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

• 
  Jeremy Garber

  Faculty often think students can’t learn to write better. Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein think otherwise, and show us all a simple way to help them do so through the use of writing templates. These two opening sentences model the way that the authors have successfully coached students in the art of writing academic arguments – “they say,” and “I say.” They begin in their preface by correctly observing that “The trouble is that many students will never learn on their own to make the key intellectual moves that our templates represent. While seasoned writers pick up these moves unconsciously through their reading, most students do not.” The rest of the book provides specific templates that help students correctly and sympathetically summarize the arguments of the texts they’re reading, and then provide their own agreements and/or disagreements with clear and reasoned evidence. The authors also pay careful attention to maintaining students’ own voices in writing (yes, it’s OK to use “I”!) and the communal, dialogical nature of research and argument. The book closes by providing models of online discussion and writing for several specific fields, including humanities, science, and social science, and several readings for students to analyze using the tools in this text. Online resources also include online tutorials, quizzes, and resources for particular LMSes. As a graduate-level writing director, I plan to use Graff and Birkenstein’s template on a regular basis – students have found these templates not pedantic or babyish, but eminently useful.
• 
  Akbar Ato

  This book is not short, not long. Full of templates and vocabularies you can write your paper with.
  
  Although it was produced before ChatGPT, it is still of value. You can find language for supporting, rejecting ideas, elaborating, acknowledging weaknesses.
  
  The author makes a compelling argument. Templates are not to replace creativity, but to boost creativity. For starters, they advise using templates. Later on, they suggest writing your own words.
  
  What I love about the book is its underlying approach: They say, I say, You see. Essentially, it means we are writing not to ourselves. We answer other people, scholars; we join ongoing conversations.
  
  4 out of 5. It’s a bit long with some repetition.
• 
  Yvonne S.

  For WRIT 150
  Technically dnf (read a few pages)