Expert answer:read and write with the follow instruction
Solved by verified expert:Read “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor (TS/IS 272-291) several times, and highlight or underline any important passages that catch your attention for one reason or another. In your in-class essay, I would like you to work with the following items (in this order): First, summarize the story in your own words. Do not quote the text, but explain the characters’ main ideas as best you can. Try to keep your summary between 1-2 paragraphs long. Secondly, draw attention to what you feel is the author’s main point or thesis—what is O’Connor trying to get us to understand in her story? With which character are we supposed to sympathize? Are we supposed to agree that slavery is bad, or does O’Connor have another point entirely that she is trying to make? Be sure to use logic and examples to develop your argument. Thirdly, try to apply the message and meaning of the story to your own life: what can you learn about yourself from O’Connor’s story? Be honest here—everyone will have different answers for this final section. You may quote directly (using quotation marks per MLA style guidelines) if you choose; then, explain the significance of the quote as it relates to the rest of the essay. Use your powers of interpretation and explanation here. Be sure to proofread, edit and use plenty of detail.
they_say_i_say_the_moves_that_matter_in_academic_writing_3e.pdf
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what they’re saying about “they say / i say”
“The best book that’s happened to teaching composition—
ever!”
—Karen Gaffney, Raritan Valley Community College
“A brilliant book. . . . It’s like a membership card in the academic club.”
—Eileen Seifert, DePaul University
“This book demystifies rhetorical moves, tricks of the trade that
many students are unsure about. It’s reasonable, helpful, nicely
written . . . and hey, it’s true. I would have found it immensely
helpful myself in high school and college.”
—Mike Rose, University of California, Los Angeles
“The argument of this book is important—that there are
‘moves’ to academic writing . . . and that knowledge of them
can be generative. The template format is a good way to teach
and demystify the moves that matter. I like this book a lot.”
—David Bartholomae, University of Pittsburgh
“Students need to walk a fine line between their work and that
of others, and this book helps them walk that line, providing
specific methods and techniques for introducing, explaining,
and integrating other voices with their own ideas.”
—Libby Miles, University of Rhode Island
“A beautifully lucid way to approach argument—different from
any rhetoric I’ve ever seen.”
—Anne-Marie Thomas, Austin Community College, Riverside
“It offers students the formulas we, as academic writers, all carry
in our heads.”
—Karen Gardiner, University of Alabama
“Many students say that it is the first book they’ve found that
actually helps them with writing in all disciplines.”
—Laura Sonderman, Marshall University
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“As a WPA, I’m constantly thinking about how I can help
instructors teach their students to make specific rhetorical
moves on the page. This book offers a powerful way of teaching students to do just that.” —Joseph Bizup, Boston University
“The best tribute to ‘They Say / I Say’ I’ve heard is this, from a
student: ‘This is one book I’m not selling back to the bookstore.’
Nods all around the room. The students love this book.”
—Christine Ross, Quinnipiac University
“What effect has ‘They Say’ had on my students’ writing? They
are finally entering the Burkian Parlor of the university. This
book uncovers the rhetorical conventions that transcend disciplinary boundaries, so that even freshmen, newcomers to the
academy, are immediately able to join in the conversation.”
—Margaret Weaver, Missouri State University
“It’s the anti-composition text: Fun, creative, humorous, brilliant, effective.”
—Perry Cumbie, Durham Technical Community College
“Loved by students, reasonable priced, manageable size, readable.”
—Roxanne Munch, Joliet Junior College
“This book explains in clear detail what skilled writers take for
granted.”
