Starting They Say/I Say
- One reason it is important to engage others’ views is because in turn, you are allowing more readers to identify with your writing, “The important thing is that the “they” (or “you” or “she”) represent some wider group with which readers might identify–”. Even if the reader doesn’t agree with you, they may agree with they “they”, and you writing will still have meaning to them. Another reason is to challenge others, “…many writers use the “they say / I say” format to challenge standard ways of thinking and thus to stir up controversy”. Without engaging in others’ views, it would be pretty impossible to challenge standard ways of thinking.
- Throughout high school it was somewhat challenging for me to address an argument towards something I was trying to convince the reader of. I usually resorted to explaining what I though in about a paragraph, and the giving the whole “while others say this, it isn’t really true…” much later on. However, Graff and Birkenstein say, “be sure that it in some way illustrates the view you’re addressing or leads you to that view directly, with a minimum of steps”. I can see why it is important to do both right away, so the reader had a general idea of where things are going.
- In high school, I always got caught up on the simple fact that my writing need a quote. In turn, I would throw in a quote to get it over with, only later to realize it really didn’t help my writing whatsoever. Graff and Birkenstein say, “Be careful no 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”. By selecting a quote that supports my argument, I am proving that I read the text, but more importantly I am proving that I understood the text. By doing so I am also writing a much better paper.
