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CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION xv
PREFACE xxi
Demystifying Academic Conversation
INTRODUCTION 1
Entering the Conversation
PART 1. “THEY SAY”
1 “THEY SAY” 19
Starting with What Others Are Saying
2 “HER POINT IS” 32
The Art of Summarizing
3 “AS HE HIMSELF PUTS IT” 47
The Art of Quoting
PART 2. “I SAY”
4 “YES / NO / OK, BUT” 59
Three Ways to Respond
5 “AND YET” 74
Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say
6 “SKEPTICS MAY OBJECT” 84
Planting a Naysayer in Your Text
* 7 “IN MY EXPERIENCE” 97
Using Personal Stories to Energize Your Argument
8 “SO WHAT? WHO CARES?” 112
Saying Why It Matters
PART 3. TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
9 “AS A RESULT” 123
Connecting the Parts
10 “YOU MEAN I CAN JUST SAY IT THAT WAY?” 139
Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your
Own Voice
11 “BUT DON’T GET ME WRONG” 154
The Art of Metacommentary
12 “WHAT I REALLY WANT TO SAY IS” 165
Revising Substantially
PART 4. IN SPECIFIC ACADEMIC CONTEXTS
13 “I TAKE YOUR POINT” 188
Entering Class Discussions
14 WHAT’S MOTIVATING THIS WRITER? 193
Reading for the Conversation
15 “BUT AS SEVERAL SOURCES SUGGEST” 205
Research as Conversation
16 “ON CLOSER EXAMINATION” 234
Entering Conversations about Literature
17 “THE DATA SUGGEST” 252
Writing in the Sciences
18 “ANALYZE THIS” 271
Writing in the Social Sciences
* 19 “HELP ME UNDERSTAND . . .” 290
When Your “They Say” Is a Bot
READINGS 307
Hidden Intellectualism 309
G ERALD G RAFF
* Disability in Higher Education: Building Access and
Building
Futures 316
Y AEL L ENGA
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness 330
M ICHELLE A LEXANDER
All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind “All Lives
Matter”
344
K ELLY C ORYELL
* Left Behind: Internet Access for People Behind Bars
358
J OE G ARCIA
* Go Ahead: Waste Time on the Internet 361
K ENNETH G OLDSMITH
“Rise of the Machines” Is Not a Likely Future 366
M ICHAEL L ITTMAN
SEE ALSO
Roe Butt, Cy Borg, Ann Droid: Hint, They’re Not Taking
Your Job
224
J ASON S MITH
CREDITS 371
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 373
* APPENDIX: CITING WHAT “THEY SAY” 387
INDEX OF TEMPLATES 393
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 414

INTRODUCTION
Entering the Conversation

T HINK ABOUT AN ACTIVITY that you do particularly

well: cooking, playing the piano, shooting a
basketball, even something as basic as driving a car. If
you reflect on this activity, you'll realize that once you
mastered it you no longer had to give much conscious
thought to the various moves that go into doing it.
Performing activity this, in other words, depends on
your having learned a series of complicated moves—
moves that may seem mysterious or difficult to those
who haven't yet learned them.
The same applies to writing. 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 also their
mastery of an inventory of basic moves that they
probably picked up by reading a wide range of other
accomplished writers. Less experienced writers, by
contrast, are often unfamiliar with these basic moves
and unsure how to make them in their own writing.
Hence this book, which is intended as a short, user-
friendly guide to the basic moves of academic writing.
One of our key premises is that these basic moves are
so common that they can be represented in templates
that you can use right away to structure and even
generate your own writing. Perhaps the most
distinctive feature of this book is its presentation of
many such templates, designed to help you
successfully enter not only the world of academic
thinking and writing but also the wider worlds of civic
discourse and work.
Instead of focusing solely on abstract principles of
writing, then, this book offers model templates that
help you put those principles directly into practice.
