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They Say I Say Summary

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In the introduction to “They Say / I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed to be easy to use and to help generate good writing habits for beginning arugmengive writers. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein argue that the types of writing templates they offer are sophisticated thinking and writing templates, in which take a lot of practice, and use in order to master. As the authors themselves put it, “the immediate goal of this book is to help you become a better writer, at a deeper level it invites you to become a certain type of person: a critical, intelligent thinker who instead of sitting passively on the sidelines, can participate in the debates and conservation of our world in an active and empowered way.” Although some people disagree with the ways …show more content…
In my view, the types of templates that the authors recommend are so useful and actually seem to be able to teach writers the right format for argumentative papers . For instance, most students probably do not know there is a different format for an argumentative essay compared to any other essay. In addition, to just the format differences between essays, also the content difference between the essays is a huge difference and a template makes sure the writer is aware of this . Some might object, of course, on the grounds that having templates is making writing to easy for writers and not forcing them to think on their own. Yet I would argue that templates do not make writing easier, it still makes the writer focus on the muscle memory of the format by practicing the writing format and still forces the writer to come up with there own word choice and story to tell. Overall, then, I believe that the usage of templates are an important tool for teaching beginning writers, templates allow writers to have all the creative freedom while still making sure they have the correct format for an argumentative

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