Journal #4

In the Introduction to They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed for student's use right away to structure his/her writing; to generate writing; to help the writer successfully enter the world of academic thinking and writing, of civic discourse and work; to help put abstract models principles of writing into practice; to give the writer an immediate sense of how to engage in these kinds of critical thinking required at a college-level and beyond; and to represent simple, but crucial, writing moves. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein argue that the types of writing templates they offer help present the writer's ideas as a response to some other person or group. As the authors themselves put it, “Broadly speaking, academic writing is argumentative writing, and we believe that to argue well you need to do more than assert your own ideas. You need to enter a conversation, using what others say (or might say) as a launching pad or sounding board for your own ideas.” Although some people believe "...in order to succeed academically you need to play it safe and avoid controversy in your writing, making statements that nobody can possibly disagree with", Graff and Birkenstein insist that this type of writing "... is actually a recipe for flat, lifeless writing, and for writing that fails to answer what we call the 'so what?' and 'who cares?' questions." In sum, hen, their view is that a writer needs to mix a little bit of argument in with their writing, something that not everyone can agree with, to make their writing interesting. As well, they feel that the writer needs to speak not only their own viewpoints, but use points from other's arguments and works as a base for the writer's own work.


I agree with Graff and Birkenstein’s feelings on templates. In my view, the types of templates that the authors recommend will help students first find the point to their essay, have proof, and the ability to back it up through the simple use of template.. For instance, a template I might follow to state a point would be to first state a general fact about your point, and then contradict that known statement with your view and back it up with proof. For example, On the one hand templates could be promoting a lazy student. On the other hand, template allow students and readers to clearly see the argument at hand, someone else point “they say” and then what you want to say the “I say”, and then back it up with proof. Templates make writers go into depth with their own views, by explicitly teaching the writers to pin point someone else view to build off of. Some might object, of course, on the grounds that templates are very straightforward and they have problems recognizing that crucial step in connecting the two points together with your own proof without going into detail. Yet I would argue that students should have some specific types of templates under their belts so they can be equipped to write any type of paper. Overall, then, I believe templates are amazing-an important point to make given that I have a problem connecting someone else’s view to the mine own, and then mixing the evidence into the views. This reading was very helpful and can’t wait to see if it works in my rhetorical analysis paper.