They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff

They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing Reviews

• 
  carol.

  Very interesting premise, namely, looking at academic writing as participating in a dialogue. It's a fascinating idea that goes back to at least Greek roots in the Socratic dialogue. (Come to think of it, some Eastern teachers use that technique as well; I'm just not well-versed in non-Western history). I think it's a technique that helps a student place their work in a larger conversation, and elevate an academic essay above the "explanatory" work into a work that defends or promotes a viewpoint. The writers' mission can be summed up: "Yet despite this growing consensus that writing is a social, conversational act, helping student writers actually participate in these conversations remains a formidable challenge. This book aims to meet that challenge. Its goal is to demystify academic writing by isolating its basic moves, explaining them clearly and representing them in the form of templates."
  
  Broken into four parts, the first part is called, "They Say," and gives students examples of how to take a position, then summarize and quote others in their works. The second section, "I Say," leads the writer how to respond to the "they say" arguments, and how to distinguish one's own position from differing ones. (Incidentally, my professor had us read Martin Luther King's "Letters from a Birmingham Jail" which uses nearly every instance of these techniques, and is a truly impressive essay. For that alone, I'm grateful to her). The third section addresses analysis and conclusions, and shows how to connect the parts, using one's own voice and metacommentary.
  
  The last section addresses writing within specific settings, namely, writing for science, in the social sciences, entering class conversations and deciphering author viewpoints.
  
  Each chapter ends with a few exercises which lead the reader through understanding the technique and how to implement it.
  
  Contains templates to help beginning academic writers formulate ideas, and has a number of specific suggestions throughout to help writers integrate these techniques.
  
  Overall, an interesting read for an academic book. It was required reading for an English Composition class. I wouldn't have mind having run into this in high school or college when I first started academic writing. Four stars for quality of ideas, approachability and useful techniques, if not actual enjoyment.
• 
  Ayla

  My two stars are generous. If you need this book's atrocious templates to write a paper, you have some serious literary remediation to do.
  
  The templates, when strung together into a disjointed paragraph of concessions and cliches, make for an amazingly boring and unoriginal essay. Even when incorporated into an otherwise mediocre paper, they stand out as obvious regurgitations of what the writer feels an academic paper "should" say.
  
  Any scholar who pridefully publishes the words "I'm of two minds about X's claim that______. On the one hand, I agree that _____. On the other hand, I'm not sure if______." in that order will drastically degrade his paper's quality and damage his credibility in the reader's mind.
  
  Forgiving the contractions and weak verbs, because frankly I don't plan on writing an article on this template, this template lacks anything resembling style or interest to the reader.
  
  "I'm of two minds..." Just... no. Orwell would shit his pants reading that (read "Politics and the English Language" if you want realistic and credible writing advice). The writer did absolutely no thinking in composing that phrase.
  
  "One the one hand... on the other hand..." I could accept that in a middle schooler's persuasive paper, though I'd cringe a bit.
  
  "I'm not sure if ____" No, fuck off. You're not sure? That's what you say when the waiter mentions the restaurant's special on fried squid testicles. Give me a clear position and argue it. And stop with the damn contractions.
  
  
• 
  Lisajean

  I was skeptical of the templates and worried that they would limit my students and lead to formulaic writing, but instead they helped students organize their thoughts, express more complex ideas, and frame their arguments as part of a larger conversation. After only a few exercise with the templates, I noticed students incorporating them into their writing on their own and doing so effectively. Although I’m happy with the results, the reason I’m not giving They Say, I Say more stars is firstly that it would have been better as an article rather than a book and secondly the authors suggest a much more extensive use of templates than I think is helpful for students. I would recommend using this book judiciously as a tool to help students organize their writing, but be careful not to overdo it. I would rather have slightly disorganized writing expressing authentic ideas in students’ individual voices than homogeneous, formulaic essays.
• 
  Demetrius Rogers

