In the book “They Say, I Say” by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, Chapter one discusses about a speaker at a academic conference informing the audience about the important work of a sociologist named Dr.X. Mid-speech, the authors attempt to undertsand the argurment as to why the speaker needed to state that Dr. X’s work was important. The authors asserts that, ” A benefit of summarizing others’ views as soon as you can: you let those do some of the work of framing and clarifying the issue you’re writing about.” Developong an introduction you would need to start with the “they say”, and then introduce your own ideas as a response.
The Art of Summarizing
In chapter two, the authors inform us the correct way to summarize effectively. As said in this chapter writers tend to lose their confidence in their own ideas, you need to find a way to keep in mind on what the author is saying as well as the writers own focus. The “believing game”, says writing theorist Peter Elbow is to delay your own views and to have empathy in order to have a really good summary. If writers don’t use this advise, they would create a summary that is biased.
The Art of Quoting
In this chapter called, “As He Himself Puts It”, talks about the main problem which is writers rely too much on quoatations for evidence. Two important factors in this chapter is choosing quotations wisely that can support your text and adding major quotations while framing and explaning whose words you’re using, what they mean, and how the quote is relevant to your text. The point that the authors are trying to make is to, “emphasize the quoting to what “they say” must always be connected with what you say.”
What Did I Learn?
In chapter 3, I learned the idea of framing which is quotations that are long and complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain hidden complexities.
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