Final Essay

what they’re saying about “they say / i say”

“The best book that’s happened to teaching composition—

ever!”

—Karen Gaffney, Raritan Valley Community College

“This book demystifies rhetorical moves, tricks of the trade that

many students are unsure about. It’s reasonable, helpful, nicely

written … and hey, it’s true. I would have found it immensely

helpful myself in high school and college.”

—Mike Rose, University of California, Los Angeles

“The argument of this book is important—that there are

‘moves’ to academic writing … and that knowledge of them

can be generative. The template format is a good way to teach

and demystify the moves that matter. I like this book a lot.”

—David Bartholomae, University of Pittsburgh

“My students are from diverse backgrounds and the topics in

this book help them to empathize with others who are differ-

ent from them.”

—Steven Bailey, Central Michigan University

“A beautifully lucid way to approach argument—different from

any rhetoric I’ve ever seen.”

—Anne-Marie Thomas, Austin Community College, Riverside

“Students need to walk a fine line between their work and that

of others, and this book helps them walk that line, providing

specific methods and techniques for introducing, explaining,

and integrating other voices with their own ideas.”

—Libby Miles, University of Vermont

“‘They Say’ with Readings is different from other rhetorics and

readers in that it really engages students in the act of writing

throughout the book. It’s less a ‘here’s how’ book and more of

a ‘do this with me’ kind of book.”

—Kelly Ritter, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

“It offers students the formulas we, as academic writers, all carry

in our heads.”

—Karen Gardiner, University of Alabama

“Many students say that it is the first book they’ve found that

actually helps them with writing in all disciplines.”

—Laura Sonderman, Marshall University

“As a WPA, I’m constantly thinking about how I can help

instructors teach their students to make specific rhetorical

moves on the page. This book offers a powerful way of teach-

ing students to do just that.” —Joseph Bizup, Boston University

“The best tribute to ‘ They Say / I Say’ I’ve heard is this, from a

student: ‘This is one book I’m not selling back to the bookstore.’

Nods all around the room. The students love this book.”

—Christine Ross, Quinnipiac University

“My students love this book. They tell me that the idea of

‘entering a conversation’ really makes sense to them in a way

that academic writing hasn’t before.”

—Karen Henderson, Helena College University of Montana

“A concise and practical text at a great price; students love it.”

—Jeff Pruchnic, Wayne State University

“ ‘ They Say’ contains the best collection of articles I have found.

Students respond very well to the readings.”

—Julia Ruengert, Pensacola State College

“It’s the anti-composition text: Fun, creative, humorous, bril-

liant, effective.”

—Perry Cumbie, Durham Technical Community College

“A brilliant book… . It’s like a membership card in the aca-

demic club.”

—Eileen Seifert, DePaul University

“The ability to engage with the thoughts of others is one of the

most important skills taught in any college-level writing course,

and this book does as good a job teaching that skill as any text I

have ever encountered.” —William Smith, Weatherford College

F O U R T H E D I T I O N

“THEY SAY I SAY”

T h e M o v e s T h a t M a t t e r

i n A c a d e m i c W r i t i n g

W I T H R E A D I N G S

H

GERALD GRAFF

CATHY BIRKENSTEIN

both of the University of Illinois at Chicago

RUSSEL DURST

University of Cincinnati

B

w . w . n o r t o n & c o m p a n y

n e w y o r k | l o n d o n

W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when

William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered

at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper

Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by

celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of

Norton’s publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established.

In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees,

and today—with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college,

and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company

stands as the

largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.

Copyright © 2018, 2017, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2006

by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Permission to use copyrighted material is included in the credits section of this

book, which begins on page 731.

ISBN 978-0-393-63168-5

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

To the great rhetorician Wayne Booth,

who cared deeply

about the democratic art

of listening closely to what others say.

contents

preface to the fourth edition xi

preface: Demystifying Academic Conversation xvii

introduction: Entering the Conversation 1

PART 1. “THEY SAY”

1 “they say”: Starting with What Others Are Saying 19

2 “her point is”: The Art of Summarizing 30

3 “as he himself puts it”: The Art of Quoting 43

PART 2. “I SAY”

4 “yes / no / okay, but”: Three Ways to Respond 53

5 “and yet”: Distinguishing What You Say

from What They Say 67

6 “skeptics may object”:

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text 77

7 “so what? who cares?”: Saying Why It Matters 91

PART 3. T YING IT ALL TOGETHER

8 “as a result”: Connecting the Parts 101

9 “you mean i can just say it that way?”:

Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside

Your Own Voice 117

10 “but don’t get me wrong”:

The Art of Metacommentary 131

11 “he says contends”: Using the Templates to Revise 141

PART 4 . IN SPECIFIC ACADEMIC CONTEXTS

12 “i take your point”: Entering Class Discussions 162

13 don’t make them scroll up:

Entering Online Conversations 166

v i i

C O N T E N T S

14 what’s motivating this writer?:

Reading for the Conversation 176

15 “analyze this”: Writing in the Social Sciences 187

readings

16 HOW CAN WE BRIDGE THE DIFFERENCES

THAT DIVIDE US? 209

sean blanda, The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb 212

danah boyd, Why America Is Self-Segregating 219

michelle alexander, The New Jim Crow 230

j. d. vance, Hillbilly Elegy 251

gabriela moro, Minority Student Clubs: Segregation or

Integration? 269

robert leonard, Why Rural America Voted for Trump 279

joseph e. stiglitz, A Tax System Stacked against

the 99 Percent 286

barack obama, Howard University Commencement

Speech 296

17 IS COLLEGE THE BEST OPTION? 315

stephanie owen and isabel sawhill, Should Everyone

Go to College? 318

sanford j. ungar, The New Liberal Arts 336

charles murray, Are Too Many People

Going to College? 344

liz addison, Two Years Are Better Than Four 365

gerald graff, Hidden Intellectualism 369

mike rose, Blue-Collar Brilliance 377

ben casselman, Shut Up about Harvard 390

steve kolowich, On the Front Lines of a

New Culture War 398

v i i i

Contents

18 ARE WE IN A RACE AGAINST THE MACHINE? 421

nicholas carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid? 424

clive thompson, Smarter Than You Think: How

Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better 441

michaela cullington, Does Texting Affect Writing? 462

jenna wortham, How I Learned to Love Snapchat 474

carole cadwalladr, Google, Democracy, and the Truth

about Internet Search 480

kenneth goldsmith, Go Ahead: Waste Time on

the Internet 500

sherry turkle, No Need to Call 505

zeynep tufekci, Does a Protest’s Size Matter? 525

19 WHAT’S GENDER GOT TO DO WITH IT? 531

anne-marie slaughter, Why Women Still Can’t

Have It All 534

richard dorment, Why Men Still Can’t Have It All 555

raynard kington, I’m Gay and African American. As a

Dad, I Still Have It Easier Than Working Moms. 576

laurie frankel, From He to She in First Grade 583

andrew reiner, Teaching Men to Be

Emotionally Honest 589

stephen mays, What about Gender Roles in

Same-Sex Relationships? 596

kate crawford, Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy

Problem 599

nicholas eberstadt, Men without Work 605

20 WHAT’S THERE TO EAT? 621

michael pollan, Escape from the Western Diet 624

olga khazan, Why Don’t Convenience Stores Sell

Better Food? 632

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C O N T E N T S

mary maxfield, Food as Thought: Resisting the

Moralization of Eating 641

david zinczenko, Don’t Blame the Eater 647

radley balko, What You Eat Is Your Business 651

michael moss, The Extraordinary Science of Addictive

Junk Food 656

david h. freedman, How Junk Food Can End Obesity 681

sara goldrick-rab, katharine broton, emily brunjes colo,

Expanding the National School Lunch Program to

Higher Education 713

credits 731

acknowledgments 737

index of templates 751

index of authors and titles 767

x

preface

to the fourth edition

H

When we first set out to write this book, our goal

was simple: to offer a version of “They Say / I Say”: The Moves

That Matter in Academic Writing with an anthology of readings

that would demonstrate the rhetorical moves “that matter.”

And because “They Say” teaches students that academic writ-

ing is a means of entering a conversation, we looked for read-

ings on topics that would engage students and inspire them to

respond—and to enter the conversations.

Our purpose in writing “They Say” has always been to

offer students a user-friendly model of writing that will help

them put into practice the important principle that writing

is a social activity. Proceeding from the premise that effec-

tive writers enter conversations of other writers and speakers,

this book encourages students to engage with those around

them—including those who disagree with them—instead of

just expressing their ideas “logically.” We believe it’s a model

more necessary than ever in today’s increasingly diverse—and

some might say divided—society. In this spirit, we have added

a new chapter, “How Can We Bridge the Differences That

Divide Us?,” with readings that represent different perspectives

on those divides—and what we might do to overcome them.

Our own experience teaching first-year writing students has

led us to believe that to be persuasive, arguments need not

only supporting evidence but also motivation and exigency,

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P R E F A C E T O T H E F O U R T H E D I T I O N

and that the surest way to achieve this motivation and exigency

is to generate one’s own arguments as a response to those of

others—to something “they say.” To help students write their

way into the often daunting conversations of academia and the

wider public sphere, the book provides templates to help them

make sophisticated rhetorical moves that they might otherwise

not think of attempting. And of course learning to make these

rhetorical moves in writing also helps students become better

readers of argument.

The two versions of “They Say / I Say” are now being taught

at more than 1,500 schools, which suggests that there is a wide-

spread desire for explicit instruction that is understandable but

not oversimplified, to help writers negotiate the basic moves

necessary to “enter the conversation.” Instructors have told us

how much this book helps their students learn how to write

academic discourse, and some students have written to us saying

that it’s helped them to “crack the code,” as one student put it.

This fourth edition of “They Say / I Say” with Readings

includes forty readings—half of them new—on five compel-

ling and controversial issues. The selections provide a glimpse

into some important conversations taking place today—and

will, we hope, provoke students to respond and thus to join in

those conversations.

highlights

Forty readings that will prompt students to think—and write.

Taken from a wide variety of sources, including the Chronicle

of Higher Education, the Washington Post, the New York Times,

the Wall Street Journal, medium.com, best-selling books, policy reports, student-run journals, celebrated speeches, and more,

x i i

Preface to the Fourth Edition

the readings represent a range of perspectives on five important

issues:

• How Can We Bridge the Differences That Divide Us?

• Is College the Best Option?

• Are We in a Race against the Machine?

• What’s Gender Got to Do with It?

• What’s There to Eat?

The readings can function as sources for students’ own writing,

and the study questions that follow each reading focus students’

attention on how each author uses the key rhetorical moves

taught in the book. Additionally, one question invites students

to write, and often to respond with their own views.

Two books in one, with a rhetoric up front and readings

in the back. The two parts are linked by cross-references in

the margins, leading from the rhetoric to specific examples in

the readings and from the readings to the corresponding writ-

ing instruction. Teachers can therefore begin with either the

rhetoric or the readings, and the links will facilitate movement

between one section and the other.

A chapter on reading (Chapter 14) encourages students to

think of reading as an act of entering conversations. Instead

of teaching students merely to identify the author’s argument,

this chapter shows them how to read with an eye for what

arguments the author is responding to—in other words, to

think carefully about why the writer is making the argument in

the first place, and thus to recognize (and ultimately become

a part of) the larger conversation that gives meaning to read-

ing the text.

x i i i

P R E F A C E T O T H E F O U R T H E D I T I O N

what’s new

A new chapter, “How Can We Bridge the Differences That

Divide Us?,” brings together diverse perspectives on some of

the issues that have been a source of division in our country,

with readings that offer possible ways to overcome those divi-

sions—from Sean Blanda’s “The Other Side Is Not Dumb” to J. D.

Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.

Half of the readings are new, with at least one documented

piece and one student essay in each chapter, added in response

to requests from many teachers who wanted more complex and

documented writing. In the technology and gender chapters,

half of the readings are new, with essays on fake news, wasting

time online (and why that’s a good thing), and men without

work, among others. The education chapter now includes an

essay on problematic elitism in some circles of higher education

and another on one college’s quest to foster tolerance among

its diverse student body. Finally, the food chapter now asks a

slightly different question: what (if anything) is there to eat?

An updated chapter on academic language (now called “You

Mean I Can Just Say It That Way?”) underscores the need to

bridge spheres that are too often kept separate: everyday lan-

guage and academic writing.

A new chapter on entering online conversations further

underscores the importance of including a “they say” when

responding to others on blogs, class discussion boards, and the

like, showing how the rhetorical moves taught in this book can

help students contribute clearly and respectfully to conversa-

tions in digital spaces.

x i v

Preface to the Fourth Edition

New examples—15 in total—appear throughout the rhetoric,

from Deborah Tannen and Charles Murray to Nicholas Carr

and Michelle Alexander.

An updated chapter on writing in the social sciences reflects

a broader range of writing assignments with examples from aca-

demic publications in sociology, psychology, and political science.

what’s online

Online tutorials give students hands-on practice recognizing

and using the rhetorical moves taught in this book both as

readers and writers. Each tutorial helps students read a full

essay with an eye on these moves and then respond to a writing

prompt using templates from the book.

They Say / I Blog. Updated monthly, this blog provides up-to-

the-minute readings on the issues covered in the book, along

with questions that prompt students to literally join the con-

versation. Check it out at theysayiblog.com.

Instructor’s Guide. Now available in print, the guide includes

expanded in-class activities, sample syllabi, summaries of

each chapter and reading, and a chapter on using the online

resources, including They Say / I Blog.

Ebook. Searchable, portable, and interactive. The complete

textbook for a fraction of the price. Students can interact with

the text—take notes, bookmark, search, and highlight. The

ebook can be viewed on—and synced between—all computers

and mobile devices.

x v

P R E F A C E T O T H E F O U R T H E D I T I O N

InQuizitive for Writers. Adaptive, game-like exercises help

students practice editing, focusing especially on the errors that

matter.

Coursepack. Norton resources you can add to your online,

hybrid, or lecture course—all at no cost. Norton Coursepacks

work within your existing learning management system; there’s

no new system to learn, and access is free and easy. Customizable

resources include assignable writing prompts from theysayiblog

.com, quizzes on grammar and documentation, documentation guides, model student essays, and more.

Find it all at digital.wwnorton.com/theysayreadings4 or contact your Norton representative for more information.

We hope that this new edition of “They Say / I Say” with Read-

ings will spark students’ interest in some of the most pressing

conversations of our day and provide them with some of the

tools they need to engage in those conversations with dexterity

and confidence.