  For a book on academic writing, this was excellent. I wish this kind of thing, however, would be promoted at a much broader level. The principles of this book are not just for writing dissertations, but for having courteous conversations. Your response is only as good as your ability to listen. You can't even disagree (or know to agree) until you understand. Restate what you're hearing until the speaker is satisfied with your level of comprehension. Then, and only then, do you have the credibility to offer a response. The more intelligent a conversation, the more civil it will be. As one of my professors once said, "Charity precedes critique." This book is a terrific exposition of that idea.
• 
  Jenny (Reading Envy)

  When students on my campus are flagged for citation troubles and tried for plagiarism, one thing they have to do is come to me for a plagiarism tutorial. Because students accidentally plagiarize (and sometimes not accidentally) for a lot of different reasons, I don't just have a pre-packaged tutorial I send them off to do. I'm finding that most often, students simply are not equipped to write about ideas they have found.
  
  This book attempts to guide students through strategies for handling the ideas of others (even in the research and notetaking stages) and then how to signal they are using another's ideas in a paper. The authors then move into helping students understand how to write about their own ideas, which is another type of struggle. Entering the scholarly conversation can be terrifying!
  
  The book is most useful in the first half, with lists of ideas, examples of quotations handled properly, demonstrates effective paraphrasing, etc. The second half contains full essays for students to reference, but I feel like unless they are required to interact with them in a class setting, they are unlikely to read those. I'm not sure they need to be in the book.
• 
  Gaijinmama

  This is one of the most useful books I've ever encountered if you teach academic writing, reading, or critical thinking.
  Some instructors might disagree, but I find the use of templates very helpful for my students. In my opinion, it is not encouraging plagiarism to give the students a template to make it easier for them. (For example, "Author X makes an excellent point that_____, but I would also add_____." They are not native English speakers and it is crucial for them to be given a clear idea of what is expected. Once they get used to it, they can bend the rules!
  
  The articles at the end of the book are all good reads, in addition to being great examples of academic written discourse. I also respect the authors' position on the use of first person . They say it's acceptable, I more-or-less disagree but that is probably because my students have problems with it which may be particular to their cultural and linguistic background.
  Finally, and most important, the author's main point, that writing is a kind of conversation, makes a lot of sense and they really develop this point clearly and effectively. Because of the focus on writing as a dialogue, this book is helpful for discussion and presentation skills as well as writing.
  
• 
  Udeni

  The authors' aim is to help student writers take part in an academic conversation. Their definition of writing well consists of summarising current debate (they say) and setting up one's own arguments (I say). Each chapter provides simple templates to help students make these move in their own writing. For example,
  "In discussions of X, one controversial issue has been _____ . One the one hand, ____ aruges ____. On the other hand, ____ contends ____. Others even maintain _____ . My own view is _____."
  
  Part One consists of three chaptres which cover how to describe a viewpoint, how to summarise a discussion, and how to correctly quote others. Part Two contains four chapters, which cover ways to respond to others' work, idetnifying one's own argument, introducing objections, and explaing the importance of a discussion. Part Three covers how to connect arguments seamlessly, writing in an individual voice and a revision chapter. Part Four has specific advice for writers in the arts, sciences, and social scients. There are some weaker chapters on digital communications and verbal discussions.
  
  This is an essential book for 16-18 year olds, and useful for first year undergraduates. Non-native English speakers at postgraduate level will also find this book useful. Teachers can use the exercises at the end of each chapter for class discussions or homework.
  
  The paperback edition loses one star for thin paper and for faint ink, which make the book flimsy and unreadable. Another star was dropped for the patronising writing style. A book that I will probably return to, but not with relish.
• 
  Siria

  This is a very useful guide that introduces students to the basic concepts of argumentative writing at the college level. Graff and Birkenstein stress that students remember they are not writing in a vacuum but rather to a particular audience as part of a larger ongoing conversation. Some of the templates they provide for students to incorporate into their writing are a little clichéd, sure ("On the one hand... On the other hand"), but they will help students who are only beginning to learn how to write critically.
  
