What Are the Reading Strategies Graff and Birkenstein Use

When I wrote my blog post on how to properly teach our students how to do Description vs Analysis in their bookish writing, I linked to a number of resources. The 1 that Dr. Omar Wasow (Princeton University) recommended was "They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing", edited by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein.

I do not teach argumentative writing (though CIDE, my establishment, has a series of courses on this – which probably follow a different model because CIDE is a Spanish-speaking institution in a Spanish-speaking country), merely I practise teach courses in public policy where I need my students to carry analyses. Since I teach all my courses in English, I needed a different model, particularly because I have noticed that sometimes students do non know how to write good analysis instead of providing very descriptive texts.

Omar'south recommendation is sincerely amazing. They Say/I Say is a relatively short book of templates that dissects how academic writing should engage in dialogue. I think the volume is very well summarized in the following directly quote off of the text (p. 3):

"For u.s.a., the underlying structure of effective academic writing – and of responsible public soapbox – resides not just in stating our own ideas but in listening closely to others around us, summarizing their views in a way that they volition recognize, and responding with our own ideas in kind"

While the book offers a number of templates, the underlying logic of They Say/I Say is to enable students (and writers) to utilize those templates to create their own writing structures. That ways, students tin can practise through adapting the They Say/I Say templates to the specific contents, disciplines and materials at hand. As Graff and Birkenstein say, you need to be "putting in your oar" (getting yourself involved in the writing)

Graff and Birkenstein author a big portion of the book, though a couple of chapters are invited. The first part of the book introduces models and templates to nowadays others' views and introduce what They Say. I'm non particularly fond of a few of the models they use to introduce 'Standard Views" ("many people contend", "since the dawn of time", etc.) on pages 23 and 24, but the overall gist of the volume is excellent and examples provided are super helpful, non only for students but also for early career scholars.

I especially enjoyed Chapter 2, "Her Signal Is – The Art of Summarizing" (pages 30-40) because one of the skills I teach my research assistants and undergraduate/graduate students is how to write rhetorical precis and synthetic notes. This chapter provides students with templates for how to write solid summaries that then tin exist converted into full-fledged memorandums.

Chapter iii, "Equally He Himself Puts It – The Fine art of Quoting" (pages 42-fifty) should be mandatory reading for students, particularly because of all the recent cases of plagiarism in academic writing. This chapter teaches students how to properly exercise quotations and highlights the importance of attribution.

I as well think these two capacity should exist read in conjunction (if I may be so bold to advise) with my posts on writing memorandums and the Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (where you would exist dumping your quotations). These chapters are also very good at helping students discover the specific quotations they may need (particularly when the student is pressed for time and strategically triaging his/her reading packet for relevance).

Graff and Birkenstein show (in Chapter four, "Yeah/ No/ Okay, Simply – Three Ways to Reply", p. 55-67) three unlike models of engagement with the literature (i.e. with what "They Say"): like-minded, disagreeing and somewhere in between. I tend to practise a lot more contrasting in my ain scholarly writing (i.e. "10 argues that Z. Nonetheless, I notice that W"), but it'southward very nice and useful to read unlike ways of engaging others' arguments (AND the empirical testify, which we often exercise not write about).

Mayhap the almost important chapter for graduate students (not terribly important for undergraduates, in my view, only fundamental for Masters and PhD candidates) is Chapter five, "And Still – Distinguishing What You Say from what THEY Say, pages 68-75″. This chapter is fundamental considering the biggest challenge that graduate students tend to have in their writing (in my experience) is showcasing what THEIR ain contribution is. This ability to produce text that highlights the writers' own contributions is key when instruction clarification versus analysis in bookish writing. I am also very glad that Graff and Birkenstein emphasize the importance of writing in the first person ("I find", "I debate", "I show").

Chapter half-dozen, which involves "inserting a naysayer into the conversation" wasn't that appealing to me, to be perfectly honest. But Chapter 7 ("And then What? Who Cares? Proverb Why Information technology Matters ", p. 92-100) helps the reader explicate why the analysis presented throughout the paper may exist useful. I am particularly fond as well of Chapter 8 ("Equally A Upshot: Connecting The Parts", p. 105-117) because in this chapter Graff and Birkenstein demonstrate how to effectively tie an argument together past connecting all the different parts of an argument.

Graff and Birkenstein's 4 strategies to connect sentences may make some educators cringe, considering they use some of the connectors that often announced in lists of "words that should be banned" (also known as "wordy means of saying things that you could more than hands say in this other way"). Nevertheless, in my opinion, Graff and Birkenstein's strategies are solid and I reproduce them right here (taken from page 108):

1. Using transition terms.
2. Adding pointing words.
3. Developing a set of key terms and phrases for each text you lot write.
4. Repeating yourself with a divergence.

Capacity 13 (written by Christopher Gillen) and fifteen (by Erin Ackerman) offering really excellent advice on how to use the They Say/I Say model in the natural sciences (Gillen, p. 156-174) and social sciences (Ackerman, p. 175-192). I will definitely use Affiliate fourteen by Erin Ackerman to teach my undergraduate and graduate students how to use the They Say/I Say model in public policy writing.

Overall, the Graff and Birkenstein "They Say/I Say" book is a fantastic introduction to how to write arguments and craft text that will be read in both natural and social sciences. Adding Gillen and Ackerman's capacity was a genius move by Graff and Birkenstein, considering the examples they provide are specific to natural sciences and social sciences/humanities. The chapters I take highlighted in these reading notes could possibly be used in a short course on bookish writing based on the They Say/I Say model, although an instructor may want to also add together the "But Don't Get Me Wrong – The Art of Metacommentary" chapter 10, p. 129-137.

While I think Graff and Birkenstein is near suited to educational activity how to do academic writing in the English language, I am certain y'all could accommodate some of the lessons the authors present to Castilian (a language in which I will be education this autumn). Hopefully my reading notes will be useful to educators who teach academic writing and how to write enquiry papers.

merazarighter.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.raulpacheco.org/2017/05/they-sayi-say-the-moves-that-matter-in-academic-writing-my-reading-notes/