Gerald Graff

Cathy Birkenstein

Russel Durst

x v i

preface

Demystifying Academic Conversation

H

Experienced writing instructors have long recognized

that writing well means entering into conversation with others.

Academic writing in particular calls upon writers not simply to

express their own ideas, but to do so as a response to what others

have said. The first-year writing program at our own university,

according to its mission statement, asks “students to partici-

pate in ongoing conversations about vitally important academic

and public issues.” A similar statement by another program

holds that “intellectual writing is almost always composed in

response to others’ texts.” These statements echo the ideas

of rhetorical theorists like Kenneth Burke, Mikhail Bakhtin,

and Wayne Booth as well as recent composition scholars like

David Bartholomae, John Bean, Patricia Bizzell, Irene Clark,

Greg Colomb, Lisa Ede, Peter Elbow, Joseph Harris, Andrea

Lunsford, Elaine Maimon, Gary Olson, Mike Rose, John Swales

and Christine Feak, Tilly Warnock, and others who argue that

writing well means engaging the voices of others and letting

them in turn engage us.

Yet despite this growing consensus that writing is a social,

conversational act, helping student writers actually partici-

pate in these conversations remains a formidable challenge.

This book aims to meet that challenge. Its goal is to demys-

tify academic writing by isolating its basic moves, explaining

x v i i

P R E F A C E

them clearly, and representing them in the form of templates.

In this way, we hope to help students become active partici-

pants in the important conversations of the academic world

and the wider public sphere.

highlights

• Shows that writing well means entering a conversation, sum-

marizing others (“they say”) to set up one’s own argument

(“I say”).

• Demystifies academic writing, showing students “the moves

that matter” in language they can readily apply.

• Provides user-friendly templates to help writers make those

moves in their own writing.

• Includes a chapter on reading, showing students how the

authors they read are part of a conversation that they them-

selves can enter—and thus to see reading as a matter not

of passively absorbing information but of understanding and

actively entering dialogues and debates.

how this book came to be

The original idea for this book grew out of our shared interest in

democratizing academic culture. First, it grew out of arguments

that Gerald Graff has been making throughout his career that

schools and colleges need to invite students into the conversa-

tions and debates that surround them. More specifically, it is a

practical, hands-on companion to his recent book, Clueless in

Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind, in which

he looks at academic conversations from the perspective of

those who find them mysterious and proposes ways in which

x v i i i

Demystifying Academic Conversation

such mystification can be overcome. Second, this book grew

out of writing templates that Cathy Birkenstein developed in

the 1990s, for use in writing and literature courses she was

teaching. Many students, she found, could readily grasp what it

meant to support a thesis with evidence, to entertain a counter-

argument, to identify a textual contradiction, and ultimately

to summarize and respond to challenging arguments, but they

often had trouble putting these concepts into practice in their

own writing. When Cathy sketched out templates on the board,

however, giving her students some of the language and patterns

that these sophisticated moves require, their writing—and even

their quality of thought—significantly improved.

This book began, then, when we put our ideas together and

realized that these templates might have the potential to open

up and clarify academic conversation. We proceeded from the

premise that all writers rely on certain stock formulas that they

themselves didn’t invent—and that many of these formulas

are so commonly used that they can be represented in model

templates that students can use to structure and even generate

what they want to say.

As we developed a working draft of this book, we began using

it in first-year writing courses that we teach at UIC. In class-

room exercises and writing assignments, we found that students

who otherwise struggled to organize their thoughts, or even to

think of something to say, did much better when we provided

them with templates like the following.

j In discussions of

, a controversial issue is whether

. While some argue that

, others contend

that

.

j This is not to say that

.

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P R E F A C E

One virtue of such templates, we found, is that they focus

writers’ attention not just on what is being said, but on the

forms that structure what is being said. In other words, they

make students more conscious of the rhetorical patterns that

are key to academic success but often pass under the classroom

radar.

the centrality of “they say / i say”

The central rhetorical move that we focus on in this book is

the “they say / I say” template that gives our book its title. In our

view, this template represents the deep, underlying structure,

the internal DNA as it were, of all effective argument. Effective

persuasive writers do more than make well-supported claims

(“I say”); they also map those claims relative to the claims of

others (“they say”).

Here, for example, the “they say / I say” pattern structures a

passage from an essay by the media and technology critic Steven

Johnson.

For decades, we’ve worked under the assumption that mass cul-

ture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-common-

denominator standards, presumably because the “masses” want

dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies try to give the

masses what they want. But … the exact opposite is happening:

the culture is getting more cognitively demanding, not less.

Steven Johnson, “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”

In generating his own argument from something “they say,”

Johnson suggests why he needs to say what he is saying: to

correct a popular misconception.

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Demystifying Academic Conversation

Even when writers do not explicitly identify the views they

are responding to, as Johnson does, an implicit “they say” can

often be discerned, as in the following passage by Zora Neale

Hurston.

I remember the day I became colored.

Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”

In order to grasp Hurston’s point here, we need to be able to

reconstruct the implicit view she is responding to and question-

ing: that racial identity is an innate quality we are simply born

with. On the contrary, Hurston suggests, our race is imposed

on us by society—something we “become” by virtue of how

we are treated.

As these examples suggest, the “they say / I say” model can

improve not just student writing, but student reading compre-

hension as well. Since reading and writing are deeply recipro-

cal activities, students who learn to make the rhetorical moves

represented by the templates in this book figure to become more

adept at identifying these same moves in the texts they read. And

if we are right that effective arguments are always in dialogue

with other arguments, then it follows that in order to understand

the types of challenging texts assigned in college, students need

to identify the views to which those texts are responding.

Working with the “they say / I say” model can also help with

invention, finding something to say. In our experience, students

best discover what they want to say not by thinking about a

subject in an isolation booth, but by reading texts, listening

closely to what other writers say, and looking for an opening

through which they can enter the conversation. In other words,

listening closely to others and summarizing what they have to

say can help writers generate their own ideas.

x x i

P R E F A C E

the usefulness of templates

Our templates also have a generative quality, prompting stu-

dents to make moves in their writing that they might not oth-

erwise make or even know they should make. The templates

in this book can be particularly helpful for students who are

unsure about what to say, or who have trouble finding enough

to say, often because they consider their own beliefs so

self-evident that they need not be argued for. Students like this

are often helped, we’ve found, when we give them a simple tem-

plate like the following one for entertaining a counterargument

(or planting a naysayer, as we call it in Chapter 6).

j Of course some might object that

. Although I concede

that

, I still maintain that

.

What this particular template helps students do is make the

seemingly counterintuitive move of questioning their own

beliefs, of looking at them from the perspective of those who

disagree. In so doing, templates can bring out aspects of stu-

dents’ thoughts that, as they themselves sometimes remark,

they didn’t even realize were there.

Other templates in this book help students make a host of

sophisticated moves that they might not otherwise make: sum-

marizing what someone else says, framing a quotation in one’s

own words, indicating the view that the writer is responding to,

marking the shift from a source’s view to the writer’s own view,

offering evidence for that view, entertaining and answering

counterarguments, and explaining what is at stake in the first

place. In showing students how to make such moves, templates

do more than organize students’ ideas; they help bring those

ideas into existence.

x x i i

Demystifying Academic Conversation

“ok—but templates?”

We are aware, of course, that some instructors may have res-

ervations about templates. Some, for instance, may object that

such formulaic devices represent a return to prescriptive forms

of instruction that encourage passive learning or lead students

to put their writing on automatic pilot.

This is an understandable reaction, we think, to kinds of rote

instruction that have indeed encouraged passivity and drained

writing of its creativity and dynamic relation to the social world.

The trouble is that many students will never learn on their own

to make the key intellectual moves that our templates repre-

sent. While seasoned writers pick up these moves unconsciously

through their reading, many students do not. Consequently, we

believe, students need to see these moves represented in the

explicit ways that the templates provide.

The aim of the templates, then, is not to stifle critical

thinking but to be direct with students about the key rhetori-

cal moves that it comprises. Since we encourage students to

modify and adapt the templates to the particularities of the

arguments they are making, using such prefabricated formulas

as learning tools need not result in writing and thinking that

are themselves formulaic. Admittedly, no teaching tool can

guarantee that students will engage in hard, rigorous thought.

Our templates do, however, provide concrete prompts that can

stimulate and shape such thought: What do “they say” about my

topic? What would a naysayer say about my argument? What

is my evidence? Do I need to qualify my point? Who cares?

In fact, templates have a long and rich history. Public orators

from ancient Greece and Rome through the European Renais-

sance studied rhetorical topoi or “commonplaces,” model passages

and formulas that represented the different strategies available

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P R E F A C E

to public speakers. In many respects, our templates echo this

classical rhetorical tradition of imitating established models.

The journal Nature requires aspiring contributors to follow

a guideline that is like a template on the opening page of their

manuscript: “Two or three sentences explaining what the main

result [of their study] reveals in direct comparison with what was

thought to be the case previously, or how the main result adds to

previous knowledge.” In the field of education, a form designed

by the education theorist Howard Gardner asks postdoctoral

fellowship applicants to complete the following template: “Most

scholars in the field believe

. As a result of my study,

.” That these two examples are geared toward post-

doctoral fellows and veteran researchers shows that it is not

only struggling undergraduates who can use help making these

key rhetorical moves, but experienced academics as well.

Templates have even been used in the teaching of personal

narrative. The literary and educational theorist Jane Tompkins

devised the following template to help student writers make the

often difficult move from telling a story to explaining what it

means: “X tells a story about

to make the point that

. My own experience with

yields a point

that is similar/different/both similar and different. What I take

away from my own experience with

is

. As

a result, I conclude

.” We especially like this template

because it suggests that “they say / I say” argument need not be

mechanical, impersonal, or dry, and that telling a story and mak-

ing an argument are more compatible activities than many think.

why it’s okay to use “i”

But wait—doesn’t the “I” part of “they say/ I say” flagrantly

encourage the use of the first-person pronoun? Aren’t we aware

x x i v

Demystifying Academic Conversation

that some teachers prohibit students from using “I” or “we,”

on the grounds that these pronouns encourage ill-considered,

subjective opinions rather than objective and reasoned argu-

ments? Yes, we are aware of this first-person prohibition, but

we think it has serious flaws. First, expressing ill-considered,

subjective opinions is not necessarily the worst sin beginning

writers can commit; it might be a starting point from which they

can move on to more reasoned, less self-indulgent perspectives.

Second, prohibiting students from using “I” is simply not an

effective way of curbing students’ subjectivity, since one can

offer poorly argued, ill-supported opinions just as easily without

it. Third and most important, prohibiting the first person tends

to hamper students’ ability not only to take strong positions but

to differentiate their own positions from those of others, as we

point out in Chapter 5. To be sure, writers can resort to vari-

ous circumlocutions—“it will here be argued,” “the evidence

suggests,” “the truth is”—and these may be useful for avoid-

ing a monotonous series of “I believe” sentences. But except

for avoiding such monotony, we see no good reason why “I”

should be set aside in persuasive writing. Rather than prohibit

“I,” then, we think a better tactic is to give students practice

at using it well and learning its use, both by supporting their

claims with evidence and by attending closely to alternative

perspectives—to what “they” are saying.

how this book is organized

Because of its centrality, we have allowed the “they say / I say”

format to dictate the structure of this book. So while Part 1

addresses the art of listening to others, Part 2 addresses how

to offer one’s own response. Part 1 opens with a chapter on

x x v

P R E F A C E

“Starting with What Others Are Saying” that explains why it is

generally advisable to begin a text by citing others rather than

plunging directly into one’s own views. Subsequent chapters

take up the arts of summarizing and quoting what these others

have to say. Part 2 begins with a chapter on different ways of

responding, followed by chapters on marking the shift between

what “they say” and what “I say,” on introducing and answering

objections, and on answering the all-important questions: “so

what?” and “who cares?” Part 3 offers strategies for “Tying It All

Together,” beginning with a chapter on connection and coher-

ence; followed by a chapter on academic language, encouraging

students to draw on their everyday voice as a tool for writing;

and including chapters on the art of metacommentary and using

the templates to revise a text. Part 4 offers guidance for enter-

ing conversations in specific academic contexts, with chapters

on entering class discussions, writing online, and reading and

writing in the social sciences. Finally, we provide forty readings

and an index of templates.

what this book doesn’t do

There are some things that this book does not try to do. We do

not, for instance, cover logical principles of argument such as

syllogisms, warrants, logical fallacies, or the differences between

inductive and deductive reasoning. Although such concepts

can be useful, we believe most of us learn the ins and outs of

argumentative writing not by studying logical principles in the

abstract, but by plunging into actual discussions and debates,

trying out different patterns of response, and in this way getting

a sense of what works to persuade different audiences and what

doesn’t. In our view, people learn more about arguing from

x x v i

Demystifying Academic Conversation

hearing someone say, “You miss my point. What I’m saying

is not

, but

,” or “I agree with you that

, and would even add that

,” than they do

from studying the differences between inductive and deductive

reasoning. Such formulas give students an immediate sense of

what it feels like to enter a public conversation in a way that

studying abstract warrants and logical fallacies does not.

engaging with the ideas of others

One central goal of this book is to demystify academic writing

by returning it to its social and conversational roots. Although

writing may require some degree of quiet and solitude, the “they

say/ I say” model shows students that they can best develop their

arguments not just by looking inward but by doing what they

often do in a good conversation with friends and family—by

listening carefully to what others are saying and engaging with

other views.

This approach to writing therefore has an ethical dimension,

since it asks writers not simply to keep proving and reasserting

what they already believe, but to stretch what they believe by

putting it up against beliefs that differ, sometimes radically,

from their own. In an increasingly diverse, global society, this

ability to engage with the ideas of others is especially crucial

to democratic citizenship.

Gerald Graff

Cathy Birkenstein

x x v i i

introduction

Entering the Conversation

H

Think about an activity that you do particularly well:

cooking, playing the piano, shooting a basketball, even some-

thing as basic as driving a car. If you reflect on this activity, you’ll

realize that once you mastered it you no longer had to give much

conscious thought to the various moves that go into doing it.

Performing this activity, in other words, depends on your having

learned a series of complicated moves—moves that may seem

mysterious or difficult to those who haven’t yet learned them.

The same applies to writing. Often without consciously real-

izing it, accomplished writers routinely rely on a stock of estab-

lished moves that are crucial for communicating sophisticated

ideas. What makes writers masters of their trade is not only

their ability to express interesting thoughts but their mastery

of an inventory of basic moves that they probably picked up

by reading a wide range of other accomplished writers. Less

experienced writers, by contrast, are often unfamiliar with these

basic moves and unsure how to make them in their own writing.

