text is going: in the same direction it has been moving, or in a new direction.
• To effectively connect the parts of your argument and keep it moving forward, be careful not to leap from one idea to a different idea or introduce new ideas cold. Instead, try to build bridges between your ideas by echoing what you've just said while simultaneously moving your text into new territory.
• You can always experiment with your language and improve it. You can always dress it up, dress it down, or some combination of both.
• The most persuasive writing often doubles back and comments on its own claims in ways that help readers negotiate and process them. Instead of simply piling claim upon claim, effective writers are constantly "stage managing" how their claims will be received.
• The single most important thing you need to do when joining an ongoing class discussion is to link what you are about to say to something that has already been said.
• As these historical examples show, scientific writing is fundamentally argumentative. Like all academic writers, scientists make and defend claims.
• Anticipating objections in your own writing will help you clarify and address potential criticisms. Consider objections to your overall approach, as well as to specific aspects of your interpretations.