  (It's not, after all, necessarily an intuitive skill—one of the things that left me confused and anxious as an undergrad was getting back papers with comments that read, in their entirety, "More analysis." Now when I look back at my earliest work, I can see clearly what my professors meant; then, I thought that that was what I was doing and couldn't figure out how to do better.)
  
  Graff and Birkenstein's templates are like training wheels for student writers, helping them to formulate ideas in ways that are new to them and hopefully to be discarded as composition and analytical skills improve. "They Say/I Say" is also a useful book for instructors to read, as it provides several reminders of the kinds of things that may now be second nature to us but which are likely to be stumbling blocks for students.
• 
  Sarah Cammelot

  I could appreciate this book as a great read for beginning writers, but I firmly believe that writing is learned by practice of creativity, not template. I personally feel that this book was too template-focused and did not emphasize the writers natural flow of words enough.
• 
  gillian

  Just not enjoyable 🤷‍♀️
  
  I had to read it for summer reading. I think it has good lessons but not my favorite.
• 
  Megan

  I read the first edition of this book in my freshman composition class and now I teach the fourth edition to the students in my freshman composition class. It's wild out here.
• 
  Donna

  This book was used for my class, The Writing Process. My class was 12 weeks long and having to use this book for 12 long weeks was excruciating. In my opinion, Graff does not give the student enough credit, as this neat little book tries to do all the work for you! Just fill in the blanks. I also thought this book was biased, old fashioned in some of its stories. I saw it as an agenda for a college professor and former MLA President to get colleges to use his book. I think this is a conflict of interest. He thinks he knows what the American Experience is. He defines street smarts in a unique way, not exactly what I have seen as a definition in my lifetime. He assumes too much for the reader. He should have given us more credit. I have to use this book for my next class also...
• 
  Rashaan

  Informative in terms of getting ideas for pinning down points of view and learning specific terms and phrases for rhetorical modes like comparison/contrast or transitioning between paragraphs, etc--but I'm very wary, very very wary of using templates. Inevitably, templates become too formulaic, and the students end up regurgitating the same terms, phrases, and words without any originality or creativity in wielding our English language.
• 
  Joshua Lister

  Basic but in the exceedingly helpful kind of way. I'm sure I will reference this more in the future.
• 
  Ioana

  2006, Literary crutches aren’t the worst thing: learning to listen and write in the age of LOL
  
  
  I am so grateful for Gerald’s Graff and Cathy’s Birkenstein effort to lay down the rhetorical steps for dialogical writing. This book has opened my eyes to the countless mistakes I was and still am making. An excellent book!
  
  
  
  notes:
  -other opinions aside your own should be conveyed correctly and in good faith - this means the onnus is on the writer to listen
  -don’t assume the reader knows everything. Explain quotes, add metacommentaries (reformulate your explanation with more clarity, demystify, reinforce the point you were making)
  -include as many points of view as it is sensible and and allow them to interact with your original thesis
  -”John Stuart Mill pointed up the connection when he observed that we do not understand our own ideas until we know what can be said against them.”(Clueless in Academe)
  -plant the seed of doubt
  -name the beholder of the opposing view
  -there is too much of a thing as contrast
  -the world is full of passive receivers of knowledge
  -instead of retaliation, argument
  -be receptive to other perspectives
  -ideas should flow from one paragraph to the other; the argumentation should be easy to follow
  
  
  My former choleric review:
  
  Modern society is founded on the premise that divergence of opinions implies more dialogue than conflict, isn’t it. If that’s the case, why is the simple act of refusing to be like everyone else, oftentimes, a punishable offense? Or is my following perspective simply too pessimistic?
  
  
  Dialogue? Entire discourses about learning to interact with others have been perorated by expert soliloquists. Length is now frowned upon no matter what. We speak in:
  •bullet points.
  There can be no “overture”. Skip that. Mention this in a letter to an alien and he’d be perhaps inclined to think we’ve reached some sort of enlightenment while we got rid of the agenda of pesky initiations and Minerva won. We’ve even abbreviated abbreviations (ONS). Thus, the future looks bright for any type of orgasms we look forward to. We’ve finally done it. We’re not conflictual anymore. We’re anesthetized.
  