Hence this book, which is intended as a short, user-friendly

guide to the basic moves of academic writing.

One of our key premises is that these basic moves are so

common that they can be represented in templates that you

can use right away to structure and even generate your own

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

writing. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this book is

its pre sentation of many such templates, designed to help you

successfully enter not only the world of academic thinking and

writing, but also the wider worlds of civic discourse and work.

Instead of focusing solely on abstract principles of writing,

then, this book offers model templates that help you put those

principles directly into practice. Working with these templates

will give you an immediate sense of how to engage in the kinds

of critical thinking you are required to do at the college level

and in the vocational and public spheres beyond.

Some of these templates represent simple but crucial moves

like those used to summarize some widely held belief.

j Many Americans assume that

.

Others are more complicated.

j On the one hand,

. On the other hand,

.

j Author X contradicts herself. At the same time that she argues

, she also implies

.

j I agree that

.

j This is not to say that

.

It is true, of course, that critical thinking and writing go deeper

than any set of linguistic formulas, requiring that you question

assumptions, develop strong claims, offer supporting reasons

and evidence, consider opposing arguments, and so on. But

these deeper habits of thought cannot be put into practice

unless you have a language for expressing them in clear, orga-

nized ways.

2

Entering the Conversation

state your own ideas as a

response to others

The single most important template that we focus on in this

book is the “they say

; I say

” formula that

gives our book its title. If there is any one point that we hope

you will take away from this book, it is the importance not only

of expressing your ideas (“I say”) but of presenting those ideas

as a response to some other person or group (“they say”). For us,

the underlying structure of effective academic writing—and of

responsible public discourse—resides not just in stating our own

ideas but in listening closely to others around us, summarizing

their views in a way that they will recognize, and responding

with our own ideas in kind. Broadly speaking, academic writ-

ing is argumentative writing, and we believe that to argue well

you need to do more than assert your own position. You need

to enter a conversation, using what others say (or might say)

as a launching pad or sounding board for your own views. For

this reason, one of the main pieces of advice in this book is to

write the voices of others into your text.

In our view, then, the best academic writing has one under-

lying feature: it is deeply engaged in some way with other peo-

ple’s views. Too often, however, academic writing is taught as

a process of saying “true” or “smart” things in a vacuum, as if

it were possible to argue effectively without being in conver-

sation with someone else. If you have been taught to write a

traditional five-paragraph essay, for example, you have learned

how to develop a thesis and support it with evidence. This is

good advice as far as it goes, but it leaves out the important

fact that in the real world we don’t make arguments without

being provoked. Instead, we make arguments because some-

one has said or done something (or perhaps not said or done

3

I N T R O D U C T I O N

something) and we need to respond: “I can’t see why you like

the Lakers so much”; “I agree: it was a great film”; “That argu-

ment is contradictory.” If it weren’t for other people and our

need to challenge, agree with, or otherwise respond to them,

there would be no reason to argue at all.

“why are you telling me this?”

To make an impact as a writer, then, you need to do more than

make statements that are logical, well supported, and consis-

tent. You must also find a way of entering into conversation

with the views of others, with something “they say.” The easiest

and most common way writers do this is by summarizing what

others say and then using it to set up what they want to say.

“But why,” as a student of ours once asked, “do I always

need to summarize the views of others to set up my own view?

Why can’t I just state my own view and be done with it?”

Why indeed? After all, “they,” whoever they may be, will have

already had their say, so why do you have to repeat it? Further-

more, if they had their say in print, can’t readers just go and

read what was said themselves?

The answer is that if you don’t identify the “they say” you’re

responding to, your own argument probably won’t have a point.

Readers will wonder what prompted you to say what you’re say-

ing and therefore motivated you to write. As the figure on the

following page suggests, without a “they say,” what you are saying

may be clear to your audience, but why you are saying it won’t be.

Even if we don’t know what film he’s referring to, it’s easy

to grasp what the speaker means here when he says that its

characters are very complex. But it’s hard to see why the speaker

feels the need to say what he is saying. “Why,” as one member

4

Entering the Conversation

of his imagined audience wonders, “is he telling us this?” So

the characters are complex—so what?

Now look at what happens to the same proposition when it

is presented as a response to something “they say”:

5

I N T R O D U C T I O N

We hope you agree that the same claim—“the characters

in the film are very complex”—becomes much stronger when

presented as a response to a contrary view: that the film’s char-

acters “are sexist stereotypes.” Unlike the speaker in the first

cartoon, the speaker in the second has a clear goal or mission:

to correct what he sees as a mistaken characterization.

the as-opposed-to-what factor

To put our point another way, framing your “I say” as a response

to something “they say” gives your writing an element of con-

trast without which it won’t make sense. It may be helpful to

think of this crucial element as an “as-opposed-to-what factor”

and, as you write, to continually ask yourself, “Who says oth-

erwise?” and “Does anyone dispute it?” Behind the audience’s

“Yeah, so?” and “Why is he telling us this?” in the first cartoon

above lie precisely these types of “As opposed to what?” ques-

tions. The speaker in the second cartoon, we think, is more

satisfying because he answers these questions, helping us see

his point that the film presents complex characters rather than

simple sexist stereotypes.

how it’s done

Many accomplished writers make explicit “they say” moves to

set up and motivate their own arguments. One famous example

is Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which

consists almost entirely of King’s eloquent responses to a public

statement by eight clergymen deploring the civil rights protests

6

Entering the Conversation

he was leading. The letter—which was written in 1963, while

King was in prison for leading a demonstration against racial

injustice in Birmingham—is structured almost entirely around a

framework of summary and response, in which King summarizes

and then answers their criticisms. In one typical passage, King

writes as follows.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But

your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern

for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.

Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

King goes on to agree with his critics that “It is unfortunate that

demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham,” yet he hastens

to add that “it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white

power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.”

King’s letter is so thoroughly conversational, in fact, that it

could be rewritten in the form of a dialogue or play.

King’s critics:

King’s response:

Critics:

Response:

Clearly, King would not have written his famous letter were

it not for his critics, whose views he treats not as objections

to his already-formed arguments but as the motivating source

of those arguments, their central reason for being. He quotes

not only what his critics have said (“Some have asked: ‘Why

didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?’ ”), but

also things they might have said (“One may well ask: ‘How can

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ ”)—all

to set the stage for what he himself wants to say.

A similar “they say / I say” exchange opens an essay about

American patriotism by the social critic Katha Pollitt, who uses

her own daughter’s comment to represent the patriotic national

fervor after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks

from the former World Trade Center, thinks we should fly the

American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: the flag stands

for jingoism and vengeance and war. She tells me I’m wrong—the

flag means standing together and honoring the dead and saying no

to terrorism. In a way we’re both right… .

Katha Pollitt, “Put Out No Flags”

As Pollitt’s example shows, the “they” you respond to in

crafting an argument need not be a famous author or someone

known to your audience. It can be a family member like

Pollitt’s daughter, or a friend or classmate who has made a

provocative claim. It can even be something an individual or

a group might say—or a side of yourself, something you once

believed but no longer do, or something you partly believe but

also doubt. The important thing is that the “they” (or “you” or

“she”) represent some wider group with which readers might

identify—in Pollitt’s case, those who patriotically believe in

flying the flag. Pollitt’s example also shows that responding to

the views of others need not always involve unquali-

See Chapter

4 for more

fied opposition. By agreeing and disagreeing with her

on agreeing,

but with a

daughter, Pollitt enacts what we call the “yes and no”

difference.

response, reconciling apparently incompatible views.

While King and Pollitt both identify the views they are

responding to, some authors do not explicitly state their views

8

Entering the Conversation

but instead allow the reader to infer them. See, for instance, if

you can identify the implied or unnamed “they say” that the

following claim is responding to.

I like to think I have a certain advantage as a teacher of literature

because when I was growing up I disliked and feared books.

Gerald Graff, “Disliking Books at an Early Age”

In case you haven’t figured it out already, the phantom “they

say” here is the common belief that in order to be a good

teacher of literature, one must have grown up liking and enjoy-

ing books.

court controversy, but …

As you can see from these examples, many writers use the “they

say / I say” format to challenge standard ways of thinking and

thus to stir up controversy. This point may come as a shock to

you if you have always had the impression that in order to suc-

ceed academically you need to play it safe and avoid controversy

in your writing, making statements that nobody can possibly

disagree with. Though this view of writing may appear logical,

it is actually a recipe for flat, lifeless writing and for writing that

fails to answer what we call the “so what?” and “who cares?”

questions. “William Shakespeare wrote many famous plays and

sonnets” may be a perfectly true statement, but precisely because

nobody is likely to disagree with it, it goes without saying and

thus would seem pointless if said.

But just because controversy is important doesn’t mean you

have to become an attack dog who automatically disagrees with

9

I N T R O D U C T I O N

everything others say. We think this is an important point to

underscore because some who are not familiar with this book

have gotten the impression from the title that our goal is to

train writers simply to disparage whatever “they say.”

disagreeing without being disagreeable

There certainly are occasions when strong critique is needed.

It’s hard to live in a deeply polarized society like our current one

and not feel the need at times to criticize what others think.

But even the most justified critiques fall flat, we submit, unless

we really listen to and understand the views we are criticizing:

j While I understand the impulse to

, my own view

is

.

Even the most sympathetic audiences, after all, tend to feel

manipulated by arguments that scapegoat and caricature the

other side.

Furthermore, genuinely listening to views we disagree with

can have the salutary effect of helping us see that beliefs we’d

initially disdained may not be as thoroughly reprehensible as

we’d imagined. Thus the type of “they say / I say” argument

that we promote in this book can take the form of agreeing up

to a point or, as the Pollitt example above illustrates, of both

agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously, as in:

j While I agree with X that

, I cannot accept her over-

all conclusion that

.

j While X argues

, and I argue

, in a way

we’re both right.

1 0

Entering the Conversation

Agreement cannot be ruled out, however:

j I agree with

that

.

the template of templates

There are many ways, then, to enter a conversation and respond

to what “they say.” But our discussion of ways to do so would

be incomplete were we not to mention the most comprehensive

way that writers enter conversations, which incorporates all the

major moves discussed in this book:

j In recent discussions of

, a controversial issue has

been whether

. On the one hand, some argue

that

. From this perspective,

. On the other

hand, however, others argue that

. In the words of

, one of this view’s main proponents, “

.”

According to this view,

. In sum, then, the issue is

whether

or

.

My own view is that

. Though I concede that

, I still maintain that

. For example,

. Although some might object that

, I would

reply that

. The issue is important because

.

This “template of templates,” as we like to call it, represents

the internal DNA of countless articles and even entire books.

Writers commonly use a version of it not only to stake out their

“they say” and “I say” at the start of their manuscript, but—just

as important—to form the overarching blueprint that structures

what they write over the entire length of their text.

1 1

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Taking it line by line, this master template first helps

you open your text by identifying an issue in some ongoing

conversation or debate (“In recent discussions of

,

a controversial issue has been

”), and then to map

some of the voices in this controversy (by using the “on the

one hand / on the other hand” structure). The template

then helps you introduce a quotation (“In the words of ”),

to explain the quotation in your own words (“According to

this view”), and—in a new paragraph—to state your own

argument (“My own view is that”), to qualify your argu-

ment (“Though I concede that”), and then to support your

argument with evidence (“For example”). In addition, the

template helps you make one of the most crucial moves in

argumentative writing, what we call “planting a naysayer in

your text,” in which you summarize and then answer a likely

objection to your own central claim (“Although it might

be objected that

, I reply

”). Finally,

this template helps you shift between general, over-arching

claims (“In sum, then”) and smaller-scale, supporting claims

(“For example”).

Again, none of us is born knowing these moves, especially

when it comes to academic writing. Hence the need for this

book.

but isn’t this plagiarism?

“But isn’t this plagiarism?” at least one student each year will

usually ask. “Well, is it?” we respond, turning the question

around into one the entire class can profit from. “We are, after

all, asking you to use language in your writing that isn’t your

1 2

Entering the Conversation

own—language that you ‘borrow’ or, to put it less delicately,

steal from other writers.”

Often, a lively discussion ensues that raises important

questions about authorial ownership and helps everyone

better understand the frequently confusing line between pla-

giarism and the legitimate use of what others say and how

they say it. Students are quick to see that no one person

owns a conventional formula like “on the one hand …

on the other hand… .” Phrases like “a controversial issue”

are so commonly used and recycled that they are generic—

community property that can be freely used without fear of

committing plagiarism. It is plagiarism, however, if the words

used to fill in the blanks of such formulas are borrowed from

others without proper acknowledgment. In sum, then, while

it is not plagiarism to recycle conventionally used formulas, it

is a serious academic offense to take the substantive content

from others’ texts without citing the author and giving him

or her proper credit.

“ok—but templates?”

Nevertheless, if you are like some of our students, your ini-

tial response to templates may be skepticism. At first, many

of our students complain that using templates will take away

their originality and creativity and make them all sound the

same. “They’ll turn us into writing robots,” one of our students

insisted. “I’m in college now,” another student asserted; “this

is third-grade-level stuff.”

In our view, however, the templates in this book, far from

being “third-grade-level stuff,” represent the stock-in-trade of

1 3

I N T R O D U C T I O N

sophisticated thinking and writing, and they often require a great

deal of practice and instruction to use successfully. As for the

belief that pre-established forms undermine creativity, we think

it rests on a very limited vision of what creativity is all about.

In our view, the templates in this book will actually help your

writing become more original and creative, not less. After all,

even the most creative forms of expression depend on established

patterns and structures. Most songwriters, for instance, rely on a

time-honored verse-chorus-verse pattern, and few people would

call Shakespeare uncreative because he didn’t invent the sonnet

or the dramatic forms that he used to such dazzling effect. Even

the most avant-garde, cutting-edge artists like improvisational

jazz musicians need to master the basic forms that their work

improvises on, departs from, and goes beyond, or else their work

will come across as uneducated child’s play. Ultimately, then,

creativity and originality lie not in the avoidance of established

forms but in the imaginative use of them.

Furthermore, these templates do not dictate the content of

what you say, which can be as original as you can make it, but

only suggest a way of formatting how you say it. In addition,

once you begin to feel comfortable with the templates in this

book, you will be able to improvise creatively on them to fit

new situations and purposes and find others in your reading.