Working with these templates will give you an
immediate sense of how to engage in the kinds of
critical thinking you are required to do at the college
level and in the vocational and public spheres beyond.
Some of these templates represent simple but crucial
moves, like those used to summarize some widely
held beliefs: Others are more complicated:
It is true, of course, that critical thinking and writing go
deeper than any set of linguistic formulas, requiring
that you question assumptions, develop strong
claims, offer supporting reasons and evidence,
consider opposing arguments, and so on. But these
deeper habits of thought cannot be put into practice
unless you have a language for expressing them in
clear, organized ways. STATE YOUR OWN IDEAS AS A
RESPONSE TO OTHERS The single most important
template that we focus on in this book is the “they say
__________ ; I say __________ ” formula that gives our
book its title. 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 (“I say”) but also of
presenting those ideas as a response to some other
person or group (“they say”). For us, the underlying
structure of effective academic writing—and of
responsible public discourse—resides not just in
stating our own ideas but in listening closely to others
around us, summarizing their views in a way that ◼ On
the one hand, __________ . On the other hand,
__________ . ◼ Author X contradicts herself. At the
same time that she argues __________ , she also
implies __________ . ◼ I agree that __________ .
However, __________ . ◼ This is not to say that
__________ . they will recognize, and responding with
our own ideas in kind. 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. For this reason,
one of the main pieces of advice in this book is to write
the voices of others into your text. In our view, then,
the best academic writing has one underlying feature:
it is deeply engaged in some way with other people’s
views. Too often, however, academic writing is taught
as a process of saying “true” or “smart” things in a
vacuum, as if it were possible to argue effectively
without being in conversation with someone else. If
you have been taught to write a traditional five-
paragraph essay, for example, you have learned how
to develop a thesis and support it with evidence. This
is good advice as far as it goes, but it leaves out the
important fact that in the real world we don’t make
arguments without being provoked. Instead, we make
arguments because someone has said or done
something (or perhaps not said or done something)
and we need to respond: “I can’t see why you like
football so much”; “I agree: it was a great film”; “That
argument is contradictory.” If it weren’t for other
people and our need to challenge, agree with, or
otherwise respond to them, there would be no reason
to argue at all. “WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS?” To
make an impact as a writer, then, you need to do more
than make statements that are logical, well
supported, and consistent. You must also find a way
of entering into conversation with the views of others,
with something “they say.” The easiest and most
common way writers do this is by summarizing what
others say and then using it to set up what they want
to say. “But why,” as a student of ours once asked,
“do I always need to summarize the views of others to
set up my own view? Why can’t I just state my own
view and be done with it?” Why indeed? After all,
“they,” whoever they may be, will have already had
their say, so why do you have to repeat it?
Furthermore, if they had their say in print, can’t
readers just go and read what was said themselves?
The answer is that if you don’t identify the “they say”
you’re responding to, your own argument probably
won’t have a point. Readers will wonder what
prompted you to say what you’re saying and therefore
motivated you to write. As the figure on the following
page suggests, without a “they say,” what you are
saying may be clear to your audience, but why you are
saying it won’t be.
Even if we don’t know what film he’s referring to, it’s
easy to grasp what the speaker means here when he
says that its characters are very complex. But it’s hard
to see why the speaker feels the need to say what he is
saying. “Why,” as one member of his imagined
audience wonders, “is he telling us this?” So the
characters are complex—so what? The speaker has a
speech bubble, saying The characters in the film are
very complex! The heads of the audience have thought
and speech bubbles expressing confusion. They say,
Yeah, so? and Why is he telling us this? One member
of the audience is sleeping. Now look at what happens
to the same proposition when it is presented as a
response to something “they say”: The speaker has a
speech bubble, saying, Some say that the characters
in the film are sexist stereotypes. In fact, however, the
characters in the film are very complex! The audience
has thought and speech bubbles expressing
comprehension. They say, Hmm... Good point! and
Gee, never thoughta that! We hope you agree that the
same claim—“the characters in the film are very
complex”—becomes much stronger when presented
as a response to a contrary view: that the film’s
characters “are sexist stereotypes.” Unlike the
speaker in the first cartoon, the speaker in the second
has a clear goal or mission: to correct what he sees as
a mistaken characterization. THE AS-OPPOSED-TO-
WHAT FACTOR To put our point another way, framing
your “I say” as a response to something “they say”
gives your writing an element of contrast without
which it won’t make sense. It may be helpful to think
of this crucial element as an “as-opposed-to-what
factor” and, as you write, to continually ask yourself,
“Who says otherwise?” and “Does anyone dispute it?”