  Conflict? Gone are the days when ideological wars were sparked between writers of substance, decrepit Mars has long retired in a yoga centre. Instead of Camus vs Sartre we have Franzen vs Oprah’s book club (
  https://youtu.be/uPCB29a63W4). No Zola’s are rushing in any affairs. To be fair, we have Zizeks, Petersons and other princes of YouTube, as one Jordan Foisy of Vice argues (although nothing in his writing would make you think he’s past 14). I agree there are interesting and even valuable discourses taking place nowadays, but I doubt we can truly look up to people who contemplate divine percepts while selling you mugs or dating advice or whatever the hell else. What I’m trying to say is that everyone is so very unremittingly...in your face. I wonder if debates would take place away from public eyes between our “Youtube lords”. You think they’d bother if it weren’t for the tickets? I don’t know, you tell me. Any type of caxtons are published, as if an intransigent paranoid invisible committee is demanding us to release everything imaginable in order to somehow prove we uphold democratic values. This is just a light variation on Fahrenheit 451 - you see, there is no need to burn all the books -is it better to flood the libraries with anything?
  
  Is there an intellectual need that is more acute than the need to be heard? Even solitude yearns to be understood, and this is why Gerald’s Graff and Cathy’s Birkenstein effort to lay down the rhetorical steps for dialogical writing matters. After all, it’s better to avoid Echo’s faith, who was punished to repeat the last words of others.
  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2o...
  
  Do we use writing as a mean to engage in dialogue with others or as another tool for nurturing uncritical thinking? Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert points out about group writing (but applies to other ‘-ings’):The main goal of group writing is to ensure that every sentence satisfies all the objectives of every person in the room. This can be problematic if all the participants have different objectives. You can minimize the impact of different objectives by focusing on the goals that all parties can agree on:
  1. Don't convey any information whatsoever. 2. See number one.(The Dilbert Principle) The clear implication is that there’s no new information getting through as long as dissension is avoided with all cost. This is what happens when parents (mostly the new age mothers) tell their kids that in life there are no wins. Maybe it’s a new form of punishment, a successful substitute for the beatings from back in the days?
  
  
  They say/ I say reminded me that the social predicaments of our times shouldn’t rob us of our opinions. That the true writer isn’t a vehicle for validating the myth of the lone genius, but more similar to the village drunkard, who, depending on his God-given predispositions, either fights or sings with everyone. And the more tame of us are neither loners or drunkards or clowns of that caliber, but animals capable of a more balanced act (unlike this review). Even if “Readers and writers are united in their need for solitude, in the pursuit of substance in a time of ever-increasing evanescence: in their reach inward, via print, for a way out of loneliness.”, that does not mean that “The first thing that reading teaches us is how to be alone.” If anything, that is the last thing I’d like reading to teach me.
  
  
• 
  Kris

  A fantastic, actually helpful resource for academic writers.
  
  It's very liberal/lefty, but that's exposed only in the pieces the authors selected for critique. The writing advice itself is very good.
  
  I read the third edition, from 2016, which contains extra chapters on literature and modern Internet technology. This audiobook version also contained some excerpts at the end from essays and short stories to use for practical exercises.
  
  Leave it to Norton Publishing to create a handy guide like this. A truly great addition to any writer's personal shelf, or in combination with another textbook or text.
• 
  Haley S

  The first portion of the book was really interesting! It gave me some good ideas for how to make my writing more interesting and understandable to all readers.
  However, the articles or "readings" section was not as interesting or good, in my opinion.
• 
  Sean

  4.5 Real good stuff. Worth reading for anyone. The best "argumentation" teacher/student guide I've come across so far.
• 
  Alicia

  Wow, I was super impressed at how useful and informative this was without the pretense of “you don’t know how to write so we’ll try to teach you but from our pedestal on high”.
  
  Instead, this one literally said, we know writing is hard but we also know writing can be revised to be better too. Don’t you want to be understood? Here are templates, yes, templates, you’re welcome.
  