In other words, the templates offered here are learning tools to

get you started, not structures set in stone. Once you get used

to using them, you can even dispense with them altogether,

for the rhetorical moves they model will be at your fingertips

in an unconscious, instinctive way.

But if you still need proof that writing templates need not

make you sound stiff and artificial, consider the following open-

ing to an essay on the fast-food industry that we’ve included at

the back of this book.

1 4

Entering the Conversation

If ever there were a newspaper headline custom-made for Jay Leno’s

monologue, this was it. Kids taking on McDonald’s this week, suing

the company for making them fat. Isn’t that like middle-aged men

suing Porsche for making them get speeding tickets? Whatever

happened to personal responsibility?

I tend to sympathize with these portly fast-food patrons, though.

Maybe that’s because I used to be one of them.

David Zinczenko, “Don’t Blame the Eater”

Although Zinczenko relies on a version of the “they say / I

say” formula, his writing is anything but dry, robotic, or uncre-

ative. While Zinczenko does not explicitly use the words

“they say” and “I say,” the template still gives the passage its

underlying structure: “They say that kids suing fast-food com-

panies for making them fat is a joke; but I say such lawsuits

are justified.”

putting in your oar

Though 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, intellectual thinker who, instead of sit-

ting passively on the sidelines, can participate in the debates and

conversations of your world in an active and empowered way.

Ultimately, this book invites you to become a critical thinker

who can enter the types of conversations described eloquently

by the philosopher Kenneth Burke in the following widely cited

passage. Likening the world of intellectual exchange to a never-

ending conversation at a party, Burke writes:

You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you,

and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated

1 5

I N T R O D U C T I O N

for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about… . You

listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor

of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you

answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself

against you… . The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do

depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form

What we like about this passage is its suggestion that stating an

argument (putting in your oar) can only be done in conversa-

tion with others; that entering the dynamic world of ideas must

be done not as isolated individuals but as social beings deeply

connected to others.

This ability to enter complex, many-sided conversations

has taken on a special urgency in today’s polarized, Red State /

Blue State America, where the future for all of us may depend

on our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of those who think

very differently from us. The central piece of advice in this

book—that we listen carefully to others, including those who

disagree with us, and then engage with them thoughtfully

and respectfully—can help us see beyond our own pet beliefs,

which may not be shared by everyone. The mere act of craft-

ing a sentence that begins “Of course, someone might object

that

” may not seem like a way to change the world;

but it does have the potential to jog us out of our comfort

zones, to get us thinking critically about our own beliefs, and

even to change minds, our own included.

Exercises

1. Write a short essay in which you first summarize our rationale

for the templates in this book and then articulate your own

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Entering the Conversation

position in response. If you want, you can use the template

below to organize your paragraphs, expanding and modifying

it as necessary to fit what you want to say.

In the Introduction to “They Say / I Say”: The Moves That Matter in

Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide tem-

plates designed to

. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein

argue that the types of writing templates they offer

. As

the authors themselves put it, “

.” Although some people

believe

, Graff and Birkenstein insist that

.

In sum, then, their view is that

.

I [agree/disagree/have mixed feelings]. In my view, the types

of templates that the authors recommend

. For

instance,

. In addition,

. Some might object,

of course, on the grounds that

. Yet I would argue

that

. Overall, then, I believe

—an important

point to make given

.

2. Read the following paragraph from an essay by Emily Poe, a

student at Furman University. Disregarding for the moment

what Poe says, focus your attention on the phrases she uses

to structure what she says (italicized here). Then write a new

paragraph using Poe’s as a model but replacing her topic,

vegetarianism, with one of your own.

The term “vegetarian” tends to be synonymous with “tree-hugger”

in many people’s minds. They see vegetarianism as a cult that

brainwashes its followers into eliminating an essential part of their

daily diets for an abstract goal of “animal welfare.” However, few

vegetarians choose their lifestyle just to follow the crowd. On the

contrary, many of these supposedly brainwashed people are actu-

ally independent thinkers, concerned citizens, and compassionate

human beings. For the truth is that there are many very good reasons

1 7

I N T R O D U C T I O N

for giving up meat. Perhaps the best reasons are to improve the

environment, to encourage humane treatment of livestock, or to

enhance one’s own health. In this essay, then, closely examining a

vegetarian diet as compared to a meat-eater’s diet will show that

vegetarianism is clearly the better option for sustaining the Earth

and all its inhabitants.

1 8

ONE

“they say”

Starting with What Others Are Saying

H

Not long ago we attended a talk at an academic conference

where the speaker’s central claim seemed to be that a certain

sociologist—call him Dr. X—had done very good work in a

number of areas of the discipline. The speaker proceeded to

illustrate his thesis by referring extensively and in great detail

to various books and articles by Dr. X and by quoting long pas-

sages from them. The speaker was obviously both learned and

impassioned, but as we listened to his talk we found ourselves

somewhat puzzled: the argument—that Dr. X’s work was very

important—was clear enough, but why did the speaker need to

make it in the first place? Did anyone dispute it? Were there

commentators in the field who had argued against X’s work or

challenged its value? Was the speaker’s interpretation of what

X had done somehow novel or revolutionary? Since the speaker

gave no hint of an answer to any of these questions, we could

only wonder why he was going on and on about X. It The hypowas only after the speaker finished and took questions thetical audience in

from the audience that we got a clue: in response to the figure on

p. 5 reacts

one questioner, he referred to several critics who had similarly.

1 9

o n e “ T H E Y S A Y ”

vigorously questioned Dr. X’s ideas and convinced many soci-

ologists that Dr. X’s work was unsound.

This story illustrates an important lesson: that to give writ-

ing the most important thing of all—namely, a point—a writer

needs to indicate clearly not only what his or her thesis is,

but also what larger conversation that thesis is responding to.

Because our speaker failed to mention what others had said about

Dr. X’s work, he left his audience unsure about why he felt the

need to say what he was saying. Perhaps the point was clear to

other sociologists in the audience who were more familiar with

the debates over Dr. X’s work than we were. But even they, we

bet, would have understood the speaker’s point better if he’d

sketched in some of the larger conversation his own claims were

a part of and reminded the audience about what “they say.”

This story also illustrates an important lesson about the order

in which things are said: to keep an audience engaged, a writer

needs to explain what he or she is responding to—either before

offering that response or, at least, very early in the discussion.

Delaying this explanation for more than one or two paragraphs

in a very short essay or blog entry, three or four pages in a lon-

ger work, or more than ten or so pages in a book reverses the

See how an

natural order in which readers process material—and in

essay about

community

which writers think and develop ideas. After all, it seems

college opens

very unlikely that our conference speaker first developed

by quoting its

critics, p. 365.

his defense of Dr. X and only later came across Dr. X’s

critics. As someone knowledgeable in his field, the speaker surely

encountered the criticisms first and only then was compelled to

respond and, as he saw it, set the record straight.

Therefore, when it comes to constructing an argument

(whether orally or in writing), we offer you the following

advice: remember that you are entering a conversation and

therefore need to start with “what others are saying,” as the

2 0

Starting with What Others Are Saying

title of this chapter recommends, and then introduce your own

ideas as a response. Specifically, we suggest that you summarize

what “they say” as soon as you can in your text, and remind

readers of it at strategic points as your text unfolds. Though

it’s true that not all texts follow this practice, we think it’s

important for all writers to master it before they depart from it.

This is not to say that you must start with a detailed list of

everyone who has written on your subject before you offer your

own ideas. Had our conference speaker gone to the opposite

extreme and spent most of his talk summarizing Dr. X’s critics

with no hint of what he himself had to say, the audience probably

would have had the same frustrated “why-is-he-going-on-like-

this?” reaction. What we suggest, then, is that as soon as possible

you state your own position and the one it’s responding to together,

and that you think of the two as a unit. It is generally best to

summarize the ideas you’re responding to briefly, at the start of

your text, and to delay detailed elaboration until later. The point

is to give your readers a quick preview of what is motivating your

argument, not to drown them in details right away.

Starting with a summary of others’ views may seem to con-

tradict the common advice that writers should lead with their

own thesis or claim. Although we agree that you shouldn’t keep

readers in suspense too long about your central argument, we also

believe that you need to present that argument as part of some

larger conversation, indicating something about the arguments

of others that you are supporting, opposing, amending, compli-

cating, or qualifying. One added benefit of summarizing others’

views as soon as you can: you let those others do some of the

work of framing and clarifying the issue you’re writing about.

Consider, for example, how George Orwell starts his famous

essay “Politics and the English Language” with what others are

saying.

2 1

o n e “ T H E Y S A Y ”

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the

English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that

we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civiliza-

tion is decadent and our language—so the argument runs—must

inevitably share in the general collapse… .

[But] the process is reversible. Modern English … is full of

bad habits … which can be avoided if one is willing to take the

necessary trouble.

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

Orwell is basically saying, “Most people assume that we cannot

do anything about the bad state of the English language. But

I say we can.”

Of course, there are many other powerful ways to begin.

Instead of opening with someone else’s views, you could start

with an illustrative quotation, a revealing fact or statistic, or—

as we do in this chapter—a relevant anecdote. If you choose

one of these formats, however, 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.

In opening this chapter, for example, we devote the first para-

graph to an anecdote about the conference speaker and then

move quickly at the start of the second paragraph to the miscon-

ception about writing exemplified by the speaker. In the follow-

ing opening, from an opinion piece in the New York Times Book

Review, Christina Nehring also moves quickly from an anecdote

illustrating something she dislikes to her own claim—that book

lovers think too highly of themselves.

“I’m a reader!” announced the yellow button. “How about you?” I

looked at its bearer, a strapping young guy stalking my town’s Festival

of Books. “I’ll bet you’re a reader,” he volunteered, as though we were

2 2

Starting with What Others Are Saying

two geniuses well met. “No,” I replied. “Absolutely not,” I wanted to

yell, and fling my Barnes & Noble bag at his feet. Instead, I mumbled

something apologetic and melted into the crowd.

There’s a new piety in the air: the self-congratulation of book

lovers.

Christina Nehring, “Books Make You a Boring Person”

Nehring’s anecdote is really a kind of “they say”: book lovers

keep telling themselves how great they are.

templates for introducing

what “they say”

There are lots of conventional ways to introduce what others

are saying. Here are some standard templates that we would

have recommended to our conference speaker.

j A number of sociologists have recently suggested that X’s work

has several fundamental problems.

j It has become common today to dismiss

.

j In their recent work, Y and Z have offered harsh critiques of

for

.

templates for introducing

“standard views”

The following templates can help you make what we call the

“standard view” move, in which you introduce a view that has

become so widely accepted that by now it is essentially the

conventional way of thinking about a topic.

2 3

o n e “ T H E Y S A Y ”

j

Americans have always believed that individual effort can

triumph over circumstances.

j Conventional wisdom has it that

.

j Common sense seems to dictate that

.

j The standard way of thinking about topic X has it that

.

j It is often said that

.

j My whole life I have heard it said that

.

j You would think that

.

j Many people assume that

.

These templates are popular because they provide a quick

and efficient way to perform one of the most common moves

that writers make: challenging widely accepted beliefs, placing

them on the examining table, and analyzing their strengths

and weaknesses.

templates for making what “they say”

something you say

Another way to introduce the views you’re responding to is

to present them as your own. That is, the “they say” that you

respond to need not be a view held by others; it can be one that

you yourself once held or one that you are ambivalent about.

j I’ve always believed that museums are boring.

j When I was a child, I used to think that

.

2 4

Starting with What Others Are Saying

j Although I should know better by now, I cannot help thinking

that

.

j

At the same time that I believe

, I also believe

.

templates for introducing

something implied or assumed

Another sophisticated move a writer can make is to summarize

a point that is not directly stated in what “they say” but is

implied or assumed.

j Although none of them have ever said so directly, my teachers

have often given me the impression that education will open doors.

j One implication of X’s treatment of

is that

.

j Although X does not say so directly, she apparently assumes

that

.

j

While they rarely admit as much,

often take for

granted that

.

These are templates that can help you think analytically—to

look beyond what others say explicitly and to consider their

unstated assumptions, as well as the implications of their views.

templates for introducing

an ongoing debate

Sometimes you’ll want to open by summarizing a debate

that presents two or more views. This kind of opening

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o n e “ T H E Y S A Y ”

demonstrates your awareness that there are conflicting ways

to look at your subject, the clear mark of someone who knows

the subject and therefore is likely to be a reliable, trustworthy

guide. Furthermore, opening with a summary of a debate can

help you explore the issue you are writing about before declar-

ing your own view. In this way, you can use the writing

process itself to help you discover where you stand instead of

having to commit to a position before you are ready to do so.

Here is a basic template for opening with a debate.

j In discussions of X, one controversial issue has been

.

On the one hand,

argues

. On the other

hand,

contends

. Others even maintain

. My own view is

.

The cognitive scientist Mark Aronoff uses this kind of template

in an essay on the workings of the human brain.

Theories of how the mind/brain works have been dominated

for centuries by two opposing views. One, rationalism, sees the

human mind as coming into this world more or less fully formed—

preprogrammed, in modern terms. The other, empiricism, sees the

mind of the newborn as largely unstructured, a blank slate.

Mark Aronoff, “Washington Sleeped Here”

A student writer, Michaela Cullington, uses a version of this

template near the beginning of an essay to frame a debate over

online writing abbreviations like “LOL” (“laughing out loud”)

and to indicate her own position in this debate.

Some people believe that using these abbreviations is hindering

the writing abilities of students, and others argue that texting is

2 6

Starting with What Others Are Saying

actually having a positive effect on writing. In fact, it seems likely

that texting has no significant effect on student writing.

Michaela Cullington, “Does Texting Affect Writing?”

Another way to open with a debate involves starting with a

proposition many people agree with in order to highlight the

point(s) on which they ultimately disagree.

j When it comes to the topic of

, most of us will read-

ily agree that

. Where this agreement usually ends,

however, is on the question of

. Whereas some are

convinced that

, others maintain that

.

The political writer Thomas Frank uses a variation on this move.

That we are a nation divided is an almost universal lament of

this bitter election year. However, the exact property that divides

us—elemental though it is said to be—remains a matter of some

controversy.

Thomas Frank, “American Psyche”

keep what “they say” in view

We can’t urge you too strongly to keep in mind what “they say”

as you move through the rest of your text. After summarizing

the ideas you are responding to at the outset, it’s very impor-

tant to continue to keep those ideas in view. Readers won’t be

able to follow your unfolding response, much less any compli-

cations you may offer, unless you keep reminding them what

claims you are responding to.