Behind the audience’s “Yeah, so?” and “Why is he
telling us this?” in the first cartoon above lie precisely
these types of “As opposed to what?” questions. The
speaker in the second cartoon, we think, is more
satisfying because he answers these questions,
helping us see his point that the film presents complex
characters rather than simple sexist stereotypes.
HOW IT’S DONE Many accomplished writers make
explicit “they say” moves to set up and motivate their
own arguments. One famous example is Martin Luther
King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which
consists almost entirely of King’s eloquent responses
to a public statement by eight clergymen deploring the
civil rights protests he was leading. The letter—which
was written in 1963, while King was in prison for
leading a demonstration against racial injustice in
Birmingham—is structured almost entirely around a
framework of summary and response, in which King
summarizes and then answers their criticisms. In one
typical passage, King writes as follows: You deplore
the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But
your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a
similar concern for the conditions that brought about
the demonstrations. M ARTIN L UTHER K ING J R .,
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” King goes on to agree
with his critics that “it is unfortunate that
demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham,” yet
he hastens to add that “it is even more unfortunate
that the city’s white power structure left the Negro
community with no alternative.” King’s letter is so
thoroughly conversational, in fact, that it could be
rewritten in the form of a dialogue or play. King’s
critics: King’s response: Critics: Response: Clearly,
King would not have written his famous letter were it
not for his critics, whose views he treats not as
objections to his alreadyformed arguments but as the
motivating source of those arguments, their central
reason for being. He quotes not only what his critics
have said (“Some have asked: ‘Why didn’t you give the
new city administration time to act?’ ”), but also things
they might have said (“One may well ask: ‘How can
you advocate breaking some laws and obeying
others?’ ”)—all to set the stage for what he himself
wants to say. The “they” you respond to in crafting an
argument need not be a famous author or someone
known to your audience. It can be a friend or family
member, a classmate who has made a provocative
claim, or something a group or individual might say. It
can even be a side of yourself: something you partly
believe but also doubt, or something you once
believed but no longer do, as Michelle Alexander
suggests in the introduction to her 2010 book, The
New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness (included in this book): I reached the
conclusions presented in this book reluctantly. Ten
years ago, I would have argued strenuously against
the central claim made here—namely, that something
akin to a racial caste system currently exists in the
United States. Indeed, if Barack Obama had been
elected president back then, I would have argued that
his election marked the nation’s triumph over racial
caste—the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow. (349) M
ICHELLE A LEXANDER , The New Jim Crow: Mass
Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness In this
passage, Alexander identifies a view that she used to
hold and that many to this day continue to hold:
namely, that the United States is a caste-free,
colorblind society that, as Barack Obama’s election
illustrates, has finally left Jim Crow–style racism
behind. In so doing, Alexander avoids two common
temptations: to either bury challenges to her
argument, or to acknowledge them but in mocking,
dismissive ways. Instead, Alexander writes this
counterview into her text—and in a way that does it
justice. She then uses the remainder of her book to
answer it, arguing that today’s penal system inflicts so
much undeserved damage on the Black community
that it can only be understood as an extension of Jim
Crow–era repression. See Chapter 4 for more on
agreeing, but with a difference. While King and
Alexander both identify the views they are responding
to, some authors do not, instead allowing readers to
infer what view they’re responding to on their own.