  And to this I say thank you. It reinforced beliefs, dispels myths, and generally cares to help with a variety of chapters on whatever you need. I like it’s quick compact size. My only issue is the tissue-paper thin paper that might rip easily when using!
• 
  Michelle

  This book, given to me by my dear friend Scott who studied under Gerald Graff, singlehandedly improved my essays. It seems weird to have templates for writing essays, but they gave me better ideas about how to enter conversations in my essays and how to move from one paragraph to the next. I had my students read the whole book and then asked them to have 7 out of the 10 elements in their essays. The only things that I've noticed to be confusing for people is their absolute negativity towards using "I" in essays (so I've figured out ways to be personal without using "I" or "me" or whatever else is taboo in a lot of academic writing), and the fact that people don't know how to fit the ten elements neatly into the five-paragraph essay because the book doesn't really go over essay organization.
  
  Don't get me wrong, the five-paragraph essay form has been great in getting a lot of people to learn how to write essays. But somewhere after the first year of writing them, it's time to move on and you just have to see how to really organize essays, five paragraphs or 2,000 paragraphs. So I would at least add to this book my advice that you should write your introduction and your conclusion last. Because you never really know what's going to happen in your writing until you're done. And even when you are writing the introduction and conclusion, sometimes you'll discover something new that needs to be incorporated into the body. So I guess there's one more thing--do NOT ever come up with some new ideas in your conclusion. A conclusion should really be called a "summary" in my opinion.
  
  Wow, can you tell I have a lot of thoughts on this? Email me if you want help with your essay. Ha.
• 
  Jørgen Johnson

  I am not particular religious. Indeed, I believe that the world would, in total, be better off without it. Don't get me wrong, religious people can do tremendous amount of good in the world. But these are the people, not the religious dogmas behind them. If it were up to me, then, religion would be replaced.
  
  Replaced, that is, with the holiness of They Say/ I Say. If I were to start a religion, this book would be the holy text and Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein would be the prophets. The concepts of They say/ I say would be the gods; both two and one at the same time- a bit similar to Yin/Yang, God/Jesus, or taco and mango.
  
  Back to being a bit serious, this book has helped me tremendously. As a psychology student, I read and write a lot. They Say/ I Say has helped me not only to write my own essays, but also to understand how what I read is built up (in all areas, from social psychology to neuroscience). This skill is also something I've found useful in other non-academic areas, such as understanding how arguments are built up in debates.
  
  To conclude, this book is the book equivalent of a toolbox. As with toolboxes, one never quite finished with it.
  
  EDIT: I've noticed in other reviews that people complain about how the templates are too strict, surpressing rather than enhancing thought. How I see them, however, they are suggestions or guidelines. One does not have to follow them, but they can be useful to base one's writing in. I often find myself starting with a template, only to change the formulation as the argument continues.
• 
  MB (What she read)

  3.5 stars.
  Assigned textbook for class. This book is made up of about 1/3 teaching material and 2/3 essays, articles, speeches, etc. intended for reading/discussions/class assignments. Overall, I thought it did a pretty good job. The "They Say/I Say" part was clear and easily understood. Good examples were provided. The readings were divided into five main themes, and were pretty interesting. Some were new to me, and some familiar. (Some of the readings seemed a teensy bit dated now, but not too bad.)
  
  Thoughts while reading: As far as a textbook goes, this one contains good information in an easy-to-understand and succinct form. However, I sure am noticing a lot of typos, and missing citations and/or attributions. Needs more proofing??? (Authors, get out the red pencil.)
• 
  Mary

  I think I would have hated this book if I were assigned it as a freshman in college. But I was kind of an asshole then, as are most college freshman.
  