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o n e “ T H E Y S A Y ”

In other words, even when presenting your own claims,

you should keep returning to the motivating “they say.”

The longer and more complicated your text, the greater the

chance that readers will forget what ideas originally motivated

it—no matter how clearly you lay them out at the beginning.

At strategic moments throughout your text, we recommend

that you include what we call “return sentences.” Here is an

example.

j

In conclusion, then, as I suggested earlier, defenders of

can’t have it both ways. Their assertion that

is contradicted by their claim that

.

We ourselves use such return sentences at every opportunity in

this book to remind you of the view of writing that our book

questions—that good writing means making true or smart or

logical statements about a given subject with little or no refer-

ence to what others say about it.

By reminding readers of the ideas you’re responding to,

return sentences ensure that your text maintains a sense of

mission and urgency from start to finish. In short, they help

ensure that your argument is a genuine response to others’ views

rather than just a set of observations about a given subject. The

difference is huge. To be responsive to others and the conver-

sation you’re entering, you need to start with what others are

saying and continue keeping it in the reader’s view.

Exercises

1. The following is a list of arguments that lack a “they say.”

Like the speaker in the cartoon on page 5 who declares

that the film presents complex characters, these one-sided

2 8

Starting with What Others Are Saying

arguments fail to explain what view they are responding

to—what view, in effect, they are trying to correct, add to,

qualify, complicate, and so forth. Your job in this exercise

is to provide each argument with such a counterview. Feel

free to use any of the templates in this chapter that you find

helpful.

a. Our experiments suggest that there are dangerous levels

of chemical X in the Ohio groundwater.

b. Material forces drive history.

c. Proponents of Freudian psychology question standard

notions of “rationality.”

d. Male students often dominate class discussions.

e. The film is about the problems of romantic relationships.

f. I’m afraid that templates like the ones in this book will

stifle my creativity.

2. Below is a template that we derived from the opening of David

Zinczenko’s “Don’t Blame the Eater” (p. 647). Use the tem-

plate to structure a passage on a topic of your own choosing.

Your first step here should be to find an idea that you support

that others not only disagree with but actually find laughable

(or, as Zinczenko puts it, worthy of a Jay Leno monologue).

You might write about one of the topics listed in the previous

exercise (the environment, gender relations, the meaning of

a book or movie) or any other topic that interests you.

If ever there was an idea custom-made for a Jay Leno monologue,

this was it:

. Isn’t that like

? Whatever hap-

pened to

?

I happen to sympathize with

, though, perhaps

because

.

2 9

TWO

“her point is”

The Art of Summarizing

H

If it is true, as we claim in this book, that to argue

persuasively you need to be in dialogue with others, then sum-

marizing others’ arguments is central to your arsenal of basic

moves. Because writers who make strong claims need to map

their claims relative to those of other people, it is important

to know how to summarize effectively what those other people

say. (We’re using the word “summarizing” here to refer to any

information from others that you present in your own words,

including that which you paraphrase.)

Many writers shy away from summarizing—perhaps because

they don’t want to take the trouble to go back to the text in

question and wrestle with what it says, or because they fear that

devoting too much time to other people’s ideas will take away

from their own. When assigned to write a response to an article,

such writers might offer their own views on the article’s topic

while hardly mentioning what the article itself argues or says. At

the opposite extreme are those who do nothing but summarize.

Lacking confidence, perhaps, in their own ideas, these writers so

overload their texts with summaries of others’ ideas that their

own voice gets lost. And since these summaries are not animated

3 0

The Art of Summarizing

by the writers’ own interests, they often read like mere lists of

things that X thinks or Y says—with no clear focus.

As a general rule, a good summary requires balancing what

the original author is saying with the writer’s own focus.

Generally speaking, a summary must at once be true to what

the original author says while also emphasizing those aspects

of what the author says that interest you, the writer. Strik-

ing this delicate balance can be tricky, since it means facing

two ways at once: both outward (toward the author See how

being summarized) and inward (toward yourself). Nicholas Carr

Summarizes

Ultimately, it means being respectful of others but the mission of

Google on

simultaneously structuring how you summarize them p. 434, ¶ 24.

in light of your own text’s central argument.

on the one hand,

put yourself in their shoes

To write a really good summary, you must be able to suspend your

own beliefs for a time and put yourself in the shoes of someone

else. This means playing what the writing theorist Peter Elbow

calls the “believing game,” in which you try to inhabit the world-

view of those whose conversation you are joining—and whom you

are perhaps even disagreeing with—and try to see their argument

from their perspective. This ability to temporarily suspend one’s

own convictions is a hallmark of good actors, who must convinc-

ingly “become” characters whom in real life they may detest. As

a writer, when you play the believing game well, readers should

not be able to tell whether you agree or disagree with the ideas

you are summarizing.

If, as a writer, you cannot or will not suspend your own

beliefs in this way, you are likely to produce summaries that are

3 1

t w o “ H E R P O I N T I S ”

so obviously biased that they undermine your credibility with

readers. Consider the following summary.

David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater” is nothing more

than an angry rant in which he accuses the fast-food companies

of an evil conspiracy to make people fat. I disagree because these

companies have to make money… .

If you review what Zinczenko actually says (pp. 647–50), you

should immediately see that this summary amounts to an unfair

distortion. While Zinczenko does argue that the practices of

the fast-food industry have the effect of making people fat, his

tone is never “angry,” and he never goes so far as to suggest

that the fast-food industry conspires to make people fat with

deliberately evil intent.

Another telltale sign of this writer’s failure to give

Zinczenko a fair hearing is the hasty way he abandons the sum-

mary after only one sentence and rushes on to his own response.

So eager is this writer to disagree that he not only caricatures

what Zinczenko says but also gives the article a hasty, super-

ficial reading. Granted, there are many writing situations in

which, because of matters of proportion, a one- or two-sentence

summary is precisely what you want. Indeed, as writing profes-

sor Karen Lunsford (whose own research focuses on argument

theory) points out, it is standard in the natural and social sci-

ences to summarize the work of others quickly, in one pithy

sentence or phrase, as in the following example.

Several studies (Crackle, 2012; Pop, 2007; Snap, 2006) suggest that

these policies are harmless; moreover, other studies (Dick, 2011;

Harry, 2007; Tom, 2005) argue that they even have benefits.

3 2

The Art of Summarizing

But if your assignment is to respond in writing to a single author,

like Zinczenko, you will need to tell your readers enough about

his or her argument so they can assess its merits on their own,

independent of you.

When a writer fails to provide enough summary or to engage

in a rigorous or serious enough summary, he or she often falls

prey to what we call “the closest cliché syndrome,” in which

what gets summarized is not the view the author in question has

actually expressed but a familiar cliché that the writer mistakes

for the author’s view (sometimes because the writer believes it

and mistakenly assumes the author must too). So, for example,

Martin Luther King Jr.’s passionate defense of civil disobedi-

ence in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” might be summarized

not as the defense of political protest that it actually is but as

a plea for everyone to “just get along.” Similarly, Zinczenko’s

critique of the fast-food industry might be summarized as a call

for overweight people to take responsibility for their weight.

Whenever you enter into a conversation with others in your

writing, then, it is extremely important that you go back to

what those others have said, that you study it very closely, and

that you not confuse it with something you already believe. A

writer who fails to do this ends up essentially conversing with

imaginary others who are really only the products of his or her

own biases and preconceptions.

on the other hand,

know where you are going

Even as writing an effective summary requires you to temporar-

ily adopt the worldview of another person, it does not mean

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t w o “ H E R P O I N T I S ”

ignoring your own view altogether. Paradoxically, at the same

time that summarizing another text requires you to represent

fairly what it says, it also requires that your own response exert

a quiet influence. A good summary, in other words, has a focus

or spin that allows the summary to fit with your own agenda

while still being true to the text you are summarizing.

Thus if you are writing in response to the essay by Zinczenko,

you should be able to see that an essay on the fast-food industry

in general will call for a very different summary than will an

essay on parenting, corporate regulation, or warning labels. If

you want your essay to encompass all three topics, you’ll need

to subordinate these three issues to one of Zinczenko’s general

claims and then make sure this general claim directly sets up

your own argument.

For example, suppose you want to argue that it is parents, not

fast-food companies, who are to blame for children’s obesity.

To set up this argument, you will probably want to compose a

summary that highlights what Zinczenko says about the fast-

food industry and parents. Consider this sample.

In his article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” David Zinczenko blames

the fast-food industry for fueling today’s so-called obesity epidemic,

not only by failing to provide adequate warning labels on its

high-calorie foods but also by filling the nutritional void in chil-

dren’s lives left by their overtaxed working parents. With many

parents working long hours and unable to supervise what their

children eat, Zinczenko claims, children today are easily victimized

by the low-cost, calorie-laden foods that the fast-food chains are all

too eager to supply. When he was a young boy, for instance, and his

single mother was away at work, he ate at Taco Bell, McDonald’s,

and other chains on a regular basis, and ended up overweight.

Zinczenko’s hope is that with the new spate of lawsuits against

3 4

The Art of Summarizing

the food industry, other children with working parents will have

healthier choices available to them, and that they will not, like

him, become obese.

In my view, however, it is the parents, and not the food chains,

who are responsible for their children’s obesity. While it is true

that many of today’s parents work long hours, there are still several

things that parents can do to guarantee that their children eat

healthy foods… .

The summary in the first paragraph succeeds because it points

in two directions at once—both toward Zinczenko’s own text

and toward the second paragraph, where the writer begins to

establish her own argument. The opening sentence gives a sense

of Zinczenko’s general argument (that the fast-food chains are

to blame for obesity), including his two main supporting claims

(about warning labels and parents), but it ends with an empha-

sis on the writer’s main concern: parental responsibility. In this

way, the summary does justice to Zinczenko’s arguments while

also setting up the ensuing critique.

This advice—to summarize authors in light of your own

agenda—may seem painfully obvious. But writers often summa-

rize a given author on one issue even though their text actually

focuses on another. To avoid this problem, you need to make

sure that your “they say” and “I say” are well matched. In fact,

aligning what they say with what you say is a good thing to

work on when revising what you’ve written.

Often writers who summarize without regard to their own

agenda fall prey to what might be called “list summaries,” sum-

maries that simply inventory the original author’s various points

but fail to focus those points around any larger overall claim. If

you’ve ever heard a talk in which the points were connected

only by words like “and then,” “also,” and “in addition,” you

3 5

t w o “ H E R P O I N T I S ”

know how such lists can put listeners to sleep—as shown in

the figure above. A typical list summary sounds like this.

The author says many different things about his subject. First he

says… . Then he makes the point that… . In addition he says… .

And then he writes… . Also he shows that… . And then he says… .

It may be boring list summaries like this that give summaries

in general a bad name and even prompt some instructors to

discourage their students from summarizing at all.

Not all lists are bad, however. A list can be an excellent

way to organize material—but only if, instead of being a mis-

cellaneous grab bag, it is organized around a larger argument

that informs each item listed. Many well-written summaries,

for instance, list various points made by an author, sometimes

itemizing those points (“First, she argues … ,” “Second, she

3 6

The Art of Summarizing

argues … ,” “Third …”), and sometimes even itemizing those

points in bullet form.

Many well-written arguments are organized in a list format as

well. In “The New Liberal Arts,” Sanford J. Ungar lists what he

sees as seven common misperceptions that discourage college

students from majoring in the liberal arts, the first of which

begin:

Misperception No. 1: A liberal-arts degree is a luxury that most

families can no longer afford… .

Misperception No. 2: College graduates are finding it harder to get

good jobs with liberal-arts degrees… .

Misperception No. 3: The liberal arts are particularly irrelevant for

low-income and first-generation college students. They, more than

their more-affluent peers, must focus on something more practical

and marketable.

Sanford J. Ungar, “The New Liberal Arts”

What makes Ungar’s list so effective, and makes it stand out in

contrast to the type of disorganized lists our cartoon parodies, is

that it has a clear, overarching goal: to defend the liberal arts.

Had Ungar’s article lacked such a unifying agenda and instead

been a miscellaneous grab bag, it almost assuredly would have

lost its readers, who wouldn’t have known what to focus on or

what the final “message” or “takeaway” should be.

In conclusion, writing a good summary means not just

representing an author’s view accurately, but doing so in a

way that fits what you want to say, the larger point you want

to make. On the one hand, it means playing Peter Elbow’s

believing game and doing justice to the source; if the summary

ignores or misrepresents the source, its bias and unfairness will

show. On the other hand, even as it does justice to the source,

3 7

t w o “ H E R P O I N T I S ”

a summary has to have a slant or spin that prepares the way

for your own claims. Once a summary enters your text, you

should think of it as joint property—reflecting not just the

source you are summarizing, but your own perspective or take

on it.

summarizing satirically

Thus far in this chapter we have argued that, as a general rule,

good summaries require a balance between what someone else

has said and your own interests as a writer. Now, however, we

want to address one exception to this rule: the satiric summary,

in which a writer deliberately gives his or her own spin to some-

one else’s argument in order to reveal a glaring shortcoming in

it. Despite our previous comments that well-crafted summaries

generally strike a balance between heeding what someone else

has said and your own independent interests, the satiric mode

can at times be a very effective form of critique because it lets

the summarized argument condemn itself without overt edito-

rializing by you, the writer.

One such satiric summary can be found in Sanford J. Ungar’s

essay “The New Liberal Arts,” which we just mentioned. In his

discussion of the “misperception,” as he sees it, that a liberal

arts education is “particularly irrelevant for low-income and

first-generation college students,” who “must focus on some-

thing more practical and marketable,” Ungar restates this view

as “another way of saying, really, that the rich folks will do

the important thinking, and the lower classes will simply carry

out their ideas.” Few who would dissuade disadvantaged stu-

dents from the liberal arts would actually state their position

3 8

The Art of Summarizing

in this insulting way. But in taking their position to its logical

conclusion, Ungar’s satire suggests that this is precisely what

their position amounts to.

use signal verbs that fit the action

In introducing summaries, try to avoid bland formulas like “she

says” or “they believe.” Though language like this is sometimes

serviceable enough, it often fails to reflect accurately what’s

been said. In some cases, “he says” may even drain the passion

out of the ideas you’re summarizing.

We suspect that the habit of ignoring the action when sum-

marizing stems from the mistaken belief we mentioned earlier

that writing is about playing it safe and not making waves, a

matter of piling up truths and bits of knowledge rather than

a dynamic process of doing things to and with other people.