See, for instance, if you can identify the implied or
unnamed “they say” that the following claim is
responding to: I like to think I have a certain advantage
as a teacher of literature because when I was growing
up I disliked and feared books. G ERALD G RAFF ,
“Disliking Books at an Early Age” In case you haven’t
figured it out already, the phantom “they say” here is
the common belief that in order to be a good teacher
of literature, one must have grown up liking and
enjoying books. COURT CONTROVERSY, BUT . . . As
you can see from these examples, many writers use
the “they say / I say” format to challenge standard
ways of thinking and thus to stir up controversy. This
point may come as a shock to you if you have always
had the impression that 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. Though this view
of writing may appear logical, it 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. “William Shakespeare wrote many famous
plays and sonnets” may be a perfectly true statement,
but precisely because nobody is likely to disagree with
it, it goes without saying and thus would seem
pointless if said. But just because controversy is
important doesn’t mean you have to become an
attack dog who automatically disagrees with
everything others say. We think this is an important
point to underscore because some who are not
familiar with this book have gotten the impression
from the title that our goal is to train writers simply to
disparage whatever “they say.” LISTEN BEFORE YOU
LEAP There certainly are occasions when strong
critique is needed. It’s hard to live in a deeply
polarized society like our current one and not feel the
need at times to criticize what others think. But even
the most justified critiques fall flat, we submit, unless
we really listen to and understand the views we are
criticizing: Even the most sympathetic audiences,
after all, tend to feel manipulated by arguments that
scapegoat and caricature the other side.
Furthermore, genuinely listening to views we disagree
with can have the salutary effect of helping us see that
beliefs we’d initially disdained may not be as
thoroughly reprehensible as we’d imagined. Thus the
type of “they say / I say” argument that we promote in
this book can take the form of agreeing up to a point or
of both agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously, as
in: Agreement cannot be ruled out, however: THE
TEMPLATE OF TEMPLATES There are many ways, then,
to enter a conversation and respond to what “they
say.” But our discussion of ways to do so would be
incomplete were we not to mention the most
comprehensive way that writers enter conversations,
which incorporates all the major moves discussed in
this book: ◼ While I agree with X that __________ , I
cannot accept her overall conclusion that __________ .
◼ While X argues __________ , and I argue __________ ,
in a way we’re both right. ◼ I agree with __________
that __________ . ◼ In recent discussions of
__________ , a controversial issue has been whether
__________ . On the one hand, some argue that
__________ . From this perspective, __________ . On the
other hand, however, others argue that __________ . In
the words of X, one of this view’s main proponents,
“ My own view is that __________ . Though I concede
that __________ , I still maintain that __________ . For
example, __________ . Although some might object
that __________ , I would reply that __________ . The
issue is important because __________ . This
“template of templates,” as we like to call it,
represents the internal DNA of countless articles and
even entire books. Writers commonly use a version of
it not only to stake out their “they say” and “I say” at
the start of their manuscript, but—just as important—
to form the overarching blueprint that structures what
they write over the entire length of their text. Taking it
line by line, this master template first helps you open
your text by identifying an issue in some ongoing
conversation or debate (“In recent discussions of
__________ , a controversial issue has been
__________ ” ) and then map some of the voices in this
controversy (by using the “on the one hand / on the
other hand” structure). The template then helps you
introduce a quotation (“In the words of X”) and explain
the quotation in your own words (“According to this
view”). Then, in a new paragraph, it helps you state
your own argument (“My own view is that”), qualify
your argument (“Though I concede that”), and support
your argument with evidence (“For __________ . ”
According to this view, __________ . In sum, then, the
issue is whether __________ or __________ . example”).