—John Hyman, American University
“The ability to engage with the thoughts of others is one of the
most important skills taught in any college-level writing course,
and this book does as good a job teaching that skill as any text I
have ever encountered.” —William Smith, Weatherford College
“A fabulous resource for my students (and for me). I like that
it’s small, and not overwhelming. It’s very practical, and really
demystifies the new kind of writing students have to figure out
as they transition to college.” —Sara Glennon, Landmark College
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THIRD EDITION
“THEY SAY I SAY”
The Moves That Matter
in Academic Writing
H
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THIRD EDITION
“THEY SAY I SAY”
The Moves That Matter
in Academic Writing
H
GERALD GRAFF
CATHY BIRKENSTEIN
both of the University of Illinois at Chicago
B
w. w. norton & company
new york | london
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For
Aaron David
W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when
William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered
at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper
Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by
celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of
Norton’s publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established.
In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees,
and today—with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college,
and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the
largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.
Copyright © 2014, 2010, 2009, 2006, by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Third Edition
Composition: Cenveo® Publisher Services
Book design: Jo Anne Metsch
Production manager: Andrew Ensor
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Graff, Gerald.
“They say / I say” : the Moves that Matter in Academic Writing / Gerald Graff,
Cathy Birkenstein, Both of the University of Illinois at Chicago.—Third Edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-393-93584-4 (paperback)
1. English language—Rhetoric—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Persuasion
(Rhetoric)—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Report writing—Handbooks, manuals,
etc. I. Birkenstein, Cathy. II. Title.
PE1431.G73 2013
808′.042—dc23
2013039137
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street,
London W1T 3QT
1234567890
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brief contents
preface to the third edition
x iii
preface: Demystifying Academic Conversation
introduction: Entering the Conversation
xvi
1
PART 1 . “THE Y SAY”
“they say”: Starting with What Others Are Saying 19
“her point is”: The Art of Summarizing 30
3 “as he himself puts it”: The Art of Quoting 42
1
2
PART 2 . “I SAY”
“yes / no / okay, but”: Three Ways to Respond 55
“and yet”: Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say 68
6 “skeptics may object”: Planting a Naysayer in Your Text 78
7 “so what? who cares?”: Saying Why It Matters 92
4
5
PART 3. T YING IT ALL TOG ETHE R
“as a result”: Connecting the Parts 105
“a in’t so / is not”: Academic Writing Doesn’t Always
Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice 121
10 “but don’t get me wrong”: The Art of Metacommentary
11 “he says contends”: Using the Templates to Revise 139
8
9
129
PART 4. IN SPECIFIC ACADEMIC CONTE X TS
12
13
14
15
16
17
“i take your point”: Entering Class Discussions 163
“imho”: Is Digital Communication Good or Bad—or Both?
“what’s motivating this writer?”:
Reading for the Conversation 173
“on closer examination”: Entering Conversations
about Literature 184
“the data suggest”: Writing in the Sciences 202
“analyze this”: Writing in the Social Sciences 221
readings
167
239
index of templates
293
vii
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contents
preface to the third edition
preface
xiii
xvi
Demystifying Academic Conversation
introduction
1
Entering the Conversation
PA R T 1 . “ T H E Y S AY ”
17
one “they say” 19
Starting with What Others Are Saying
two “her point is”
The Art of Summarizing
30
42
three “as he himself puts it”
The Art of Quoting
PA R T 2 . “ I S AY ”
53
four “yes / no / okay, but”
Three Ways to Respond
55
five “and yet” 68
Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say
six “skeptics may object”
Planting a Naysayer in Your Text
78
seven “so what? who cares?”
Saying Why It Matters
92
ix
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Contents
PA R T 3 . T Y I N G I T A L L TO G E T H E R
eight “as a result”
Connecting the Parts
103
105
nine “ain’t so / is not” 121
Academic Writing Doesn’t Always Mean
Setting Aside Your Own Voice
ten “but don’t get me wrong”
The Art of Metacommentary
eleven “he says contends”
Using the Templates to Revise
129
139
PA R T 4 . I N S P E C I F I C AC A D E M I C
C O N T E X T S 161
163
twelve “i take your point”
Entering Class Discussions
thirteen “imho” 167
Is Digital Communication Good or Bad—or Both?