People who wouldn’t hesitate to say “X totally misrepresented,”

“attacked,” or “loved” something when chatting with friends

will in their writing often opt for far tamer and even less accu-

rate phrases like “X said.”

But the authors you summarize at the college level seldom

simply “say” or “discuss” things; they “urge,” “emphasize,”

and “complain about” them. David Zinczenko, for example,

doesn’t just say that fast-food companies contribute to obe-

sity; he complains or protests that they do; he challenges,

chastises, and indicts those companies. The Declaration of

Independence doesn’t just talk about the treatment of the

colonies by the British; it protests against it. To do justice to

the authors you cite, we recommend that when summarizing—

or when introducing a quotation—you use vivid and precise

3 9

t w o “ H E R P O I N T I S ”

signal verbs as often as possible. Though “he says” or “she

believes” will sometimes be the most appropriate language

for the occasion, your text will often be more accurate and

lively if you tailor your verbs to suit the precise actions

you’re describing.

templates for introducing

summaries and quotations

j She advocates a radical revision of the juvenile justice system.

j They celebrate the fact that

.

j

, he admits.

verbs for introducing

summaries and quotations

verbs for making a claim

argue insist

assert observe

believe

remind us

claim report

emphasize suggest

verbs for expressing agreement

acknowledge endorse

admire extol

agree praise

4 0

The Art of Summarizing

verbs for expressing agreement

celebrate the fact that

reaffirm

corroborate support

do not deny

verify

verbs for questioning or disagreeing

complain qualify

complicate question

contend refute

contradict reject

deny renounce

deplore the tendency to

repudiate

verbs for making recommendations

advocate implore

call for

plead

demand recommend

encourage

urge

exhort

warn

Exercises

1. To get a feel for Peter Elbow’s “believing game,” write a sum-

mary of some belief that you strongly disagree with. Then

write a summary of the position that you actually hold on

this topic. Give both summaries to a classmate or two, and

see if they can tell which position you endorse. If you’ve

succeeded, they won’t be able to tell.

4 1

t w o “ H E R P O I N T I S ”

2. Write two different summaries of David Zinczenko’s “Don’t

Blame the Eater” (pp. 647–50). Write the first one for an

essay arguing that, contrary to what Zinczenko claims, there

are inexpensive and convenient alternatives to fast-food

restaurants. Write the second for an essay that questions

whether being overweight is a genuine medical problem

rather than a problem of cultural stereotypes. Compare your

two summaries: though they are about the same article, they

should look very different.

4 2

THREE

“as he himself puts it”

The Art of Quoting

H

A key premise of this book is that to launch an effective

argument you need to write the arguments of others into your

text. One of the best ways to do so is by not only summarizing

what “they say,” as suggested in Chapter 2, but by quoting their

exact words. Quoting someone else’s words gives a tremendous

amount of credibility to your summary and helps ensure that

it is fair and accurate. In a sense, then, quotations function as

a kind of proof of evidence, saying to readers: “Look, I’m not

just making this up. She makes this claim, and here it is in

her exact words.”

Yet many writers make a host of mistakes when it comes to

quoting, not the least of which is the failure to quote enough

in the first place, if at all. Some writers quote too little—

perhaps because they don’t want to bother going back to

the original text and looking up the author’s exact words, or

because they think they can reconstruct the author’s ideas from

memory. At the opposite extreme are writers who so overquote

that they end up with texts that are short on commentary of

their own—maybe because they lack confidence in their abil-

ity to comment on the quotations, or because they don’t fully

4 3

t h r e e “ A S H E H I M S E L F P U T S I T ”

understand what they’ve quoted and therefore have trouble

explaining what the quotations mean.

But the main problem with quoting arises when writers assume

that quotations speak for themselves. Because the meaning of a

quotation is obvious to them, many writers assume that this mean-

ing will also be obvious to their readers, when often it is not.

Writers who make this mistake think that their job is done when

they’ve chosen a quotation and inserted it into their text. They

draft an essay, slap in a few quotations, and whammo, they’re done.

Such writers fail to see that quoting means more than

See how

one author

simply enclosing what “they say” in quotation marks.

connects what

“they say”

In a way, quotations are orphans: words that have

to what she

wants to say,

been taken from their original contexts and that need

pp. 272–73,

to be integrated into their new textual surroundings.

¶ 6–8.

This chapter offers two key ways to produce this sort

of integration: (1) by choosing quotations wisely, with an eye

to how well they support a particular part of your text, and (2)

by surrounding every major quotation with a frame explaining

whose words they are, what the quotation means, and how

the quotation relates to your own text. The point we want to

emphasize is that quoting what “they say” must always be con-

nected with what you say.

quote relevant passages

Before you can select appropriate quotations, you need to have

a sense of what you want to do with them—that is, how they

will support your text at the particular point where you insert

them. Be careful not 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.

4 4

The Art of Quoting

However, finding relevant quotations is not always easy.

In fact, sometimes quotations that were initially relevant to

your argument, or to a key point in it, become less so as your

text changes during the process of writing and revising. Given

the evolving and messy nature of writing, you may sometimes

think that you’ve found the perfect quotation to support your

argument, only to discover later on, as your text develops, that

your focus has changed and the quotation no longer works. It

can be somewhat misleading, then, to speak of finding your

thesis and finding relevant quotations as two separate steps,

one coming after the other. When you’re deeply engaged in

the writing and revising process, there is usually a great deal

of back-and-forth between your argument and any quotations

you select.

frame every quotation

Finding relevant quotations is only part of your job; you also

need to present them in a way that makes their relevance and

meaning clear to your readers. Since quotations do not speak

for themselves, you need to build a frame around them in which

you do that speaking for them.

Quotations that are inserted into a text without such a

frame are sometimes called “dangling” quotations for the way

they’re left dangling without any explanation. One teacher

we’ve worked with, Steve Benton, calls these “hit-and-run”

quotations, likening them to car accidents in which the driver

speeds away and avoids taking responsibility for the dent in

your fender or the smashed taillights, as in the figure that

follows.

4 5

t h r e e “ A S H E H I M S E L F P U T S I T ”

What follows is a typical hit-and-run quotation by a stu-

dent responding to an essay by Deborah Tannen, a linguistics

professor and prominent author, who complains that academ-

ics value opposition over agreement.

Deborah Tannen writes about academia. Academics believe “that

intellectual inquiry is a metaphorical battle. Following from that is

a second assumption that the best way to demonstrate intellectual

prowess is to criticize, find fault, and attack.”

I agree with Tannen. Another point Tannen makes is that …

See how

Since this student fails to introduce the quotation ade-

Anne-Marie

Slaughter

quately or explain why he finds it worth quoting, read-

introduces a

ers will have a hard time reconstructing what Tannen

long quotation

on pp. 539–40,

argued. First, the student simply gives us the quotation

¶ 13.

from Tannen without telling us who Tannen is or even

indicating that the quoted words are hers. In addition, the stu-

dent does not explain what he takes Tannen to be saying or how

her claims connect with his own. Instead, he simply abandons

the quotation in his haste to zoom on to another point.

4 6

The Art of Quoting

To adequately frame a quotation, you need to insert it into

what we like to call a “quotation sandwich,” with the statement

introducing it serving as the top slice of bread and the explana-

tion following it serving as the bottom slice. The introductory

or lead-in claims should explain who is speaking and set up what

the quotation says; the follow-up statements should explain

why you consider the quotation to be important and what you

take it to say.

templates for introducing quotations

j X states, “Not all steroids should be banned from sports.”

j As the prominent philosopher X puts it, “

.”

j According to X, “

.”

j X himself writes, “

.”

j In her book,

, X maintains that “

.”

j Writing in the journal Commentary, X complains that “

.”

j In X’s view, “

.”

j X agrees when she writes, “

.”

j X disagrees when he writes, “

.”

j X complicates matters further when she writes, “

.”

templates for explaining quotations

The one piece of advice about quoting that our students say

they find most helpful is to get in the habit of following every

4 7

t h r e e “ A S H E H I M S E L F P U T S I T ”

major quotation by explaining what it means, using a template

like one of the ones below.

j Basically, X is warning that the proposed solution will only make

the problem worse.

j In other words, X believes

.

j In making this comment, X urges us to

.

j X is corroborating the age-old adage that

.

j X’s point is that

.

j The essence of X’s argument is that

.

When offering such explanations, it is important to use lan-

guage that accurately reflects the spirit of the quoted passage. It

is often serviceable enough in introducing a quotation to write

“X states” or “X asserts,” but in most cases you can add preci-

sion to your writing by introducing the quotation in more vivid

terms. Since, in the example above, Tannen is clearly

See pp. 40–41

for a list of

alarmed by the culture of “attack” that she describes,

action verbs for

summarizing

it would be more accurate to use language that reflects

what other say.

that alarm: “Tannen is alarmed that,” “Tannen is dis-

turbed by,” “Tannen deplores,” or (in our own formulation

here) “Tannen complains.”

Consider, for example, how the earlier passage on Tannen

might be revised using some of these moves.

Deborah Tannen, a prominent linguistics professor, complains that

academia is too combative. Rather than really listening to others,

Tannen insists, academics habitually try to prove one another wrong.

As Tannen herself puts it, “We are all driven by our ideological

4 8

The Art of Quoting

assumption that intellectual inquiry is a metaphorical battle,” that

“the best way to demonstrate intellectual prowess is to criticize, find

fault, and attack.” In short, Tannen objects that academic commu-

nication tends to be a competition for supremacy in which loftier

values like truth and consensus get lost.

Tannen’s observations ring true to me because I have often felt

that the academic pieces I read for class are negative and focus on

proving another theorist wrong rather than stating a truth …

This revision works, we think, because it frames or nests Tannen’s

words, integrating them and offering guidance about how they

should be read. Instead of launching directly into the quoted

words, as the previous draft had done, this revised version iden-

tifies Tannen (“a prominent linguistics professor”) and clearly

indicates that the quoted words are hers (“as Tannen herself puts

it”). And instead of being presented without explanation as it

was before, the quotation is now presented as an illustration of

Tannen’s point that, as the student helpfully puts it, “academics

habitually try to prove one another wrong” and compete “for

supremacy.” In this way, the student explains the quotation while

restating it in his own words, thereby making it clear that the

quotation is being used purposefully instead of having been stuck

in simply to pad the essay or the works-cited list.

blend the author’s words

with your own

This new framing material also works well because it accurately

represents Tannen’s words while giving those words the stu-

dent’s own spin. Instead of simply repeating Tannen word for

word, the follow-up sentences echo just enough of her language

4 9

t h r e e “ A S H E H I M S E L F P U T S I T ”

while still moving the discussion in the student’s own direc-

tion. Tannen’s “battle,” “criticize,” “find fault,” and “attack,”

for instance, get translated by the student into claims about

how “combative” Tannen thinks academics are and how she

thinks they “habitually try to prove one another wrong.” In

this way, the framing creates a kind of hybrid mix of Tannen’s

words and those of the writer.

can you overanalyze a quotation?

But is it possible to overexplain a quotation? And how do you

know when you’ve explained a quotation thoroughly enough?

After all, not all quotations require the same amount of explan-

atory framing, and there are no hard-and-fast rules for knowing

how much explanation any quotation needs. As a general rule,

the most explanatory framing is needed for quotations that may

be hard for readers to process: quotations that are long and

complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain

hidden complexities.

And yet, though the particular situation usually dictates

when and how much to explain a quotation, we will still offer

one piece of advice: when in doubt, go for it. It is better to

risk being overly explicit about what you take a quotation to

mean than to leave the quotation dangling and your readers in

doubt. Indeed, we encourage you to provide such explanatory

framing even when writing to an audience that you know to be

familiar with the author being quoted and able to interpret your

quotations on their own. Even in such cases, readers need to see

how you interpret the quotation, since words—especially those

of controversial figures—can be interpreted in various ways

and used to support different, sometimes opposing, agendas.

5 0

The Art of Quoting

Your readers need to see what you make of the material you’ve

quoted, if only to be sure that your reading of the material and

theirs are on the same page.

how not to introduce quotations

We want to conclude this chapter by surveying some ways

not to introduce quotations. Although some writers do so,

you should not introduce quotations by saying something like

“Orwell asserts an idea that” or “A quote by Shakespeare says.”

Introductory phrases like these are both redundant and mislead-

ing. In the first example, you could write either “Orwell asserts

that” or “Orwell’s assertion is that,” rather than redundantly

combining the two. The second example misleads readers, since

it is the writer who is doing the quoting, not Shakespeare (as

“a quote by Shakespeare” implies).

The templates in this book will help you avoid such mis-

takes. Once you have mastered templates like “as X puts it”

or “in X’s own words,” you probably won’t even have to think

about them—and will be free to focus on the challenging ideas

that templates help you frame.

Exercises

1. Find a published piece of writing that quotes something that

“they say.” How has the writer integrated the quotation into

his or her own text? How has he or she introduced the quota-

tion, and what, if anything, has the writer said to explain it

and tie it to his or her own text? Based on what you’ve read

in this chapter, are there any changes you would suggest?

5 1

t h r e e “ A S H E H I M S E L F P U T S I T ”

2. Look at something you have written for one of your classes.

Have you quoted any sources? If so, how have you integrated

the quotation into your own text? How have you intro-

duced it? explained what it means? indicated how it relates

to your text? If you haven’t done all these things, revise your

text to do so, perhaps using the Templates for Introducing

Quotations (p. 47) and Explaining Quotations (pp. 47–48).

If you’ve not written anything with quotations, try revising

some academic text you’ve written to do so.

5 2

FOUR

“yes / no / okay, but”

Three Ways to Respond

H

The first three chapters of this book discuss the “they

say” stage of writing, in which you devote your attention to the

views of some other person or group. In this chapter we move

to the “I say” stage, in which you offer your own argument as

a response to what “they” have said.

Moving to the “I say” stage can be daunting in academia,

where it often may seem that you need to be an expert in a field

to have an argument at all. Many students have told us that they

have trouble entering some of the high-powered conversations

that take place in college or graduate school because they do not

know enough about the topic at hand or because, they say, they

simply are not “smart enough.” Yet often these same students,

when given a chance to study in depth the contribution that

some scholar has made in a given field, will turn around and

say things like “I can see where she is coming from, how she

makes her case by building on what other scholars have said.

