Paraphrasing

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“They say, and I say.”
Graff and Birkenstein wrote a book that gives us tips on how to be good in academic conversations through writing essays. These authors further stated that to succeed in it, students should introduce a structured format which can be used in arguments and other literature review writings. The books’ chapters include they included quoting, summarizing and other important means of differentiating “what they say” from “what I say” stating the importance of each side (Graff et al., 23).
The two authors present a speaker using a template. This template contained sentences with blank spaces that can be filled with real content. The speaker presents the doctor X’s story and how it has affected his thesis extensively as he used doctor X’s various books and articles. At this point, he never considered “they say” in his speech. Basing on the statement “Some sociologists have recently suggested that X’s work has several fundamental problems.” (Graff et al., 32). He later realized that the “they say” helped in creating a constructive argument that helped him realized that his thesis was wrong. So this formulaic language developed by these two authors helps in handling arguments arising from both side of “they say and “I say.” It has also gone further into creating constructive arguments between two disagreeing parties.
Furthermore, these temps help students in the introduction of quotations like; X states, “________” and According to X, “_______.

” Also, these templates contain statements that show who should care about your research. The use of phrases such as “________used to think________. But recently [or within the past few decades]” and “suggest that______.” (Graff et al., 19). All these examples of templates are essential to students as it shapes their way of thinking and construction of sentences while writing their literature review. Afterward, students might get inspired to create and write their academic writing using these formats. Although it might not help them to produce their template, they can restructure them to suit their purpose.
Academic conversations can be achieved when a people first study “they say and “I say” to create a mature argument that is constructive, and that brings out facts.

References
Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. Print.