fourteen “what’s motivating this
writer?” 173
Reading for the Conversation
fifteen “on closer examination”
Entering Conversations about Literature
sixteen “the data suggest”
Writing in the Sciences
seventeen “analyze this”
Writing in the Social Sciences
184
202
221
x
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Contents
readings
239
Don’t Blame the Eater
David Zinczenko
241
Hidden Intellectualism
Gerald Graff
244
Nuclear Waste 252
Richard A. Muller
The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
Barbara Ehrenreich
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Flannery O’Connor
index of templates
credits
260
272
293
311
acknowledgments
313
xi
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preface
to the third edition
H
We continue to be thrilled by the reception of our
book, which has now sold over a million copies and is assigned
in more than 1,500 (over half) the colleges and universities in
the United States. We are also delighted that while the audience for our book in composition courses continues to grow,
the book is increasingly being adopted in disciplines across the
curriculum, confirming our view that the moves taught in the
book are central to every academic discipline.
At the same time, we continue to adapt our approach to
the specific ways the “they say / I say” moves are deployed
in different disciplines. To that end, this edition adds a new
chapter on writing about literature to the chapters already
in the Second Edition on writing in the sciences and social
sciences. In this new chapter, “Entering Conversations about
Literature,” we suggest ways in which students and teachers
can move beyond the type of essay that analyzes literary works
in isolation from the conversations and debates about those
works. One of our premises here is that writing about literature,
as about any subject, gains in urgency, motivation, and engagement when the writer responds to the work not in a vacuum, but
in conversation with other readers and critics. We believe that
engaging with other readers, far from distracting attention from
the literary text itself, should help bring that text into sharper
xiii
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PR E FAC E TO TH E TH I R D E D ITI O N
focus. Another premise is that the class discussions that are a
daily feature of literature courses can be a rich and provocative
source of “they says” that student writers can respond to in
generating their own interpretations. Throughout the chapter
are numerous templates that provide writers with language for
entering into conversations and debates with these “they says”:
published critics, classmates and teachers, their own previous
interpretations, and the authors of literary works themselves.
This new edition also includes a chapter on “Using the
Templates to Revise,” which grew out of our own teaching
experience, where we found that the templates in this book had
the unexpected benefit of helping students when they revise.
We found that when students read over their drafts with an eye
for the rhetorical moves represented by the templates they were
able to spot gaps in their argument, concessions they needed
to make, disconnections among ideas, inadequate summaries,
poorly integrated quotations, and other questions they needed
to address when revising. Have they incorporated the views of
naysayers with their own? If not, our brief revision guidelines
can help them do so. The new chapter includes a full essay
written by a student, annotated to show how the student used
all the rhetorical moves taught in this book.
Finally, this edition adds a new chapter on writing online
exploring the debate about whether digital technologies
improve or degrade the way we think and write, and whether
they foster or impede the meeting of minds. And given the
importance of online communication, we’re pleased that our
book now has its own blog, theysayiblog. Updated monthly
with current articles from across media, this blog provides
a space where students and teachers can literally join the
conversation.
xiv
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Preface to the Third Edition
Even as we have revised and added to “They Say / I Say,” our
basic goals remain unchanged: to demystify academic writing
and reading by identifying the key moves of persuasive argument and representing those moves in forms that students can
put into practice. We hope this Third Edition will get us even
closer to these goals, equipping students with the writing skills
they need to enter the academic world and beyond.
xv
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preface
Demystifying Academic Conversation
H
Experienced writing instructors have long recognized
that writing well means entering into conversation with others.
Academic writing in particular calls upon writers not simply to
express their own ideas, but to do so as a response to what others
have said. The first-year writing program at our own university,
according to its mission statement, asks “students to participate in ongoing conversations about vitally important academic
and public issues.” A similar statement by another program
holds that “intellectual writing is almost always composed in
response to others’ texts.” These statements echo the ideas
of rhetorical theorists like Kenneth Burke, Mikhail Bakhtin,
and Wayne Booth as well as recent composition scholars like
David Bartholomae, John Bean, Patricia Bizzell, Irene Clark,
Greg Colomb, Lisa Ede, Peter Elbow, Joseph Harris, Andrea
Lunsford, Elaine Maimon, Gary Olson, Mike Rose, John Swales
and Christine Feak, Tilly Warnock, and others who argue that
writing well means engaging the voices of others and letting
them in turn engage us.