In addition, the template helps you make one of the
most crucial moves in argumentative writing, what we
call “planting a naysayer in your text,” in which you
summarize and then answer a likely objection to your
own central claim (“Although it might be objected that
__________ , I reply __________ ” ). Finally, this template
helps you shift between general, overarching claims
(“In sum, then”) and smaller-scale, supporting claims
(“For example”). Again, none of us is born knowing
these moves, especially when it comes to academic
writing—hence the need for this book. BUT ISN’T THIS
PLAGIARISM? “But isn’t this plagiarism?” at least one
student each year will usually ask. “Well, is it?” we
respond, turning the question around into one the
entire class can profit from. “We are, after all, asking
you to use language in your writing that isn’t your
own—language that you ‘borrow’ or, to put it less
delicately, steal from other writers.” Often, a lively
discussion ensues that raises important questions
about authorial ownership and helps everyone better
understand the frequently confusing line between
plagiarism and the legitimate use of what others say
and how they say it. Students are quick to see that no
one person owns a conventional formula like “on the
one hand / on the other hand.” Phrases like “a
controversial issue” are so commonly used and
recycled that they are generic—community property
that can be freely used without fear of committing
plagiarism. It is plagiarism, however, if the words used
to fill in the blanks of such formulas are borrowed
from others without proper acknowledgment. In sum,
then, while it is not plagiarism to recycle
conventionally used formulas, it is a serious academic
offense to take the substantive content from others’
texts without citing the authors and giving them proper
credit. “OK—BUT TEMPLATES?” Nevertheless, if you
are like some of our students, your initial response to
templates may be skepticism. At first, many of our
students complain that using templates will take away
their originality and creativity and make them all
sound the same. “They’ll turn us into writing robots,”
one of our students insisted. “I’m in college now,”
another student asserted. “This is third-grade-level
stuff.” In our view, however, the templates in this
book, far from being “third-grade-level stuff,”
represent the stock-in-trade of sophisticated thinking
and writing, and they often require a great deal of
practice and instruction to use successfully. As for the
belief that preestablished forms undermine creativity,
we think it rests on a very limited vision of what
creativity is all about. In our view, the templates in this
book will actually help your writing become more
original and creative, not less. After all, even the most
creative forms of expression depend on established
patterns and structures. Most songwriters, for
instance, rely on a time-honored verse-chorus-verse
pattern, and few people would call Shakespeare
uncreative because he didn’t invent the sonnet or the
dramatic forms that he used to such dazzling effect.
Even the most avant-garde, cutting-edge artists like
improvisational jazz musicians need to master the
basic forms that their work improvises on, departs
from, and goes beyond, or else their work will come
across as uneducated child’s play. Ultimately, then,
creativity and originality lie not in the avoidance of
established forms but in the imaginative use of them.
Furthermore, these templates do not dictate the
content of what you say, which can be as original as
you can make it, but only suggest a way of formatting
how you say it. In addition, once you begin to feel
comfortable with the templates in this book, you will
be able to improvise creatively on them to fit new
situations and purposes and find others in your
reading. In other words, the templates offered here
are learning tools to get you started, not structures set
in stone. Once you get used to using them, you can
even dispense with them altogether, for the rhetorical
moves they model will be at your fingertips in an
unconscious, instinctive way. But if you still need
proof that writing templates need not make you sound
stiff and artificial, consider the following opening to an
essay by Kelly Coryell that we’ve included in the book:
I’ve never understood the popular saying “Sticks and
stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt
me.” I grew up as a tomboy; I’ve had more than my fair
share of scrapes, bruises, and stitches. But I’ve found
that words inflict the most painful injuries. K ELLY C
ORYELL , “All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind
‘All Lives Matter’ ” Although Coryell relies on a version
of the “they say / I say” formula —they say that words
are less harmful than physical wounds, but I say the
opposite is the case—her writing is anything but dry,
robotic, or uncreative. A few things that add warmth to
the passage are Coryell’s use of everyday colloquial
language (a technique we discuss in Chapter 10 ) and
her inclusion of her own personal experience (a
technique we discuss in Chapter 7 ).

Find the Full Original Textbook (PDF) in the link

below:

CLICK HERE