  As such, high school seems the better forum to teach a lot of these very basic writing skills. I used this to help me scaffold a persuasive paper I assigned to eleventh graders and they really seemed to appreciate the help. Graff breaks down the elements of good academic persuasive writing into such useful, manageable chunks that it was a breeze to design mini-lessons around them. I never used the text itself with the kids, but it came in really handy in the planning stages.
• 
  Nan

  
  They Say I Say is one of my favorite composition textbooks. It explains writing in a way that students can understand, and it opens the world of academic discourse to them. The readings in this edition were timely and well-chosen. Over the years that I've used this book, I've become more and more impressed with it.
• 
  Jeremy

  We covered Chs. 1-7 in ENG 1304 at Baylor. Some sections are clearly biased towards a politically correct agenda, but often slivers of sanity slip through the cracks. If it weren't for the obviously liberal bias, I'd give it four stars—it's got really excellent advice for writers.
• 
  Alyssa Chrisman

  Clear book that is helpful for anyone writing an academic/argumentative paper. I love the templates-- they are especially helpful when teaching others about writing. I appreciate the chapter on language/voice as well.
• 
  Noah

  In “They Say / I Say,” Graff and Birkenstein seek to demystify the critical and analytical “moves” that are essential to academic writing. The book is actually designed as a toolkit, laying out the various moves that writers make when engaging critically with an idea. The authors even including a set of fill-in-the-blank “templates” for students seeking to make such moves.
  
  The most important move that the author’s identify is the one that gives the book its name. Graff and Birkenstein point out that meaningful positions are always developed in response to or in conversation with the words and ideas of those who have already spoken. Thus they argue that a basic initial move for making an argument is to give the context within which the argument is being put forward. What is the current state of the debate? What do “they say”? It is only within the framework of the status quo, they suggest, that it makes any sense at all for us to add our own perspective (“I say”). This dialogical approach (the authors open their preface with a nod to Bahktin) also emphasizes the living nature of argumentation. By imagining themselves in dialogue, students can begin to understand the ever-unfinished business of making meaning, the significant role of analogy and order in building their arguments, and perhaps even the importance of saying what they mean in terms that make misunderstanding less likely.
  
  As a basic first step toward better student writing, the importance of the first half of the “They say / I say” equation cannot be understated. In my experience, one of the most pervasive habits that weakens the power of student writing is their inattention to nuances and meaning in textual material from which their writing is meant to spring. Article responses and blogs in my classes often suffer from a severe case of “I think” syndrome, wherein opinion is piled upon opinion, without any sense of a larger world. These students know how to “use evidence” insofar as this is understood to mean “add reasons.” Even when I require students to “cite textual evidence,” this “evidence” is in general added “to help prove” such and such a point. The nuances of the author’s original argument, the conversation of which is was a part, is lost in the surface-level “appeal to authority.”
  
  In this regard, Graff and Birkenstein’s templates are pretty ingenious. Far from being “cheat-sheet” fill-in-the-blank exercises, the templates are designed to pull back the curtain on the kinds of syntactic relationships that are available to academic writers. As a rather complex case in point, take the following template, which comes from the section of the text dedicated to “Disagreeing, with Reasons”:
  
  By focusing on ______, X overlooks the deeper problem of _____.
  
  Far from doing the hard work of critical thinking for a student, such a formulation opens up the field of possible thinking to include a more nuanced understanding of authorial intention. The template gains its power because it exposes a possibility for weakness or disagreement (one based on an author’s myopic focus) that a student might otherwise miss because she doesn’t know such a position is possible. Moreover, the relationship between a source text (a “they say”) and the student’s own ideas (the “I say”) that the template sets up emphasizes the dialogic nature of a student’s claims. Within the formula, the student is asked to see her own ideas as growing out of a particular grievance, weakness, or issue with the ideas of another thinker. The work of “filling in the blanks” is by no means easy: specificity and clarity of expression are demanded on both sides of the equation, and for any given text there are more incorrect, confusing, or meaningless, ways to fill these blanks than there are cogent and thoughtful responses. Still, the power of these templates lies in the way that the outline new sets of possibilities for interacting with the ideas of other thinkers. Such patterns, the authors rightly suggest, have become habits of mind for experienced writers. By throwing focus on them, they say, we can help struggling students practice them more deliberately.