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.
xvi
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Demystifying Academic Conversation
In this way, we hope to help students become active participants in the important conversations of the academic world
and the wider public sphere.
highlights
• Shows that writing well means entering a conversation, summarizing others (“they say”) to set up one’s own argument
(“I say”).
• Demystifies academic writing, showing students “the moves
that matter” in language they can readily apply.
• Provides user-friendly templates to help writers make those
moves in their own writing.
• Shows that reading is a way of entering a conversation—not just
of passively absorbing information but of understanding and
actively entering dialogues and debates.
how this book came to be
The original idea for this book grew out of our shared interest in democratizing academic culture. First, it grew out of
arguments that Gerald Graff has been making throughout his
career that schools and colleges need to invite students into
the conversations and debates that surround them. More specifically, it is a practical, hands-on companion to his recent
book, Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of
the Mind, in which he looks at academic conversations from the
perspective of those who find them mysterious and proposes
ways in which such mystification can be overcome. Second,
xvii
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PR E FAC E
this book grew out of writing templates that Cathy Birkenstein
developed in the 1990s, for use in writing and literature courses
she was teaching. Many students, she found, could readily grasp
what it meant to support a thesis with evidence, to entertain
a counterargument, to identify a textual contradiction, and
ultimately to summarize and respond to challenging arguments,
but they often had trouble putting these concepts into practice
in their own writing. When Cathy sketched out templates on
the board, however, giving her students some of the language
and patterns that these sophisticated moves require, their
writing—and even their quality of thought—significantly
improved.
This book began, then, when we put our ideas together and
realized that these templates might have the potential to open
up and clarify academic conversation. We proceeded from the
premise that all writers rely on certain stock formulas that they
themselves didn’t invent—and that many of these formulas
are so commonly used that they can be represented in model
templates that students can use to structure and even generate
what they want to say.
As we developed a working draft of this book, we began using
it in first-year writing courses that we teach at UIC. In classroom exercises and writing assignments, we found that students
who otherwise struggled to organize their thoughts, or even to
think of something to say, did much better when we provided
them with templates like the following.
j In discussions of
, a controversial issue is whether
. While some argue that
that
, others contend
.
j This is not to say that
.
xviii
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Demystifying Academic Conversation
One virtue of such templates, we found, is that they focus
writers’ attention not just on what is being said, but on the
forms that structure what is being said. In other words, they
make students more conscious of the rhetorical patterns that
are key to academic success but often pass under the classroom
radar.
the centrality of “they say / i say”
The central rhetorical move that we focus on in this book is
the “they say / I say” template that gives our book its title. In our
view, this template represents the deep, underlying structure,
the internal DNA as it were, of all effective argument. Effective
persuasive writers do more than make well-supported claims
(“I say”); they also map those claims relative to the claims of
others (“they say”).
Here, for example, the “they say / I say” pattern structures a
passage from an essay by the media and technology critic Steven
Johnson.
For decades, we’ve worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-commondenominator standards, presumably because the “masses” want
dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies try to give the
masses what they want. But . . . the exact opposite is happening:
the culture is getting more cognitively demanding, not less.
Steven Johnson, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”
In generating his own argument from something “they say,”
Johnson suggests why he needs to say what he is saying: to
correct a popular misconception.
xix
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PR E FAC E
Even when writers do not explicitly identify the views they
are responding to, as Johnson does, an implicit “they say” can
often be discerned, as in the following passage by Zora Neale
Hurston.
I remember the day I became colored.
Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”
In order to grasp Hurston’s point here, we need to be able to
reconstruct the implicit view she is responding to and questioning: that racial identity is an innate quality we ar …
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