Perhaps had I studied the situation longer I could have come up

with a similar argument.” What these students come to realize

is that good arguments are based not on knowledge that only

a special class of experts has access to, but on everyday habits

5 3

f o u r “ Y E S / N O / O K A Y , B U T ”

of mind that can be isolated, identified, and used by almost

anyone. Though there’s certainly no substitute for expertise

and for knowing as much as possible about one’s topic, the

arguments that finally win the day are built, as the title of this

chapter suggests, on some very basic rhetorical patterns that

most of us use on a daily basis.

There are a great many ways to respond to others’ ideas,

but this chapter concentrates on the three most common and

recognizable ways: agreeing, disagreeing, or some combination

of both. Although each way of responding is open to endless

variation, we focus on these three because readers come to any

text needing to learn fairly quickly where the writer stands, and

they do this by placing the writer on a mental map consisting

of a few familiar options: the writer agrees with those he or

she is responding to, disagrees with them, or presents some

combination of both agreeing and disagreeing.

When writers take too long to declare their position relative

to views they’ve summarized or quoted, readers get frustrated,

wondering, “Is this guy agreeing or disagreeing? Is he for what

this other person has said, against it, or what?” For this reason,

this chapter’s advice applies to reading as well as to writing.

Especially with difficult texts, you need not only to find the

position the writer is responding to—the “they say”—but also

to determine whether the writer is agreeing with it, challenging

it, or some mixture of the two.

only three ways to respond?

Perhaps you’ll worry that fitting your own response into one of

these three categories will force you to oversimplify your argu-

ment or lessen its complexity, subtlety, or originality. This is

5 4

Three Ways to Respond

certainly a serious concern for academics who are rightly skepti-

cal of writing that is simplistic and reductive. We would argue,

however, that the more complex and subtle your argument is,

and the more it departs from the conventional ways people

think, the more your readers will need to be able to place it

on their mental map in order to process the complex details

you present. That is, the complexity, subtlety, and originality

of your response are more likely to stand out and be noticed

if readers have a baseline sense of where you stand relative to

any ideas you’ve cited. As you move through this chapter, we

hope you’ll agree that the forms of agreeing, disagreeing, and

both agreeing and disagreeing that we discuss, far from being

simplistic or one-dimensional, are able to accommodate a high

degree of creative, complex thought.

It is always a good tactic to begin your response not by

launching directly into a mass of details but by stating

clearly whether you agree, disagree, or both, using a direct,

no-nonsense formula such as: “I agree,” “I disagree,” or “I am

of two minds. I agree that

, but I cannot agree

that

.” Once you have offered one of these straight-

forward statements (or one of the many variations dis-

See p. 21 for

cussed below), readers will have a strong grasp of your suggestions

position and then be able to appreciate the complica-

on previewing

where you

tions you go on to offer as your response unfolds.

stand.

Still, you may object that these three basic ways of respond-

ing don’t cover all the options—that they ignore interpretive or

analytical responses, for example. In other words, you might think

that when you interpret a literary work you don’t necessarily agree

or disagree with anything but simply explain the work’s meaning,

style, or structure. Many essays about literature and the arts, it

might be said, take this form—they interpret a work’s meaning,

thus rendering matters of agreeing or disagreeing irrelevant.

5 5

f o u r “ Y E S / N O / O K A Y , B U T ”

We would argue, however, that the most interesting inter-

pretations in fact tend to be those that agree, disagree, or

both—that instead of being offered solo, the best interpreta-

tions take strong stands relative to other interpretations. In fact,

there would be no reason to offer an interpretation of a work

of literature or art unless you were responding to the interpre-

tations or possible interpretations of others. Even when you

point out features or qualities of an artistic work that others

have not noticed, you are implicitly disagreeing with what

those interpreters have said by pointing out that they missed

or overlooked something that, in your view, is important. In

any effective interpretation, then, you need not only to state

what you yourself take the work of art to mean but to do so

relative to the interpretations of other readers—be they pro-

fessional scholars, teachers, classmates, or even hypothetical

readers (as in, “Although some readers might think that this

poem is about

, it is in fact about

”).

disagree—and explain why

Disagreeing may seem like one of the simpler moves a writer

can make, and it is often the first thing people associate with

critical thinking. Disagreeing can also be the easiest way to

generate an essay: find something you can disagree with in what

has been said or might be said about your topic, summarize

it, and argue with it. But disagreement in fact poses hidden

challenges. You need to do more than simply assert that you

disagree with a particular view; you also have to offer persuasive

reasons why you disagree. After all, disagreeing means more

than adding “not” to what someone else has said, more than

just saying, “Although they say women’s rights are improving,

5 6

Three Ways to Respond

I say women’s rights are not improving.” Such a response merely

contradicts the view it responds to and fails to add anything

interesting or new. To turn it into an argument, you need to

give reasons to support what you say: because another’s argu-

ment fails to take relevant factors into account; because See p. 236,

it is based on faulty or incomplete evidence; because it ¶ 13 to see

how Michelle

rests on questionable assumptions; or because it uses Alexander

disagrees and

flawed logic, is contradictory, or overlooks what you explains why.

take to be the real issue. To move the conversation forward

(and, indeed, to justify your very act of writing), you need to

demonstrate that you have something to contribute.

You can even disagree by making what we call the “duh”

move, in which you disagree not with the position itself but

with the assumption that it is a new or stunning revelation.

Here is an example of such a move, used to open an essay on

the state of American schools.

According to a recent report by some researchers at Stanford Uni-

versity, high school students with college aspirations “often lack

crucial information on applying to college and on succeeding aca-

demically once they get there.”

Well, duh… . It shouldn’t take a Stanford research team to tell

us that when it comes to “succeeding academically,” many students

don’t have a clue.

Gerald Graff, “Trickle-Down Obfuscation”

Like all of the other moves discussed in this book, the “duh”

move can be tailored to meet the needs of almost any writing

situation. If you find the expression “duh” too brash to use with

your intended audience, you can always dispense with the term

itself and write something like “It is true that

; but

we already knew that.”

5 7

f o u r “ Y E S / N O / O K A Y , B U T ”

templates for disagreeing, with reasons

j X is mistaken because she overlooks recent fossil discoveries in

the South.

j X’s claim that

rests upon the questionable assumption

that

.

j I disagree with X’s view that

because, as recent

research has shown,

.

j

X contradicts herself/can’t have it both ways. On the one

hand, she argues

. On the other hand, she also

says

.

j By focusing on

, X overlooks the deeper problem

of

.

You can also disagree by making what we call the “twist

it” move, in which you agree with the evidence that someone

else has presented but show through a twist of logic that this

evidence actually supports your own, contrary position. For

example:

X argues for stricter gun control legislation, saying that the crime

rate is on the rise and that we need to restrict the circulation of

guns. I agree that the crime rate is on the rise, but that’s precisely

why I oppose stricter gun control legislation. We need to own guns

to protect ourselves against criminals.

In this example of the “twist it” move, the writer agrees with

X’s claim that the crime rate is on the rise but then argues that

this increasing crime rate is in fact a valid reason for opposing

gun control legislation.

5 8

Three Ways to Respond

At times you might be reluctant to express disagreement,

for any number of reasons—not wanting to be unpleasant,

to hurt someone’s feelings, or to make yourself vulnerable to

being disagreed with in return. One of these reasons may in fact

explain why the conference speaker we described at the start of

Chapter 1 avoided mentioning the disagreement he had with

other scholars until he was provoked to do so in the discussion

that followed his talk.

As much as we understand such fears of conflict and have

experienced them ourselves, we nevertheless believe it is better

to state our disagreements in frank yet considerate ways than to

deny them. After all, suppressing disagreements doesn’t make

them go away; it only pushes them underground, where they

can fester in private unchecked. Nevertheless, disagreements

do not need to take the form of personal put-downs. Further-

more, there is usually no reason to take issue with every aspect

of someone else’s views. You can single out for criticism only

those aspects of what someone else has said that are troubling,

and then agree with the rest—although such an approach, as

we will see later in this chapter, leads to the somewhat more

complicated terrain of both agreeing and disagreeing at the

same time.

agree—but with a difference

Like disagreeing, agreeing is less simple than it may appear. Just

as you need to avoid simply contradicting views you disagree

with, you also need to do more than simply echo views you agree

with. Even as you’re agreeing, it’s important to bring something

new and fresh to the table, adding something that makes you

a valuable participant in the conversation.

5 9

f o u r “ Y E S / N O / O K A Y , B U T ”

There are many moves that enable you to contribute some-

thing of your own to a conversation even as you agree with

what someone else has said. You may point out some unno-

ticed evidence or line of reasoning that supports X’s claims that

X herself hadn’t mentioned. You may cite some corroborating

personal experience, or a situation not mentioned by X that

her views help readers understand. If X’s views are particularly

challenging or esoteric, what you bring to the table could be an

accessible translation—an explanation for readers not already in

the know. In other words, your text can usefully contribute to

the conversation simply by pointing out unnoticed implications

or explaining something that needs to be better understood.

Whatever mode of agreement you choose, the important

thing is to open up some difference or contrast between your

position and the one you’re agreeing with rather than simply

parroting what it says.

templates for agreeing

j I agree that diversity in the student body is educationally valuable

because my experience at Central University confirms it.

j X is surely right about

because, as she may not be

aware, recent studies have shown that

.

j X’s theory of

is extremely useful because it sheds

light on the difficult problem of

.

j Those unfamiliar with this school of thought may be interested

to know that it basically boils down to

.

Some writers avoid the practice of agreeing almost as much as

others avoid disagreeing. In a culture like America’s that prizes

6 0

Three Ways to Respond

originality, independence, and competitive individualism, writ-

ers sometimes don’t like to admit that anyone else has made the

same point, seemingly beating them to the punch. In our view,

however, as long as you can support a view taken by someone

else without merely restating what he or she has said, there is

no reason to worry about being “unoriginal.” Indeed, there is

good reason to rejoice when you agree with others since those

others can lend credibility to your argument. While you don’t

want to present yourself as a mere copycat of someone else’s

views, you also need to avoid sounding like a lone voice in

the wilderness.

But do be aware that whenever you agree with one person’s

view, you are likely disagreeing with someone else’s. It is hard

to align yourself with one position without at least implicitly

positioning yourself against others. The psychologist Carol

Gilligan does just that in an essay in which she agrees with

scientists who argue that the human brain is “hard-wired”

for cooperation, but in so doing aligns herself against any-

one who believes that the brain is wired for selfishness and

competition.

These findings join a growing convergence of evidence across the

human sciences leading to a revolutionary shift in consciousness.

… If cooperation, typically associated with altruism and self-

sacrifice, sets off the same signals of delight as pleasures commonly

associated with hedonism and self-indulgence; if the opposition

between selfish and selfless, self vs. relationship biologically makes

no sense, then a new paradigm is necessary to reframe the very

terms of the conversation.

Carol Gilligan, “Sisterhood Is Pleasurable:

A Quiet Revolution in Psychology”

6 1

f o u r “ Y E S / N O / O K A Y , B U T ”

In agreeing with some scientists that “the opposition between

selfish and selfless … makes no sense,” Gilligan implicitly dis-

agrees with anyone who thinks the opposition does make sense.

Basically, what Gilligan says could be boiled down to a template.

j I agree that

, a point that needs emphasizing since

so many people still believe

.

j If group X is right that

, as I think they are, then we

need to reassess the popular assumption that

.

What such templates allow you to do, then, is to agree with

one view while challenging another—a move that leads into

the domain of agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously.

agree and disagree simultaneously

This last option is often our favorite way of responding. One

thing we particularly like about agreeing and disagreeing simulta-

neously is that it helps us get beyond the kind of “is too” / “is not”

exchanges that often characterize the disputes of young children

and the more polarized shouting matches of talk radio and TV.

Sanford J. Ungar makes precisely this move in his essay

“The New Liberal Arts” when, in critiquing seven common

“misperceptions” of liberal arts education, he concedes that

several contain a grain of truth. For example, after summariz-

ing “Misperception No. 2,” that “college graduates are finding

it harder to get good jobs with liberal-arts degrees,” that few

employers want to hire those with an “irrelevant major like

philosophy or French,” Ungar writes: “Yes, recent graduates

have had difficulty in the job market… .” But then, after

6 2

Three Ways to Respond

making this concession, Ungar insists that this difficulty affects

graduates in all fields, not just those from the liberal arts. In

this way, we think, Ungar paradoxically strengthens his case.

By admitting that the opposing argument has a point, Ungar

bolsters his credibility, presenting himself as a writer willing to

acknowledge facts as they present themselves rather than one

determined only to cheerlead for his own side.

templates for agreeing

and disagreeing simultaneously

“Yes and no.” “Yes, but …” “Although I agree up to a Clive Thompson

point, I still insist …” These are just some of the ways says “yes, but”

to an argument

you can make your argument complicated and nuanced that technology

while maintaining a clear, reader-friendly framework. harms our

brains, p. 456,

The parallel structure—“yes and no”; “on the one hand ¶ 34.

I agree, on the other I disagree”—enables readers to place your

argument on that map of positions we spoke of earlier in this

chapter while still keeping your argument sufficiently complex.

Charles Murray’s essay “Are Too Many People Going to

College?” contains a good example of the “yes and no” move

when, at the outset of his essay, Murray responds to what he

sees as the prevailing wisdom about the liberal arts and college:

We should not restrict the availability of a liberal education to a

rarefied intellectual elite. More people should be going to college,

not fewer.

Yes and no. More people should be getting the basics of a liberal

education. But for most students, the places to provide those basics

are elementary and middle school.

Charles Murray, “Are Too Many People Going to College?”

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f o u r “ Y E S / N O / O K A Y , B U T ”

In other words, Murray is saying yes to more liberal arts, but

not to more college.

Another aspect we like about this “yes and no,” “agree and

disagree” option is that it can be tipped subtly toward agreement

or disagreement, depending on where you lay your stress. If you

want to stress the disagreement end of the spectrum, you would

use a template like the one below.

j Although I agree with X up to a point, I cannot accept his over-

riding assumption that religion is no longer a major force today.

Conversely, if you want to stress your agreement more than your

disagreement, you would use a template like this one.

j Although I disagree with much that X says, I fully endorse his

final conclusion that

.

The first template above might be called a “yes, but …” move, the

second a “no, but …” move. Other versions include the following.

j Though I concede that

, I still insist that

.

j X is right that

, but she seems on more dubious ground

when she claims that

.

j While X is probably wrong when she claims that

, she

is right that

.

j Whereas X provides ample evidence that

, Y and

Z’s research on

and

convinces me that

instead.

Another classic way to agree and disagree at the same time

is to make what we call an “I’m of two minds” or a “mixed

feelings” move.

