Ashley Levesque

ENG 110 I

They Say, I Say Ch. 1 & 3

 

  1. According to Graff and Birkenstein “to give writing the most important thing of all — namely, a point– a writer needs to indicate clearly not only what his or her thesis is, but also what larger conversation that thesis is responding to” (pg. 20). Overall Graff and Birkenstein are implying that it is important to engage with others views and recognize them in order to show the overall topic you are engaged in. This helps spark the concept that there is in fact a larger conversation to be talked about. In other words Graff and Birkenstein are saying the importance of engaging with others views is to set a platform to build your own views on. Without using others thoughts there would be nothing to argue against or with. Another reason that it is important to see others views is to help you construct and frame your own thesis on the topic. As stated by Graff and Birkenstein, “One added benefit of summarizing others’ views as soon as you can: you let those others do some of the work framing and clarifying the issue you’re writing about” (pg. 21). In conclusion it is important to engage in others views in order to improve your stance on the topic and to help frame the overall idea.
  2. It is believed that starting with others opinions in the attempt to provide a “they say” will better help you form an “I Say”. Looking back to my highschool experiences I have always found that in order to deal with the tension of not providing an argument immediately is to keep the “they say” short in order to lead into my views of the topic. Similar to my experiences, Graff and Birkenstein recommend, “that you shouldn’t keep your readers in suspense too long about your central argument, we also believe that you need to present that argument as part of some larger conversation, indication something about the arguments of others that you are supporting, opposing, amending, complication, or qualifying” (21). Graff and Birkenstein views help explain that although having been taught different, it is crucial to provide background on what you are writing and or speaking about.  
  3. A common mistake at my high school known as a “hit and run” quotation (qtd. In Graff and Birkenstein 45) is the use of a quote without any relevance to the work around it. Graff and Birkenstein explain, “Before you can select appropriate quotations, you need to have a sense of what you want to do with them– that is, how they will support your text at the particular point where you insert them. 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” (44). This passage from They say, I say is a good example of one of the many literacy issues I encountered in my high school writing. The use of a quote that has no ties to your writing is essentially useless. As stated above you should have a sense of what that quote will provide for you to assist your topic. A common mistake that I had made was inserting quotes that had a brief note on my topic and using it despite what part in my writing I was using it in. Although the quote would relate to my topic in some aspects it would not fit into the current discussion I was hoping to cram it into.