6 4

Three Ways to Respond

j I’m of two minds about X’s claim that

. On the one

hand, I agree that

. On the other hand, I’m not sure

if

.

j My feelings on the issue are mixed. I do support X’s position

that

, but I find Y’s argument about

and

Z’s research on

to be equally persuasive.

This move can be especially useful if you are responding to new

or particularly challenging work and are as yet unsure where

you stand. It also lends itself well to the kind of speculative

investigation in which you weigh a position’s pros and cons

rather than come out decisively either for or against. But again,

as we suggest earlier, whether you are agreeing, disagreeing, or

both agreeing and disagreeing, you need to be as clear as pos-

sible, and making a frank statement that you are ambivalent

is one way to be clear.

is being undecided okay?

Nevertheless, writers often have as many concerns about

expressing ambivalence as they do about expressing disagree-

ment or agreement. Some worry that by expressing ambivalence

they will come across as evasive, wishy-washy, or unsure of

themselves. Others worry that their ambivalence will end up

confusing readers who require decisive, clear-cut conclusions.

The truth is that in some cases these worries are legitimate.

At times ambivalence can frustrate readers, leaving them

with the feeling that you failed in your obligation to offer

the guidance they expect from writers. At other times, how-

ever, acknowledging that a clear-cut resolution of an issue is

6 5

f o u r “ Y E S / N O / O K A Y , B U T ”

impossible can demonstrate your sophistication as a writer. In

an academic culture that values complex thought, forthrightly

declaring that you have mixed feelings can be impressive, espe-

cially after having ruled out the one-dimensional positions on

your issue taken by others in the conversation. Ultimately,

then, how ambivalent you end up being comes down to a judg-

ment call based on different readers’ responses to your drafts,

on your knowledge of your audience, and on the challenges of

your particular argument and situation.

Exercises

1. Read one of the essays in the back of this book or on

theysayiblog.com, identifying those places where the author agrees with others, disagrees, or both.

2. Write an essay responding in some way to the essay that

you worked with in the preceding exercise. You’ll want to

summarize and/or quote some of the author’s ideas and make

clear whether you’re agreeing, disagreeing, or both agreeing

and disagreeing with what he or she says. Remember that

there are templates in this book that can help you get started;

see Chapters 1–3 for templates that will help you represent

other people’s ideas and Chapter 4 for templates that will

get you started with your response.

6 6

FIVE

“and yet”

Distinguishing What You Say

from What They Say

H

If good academic writing involves putting yourself into

dialogue with others, it is extremely important that readers be

able to tell at every point when you are expressing your own

view and when you are stating someone else’s. This chapter

takes up the problem of moving from what they say to what

you say without confusing readers about who is saying what.

determine who is saying what

in the texts you read

Before examining how to signal who is saying what in your

own writing, let’s look at how to recognize such signals when

they appear in the texts you read—an especially important skill

when it comes to the challenging works assigned in school.

Frequently, when students have trouble understanding difficult texts, it is not just because the texts contain unfamiliar ideas or words, but because the texts rely on subtle clues to let

6 7

f i v e “ A N D Y E T ”

readers know when a particular view should be attributed to

the writer or to someone else. Especially with texts that present a true dialogue of perspectives, readers need to be alert to the often subtle markers that indicate whose voice the writer

is speaking in.

Consider how the social critic and educator Gregory Mantsios uses these “voice markers,” as they might be called, to distinguish the different perspectives in his essay on America’s

class inequalities.

“We are all middleclass,” or so it would seem. Our national consciousness, as shaped in large part by the media and our political leadership, provides us with a picture of ourselves as a nation of

prosperity and opportunity with an ever expanding middleclass

lifestyle. As a result, our class differences are muted and our collective character is homogenized.

Yet class divisions are real and arguably the most significant

factor in determining both our very being in the world and the

nature of the society we live in.

Gregory Mantsios, “Rewards and Opportunities:

The Politics and Economics of Class in the U.S.”

Although Mantsios makes it look easy, he is actually making

several sophisticated rhetorical moves here that help him distinguish the common view he opposes from his own position.

In the opening sentence, for instance, the phrase “or so it

would seem” shows that Mantsios does not necessarily agree

with the view he is describing, since writers normally don’t present views they themselves hold as ones that only “seem” to be true. Mantsios also places this opening view in quotation marks

to signal that it is not his own. He then further distances

himself from the belief being summarized in the opening

6 8

Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say

paragraph by attributing it to “our national consciousness, as

shaped in large part by the media and our political leadership,”

and then further attributing to this “consciousness” a negative,

undesirable “result”: one in which “our class differences” get

“muted” and “our collective character” gets “homogenized,”

stripped of its diversity and distinctness. Hence, even before

Mantsios has declared his own position in the second paragraph, readers can get a pretty solid sense of where he probably stands.

Furthermore, the second paragraph opens with the word

“yet,” indicating that Mantsios is now shifting to his own view

(as opposed to the common view he has thus far been describing). Even the parallelism he sets up between the first and second paragraphs—between the first paragraph’s claim that

class differences do not exist and the second paragraph’s claim

that they do—helps throw into sharp relief the differences

between the two voices. Finally, Mantsios’s use of a direct,

authoritative, declarative tone in the second paragraph also

suggests a switch in voice. Although he does not use the words

“I say” or “I argue,” he clearly identifies the view he holds by

presenting it not as one that merely seems to be true or that

others tell us is true, but as a view that is true or, as Mantsios

puts it, “real.”

Paying attention to these voice markers is an important

aspect of reading comprehension. Readers who fail to notice

these markers often take an author’s summaries of what someone else believes to be an expression of what the author himself or herself believes. Thus when we teach Mantsios’s essay, some

students invariably come away thinking that the statement “we

are all middleclass” is Mantsios’s own position rather than the

perspective he is opposing, failing to see that in writing these

words Mantsios acts as a kind of ventriloquist, mimicking what

6 9

f i v e “ A N D Y E T ”

others say rather than directly expressing what he himself is

thinking.

To see how important such voice markers are, consider what

the Mantsios passage looks like if we remove them.

We are all middleclass… . We are a nation of prosperity and

opportunity with an ever expanding middleclass lifestyle… .

Class divisions are real and arguably the most significant factor

in determining both our very being in the world and the nature of

the society we live in.

See how Ben

In contrast to the careful delineation between voices in

Casselman,

begins with a

Mant sios’s original text, this unmarked version leaves

view in¶ 3 and

it hard to tell where his voice begins and the voices of

then challeages

it in ¶ 4 on

others end. With the markers removed, readers cannot

p. 391.

tell that “We are all middleclass” represents a view the

author opposes, and that “Class divisions are real” represents

what the author himself believes. Indeed, without the markers,

especially the “yet,” readers might well miss the fact that the

second paragraph’s claim that “Class divisions are real” contradicts the first paragraph’s claim that “We are all middleclass.”

templates for signaling who is saying what

in your own writing

To avoid confusion in your own writing, make sure that at every

point your readers can clearly tell who is saying what. To do so,

you can use as voiceidentifying devices many of the templates

presented in previous chapters.

7 0

Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say

j

Although X makes the best possible case for universal,

government-funded health care, I am not persuaded.

j

My view, however, contrary to what X has argued, is that

.

j Adding to X’s argument, I would point out that

.

j According to both X and Y,

.

j Politicians, X argues, should

.

j Most athletes will tell you that

.

but i’ve been told not to use “i”

Notice that the first three templates above use the firstperson

“I” or “we,” as do many of the templates in this book, thereby

contradicting the common advice about avoiding the first

person in academic writing. Although you may have been

told that the “I” word encourages subjective, selfindulgent

opinions rather than wellgrounded arguments, we believe

that texts using “I” can be just as well supported—or just as

selfindulgent—as those that don’t. For us, wellsupported arguments are grounded in persuasive reasons and evidence, not in the use or nonuse of any particular pronouns.

Furthermore, if you consistently avoid the first person in

your writing, you will probably have trouble making the key

move addressed in this chapter: differentiating your views from

those of others, or even offering your own views in the first

place. But don’t just take our word for it. See for yourself how

freely the first person is used by the writers quoted in this book,

and by the writers assigned in your courses.

7 1

f i v e “ A N D Y E T ”

Nevertheless, certain occasions may warrant avoiding the

first person and writing, for example, that “she is correct” instead

of “I think that she is correct.” Since it can be monotonous to read

an unvarying series of “I” statements (“I believe … I think …

I argue”), it is a good idea to mix firstperson assertions with ones

like the following.

j X is right that certain common patterns can be found in the

communities .

j The evidence shows that

.

j X’s assertion that

does not fit the facts.

j Anyone familiar with

should agree that

.

One might even follow Mantsios’s lead, as in the following

template.

j But

are real, and are arguably the most significant

factor in

.

See pp. 318–33

On the whole, however, academic writing today, even

for an example

of the way two

in the sciences and social sciences, makes use of the first

writers use the

first person

person fairly liberally.

with “we.”

another trick for identifying

who is speaking

To alert readers about whose perspective you are describing at

any given moment, you don’t always have to use overt voice

markers like “X argues” followed by a summary of the argument. Instead, you can alert readers about whose voice you’re 7 2

Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say

speaking in by embedding a reference to X’s argument in your

own sentences. Hence, instead of writing:

Liberals believe that cultural differences need to be respected. I

have a problem with this view, however.

you might write:

I have a problem with what liberals call cultural differences.

There is a major problem with the liberal doctrine of so-called

cultural differences.

You can also embed references to something you yourself have

previously said. So instead of writing two cumbersome sentences like:

Earlier in this chapter we coined the term “voice markers.” We

would argue that such markers are extremely important for reading

comprehension.

you might write:

We would argue that “voice markers,” as we identified them earlier,

are extremely important for reading comprehension.

Embedded references like these allow you to economize your

train of thought and refer to other perspectives without any

major interruption.

7 3

f i v e “ A N D Y E T ”

templates for embedding voice markers

j X overlooks what I consider an important point about cultural

differences.

j My own view is that what X insists is a

is in fact

a

.

j I wholeheartedly endorse what X calls

.

j These conclusions, which X discusses in

, add weight

to the argument that

.

When writers fail to use voicemarking devices like the ones

discussed in this chapter, their summaries of others’ views tend to

become confused with their own ideas—and vice versa. When

readers cannot tell if you are summarizing your own views or

endorsing a certain phrase or label, they have to stop and think:

“Wait. I thought the author disagreed with this claim. Has she

actually been asserting this view all along?” or “Hmmm, I thought

she would have objected to this kind of phrase. Is she actually

endorsing it?” Getting in the habit of using voice markers will

keep you from confusing your readers and help alert you to similar

markers in the challenging texts you read.

Exercises

1. To see how one writer signals when she is asserting her

own views and when she is summarizing those of someone

else, read the following passage by the social historian Julie

Charlip. As you do so, identify those spots where Charlip

refers to the views of others and the signal phrases she uses

to distinguish her views from theirs.

7 4

Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say

Marx and Engels wrote: “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other —the bourgeoisie and the proletariat” (10). If

only that were true, things might be more simple. But in late

twentiethcentury America, it seems that society is splitting more

and more into a plethora of class factions—the working class,

the working poor, lowermiddle class, uppermiddle class, lower

uppers, and upper uppers. I find myself not knowing what class

I’m from.

In my days as a newspaper reporter, I once asked a sociology professor what he thought about the reported shrinking of the middle class. Oh, it’s not the middle class that’s disappearing, he said, but

the working class. His definition: if you earn thirty thousand dollars

a year working in an assembly plant, come home from work, open a

beer and watch the game, you are working class; if you earn twenty

thousand dollars a year as a school teacher, come home from work

to a glass of white wine and PBS, you are middle class.

How do we define class? Is it an issue of values, lifestyle, taste?

Is it the kind of work you do, your relationship to the means of

production? Is it a matter of how much money you earn? Are we

allowed to choose? In this land of supposed classlessness, where

we don’t have the tradition of English society to keep us in our

places, how do we know where we really belong? The average

American will tell you he or she is “middle class.” I’m sure that’s

what my father would tell you. But I always felt that we were in

some no man’s land, suspended between classes, sharing similarities with some and recognizing sharp, exclusionary differences from others. What class do I come from? What class am I in

now? As an historian, I seek the answers to these questions in

the specificity of my past.

Julie Charlip, “A Real Class Act: Searching

for Identity in the ‘Classless’ Society”

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f i v e “ A N D Y E T ”

2. Study a piece of your own writing to see how many perspectives you account for and how well you distinguish your own voice from those you are summarizing. Consider the

following questions:

a. How many perspectives do you engage?

b. What other perspectives might you include?

c. How do you distinguish your views from the other views

you summarize?

d. Do you use clear voicesignaling phrases?

e. What options are available to you for clarifying who is

saying what?

f. Which of these options are best suited for this particular

text?

If you find that you do not include multiple views or clearly

distinguish between others’ views and your own, revise your

text to do so.

7 6

SIX

“skeptics may object”

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text

H

The writer Jane Tompkins describes a pattern that repeats

itself whenever she writes a book or an article. For the first

couple of weeks when she sits down to write, things go relatively

well. But then in the middle of the night, several weeks into the

writing process, she’ll wake up in a cold sweat, suddenly real-

izing that she has overlooked some major criticism that readers

will surely make against her ideas. Her first thought, invariably,

is that she will have to give up on the project, or that she will

have to throw out what she’s written thus far and start over.

Then she realizes that “this moment of doubt and panic is where

my text really begins.” She then revises what she’s written in a

way that incorporates the criticisms she’s anticipated, and her

text becomes stronger and more interesting as a result.

This little story contains an important lesson for all writers,

experienced and inexperienced alike. It suggests that even though

most of us are upset at the idea of someone criticizing our work,

such criticisms can actually work to our advantage. Although it’s

naturally tempting to ignore criticism of our ideas, doing so may

in fact be a big mistake, since our writing improves when we not

only listen to these objections but give them an explicit hearing

7 7

s i x “ S K E P T I C S M A Y O B J E C T ”

in our writing. Indeed, no single device more quickly improves a

piece of writing than planting a naysayer in the text—saying, for

example, that “although some readers may object” to something

in your argument, you “would reply that

.”

anticipate objections

But wait, you say. Isn’t the advice to incorporate critical views

a recipe for destroying your credibility and undermining your

argument? Here you are, trying to say something that will hold

up, and we want you to tell readers all the negative things

someone might say against you?

Exactly. We are urging you to tell readers what others

might say against you, but our point is that doing so will actu-

ally enhance your credibility, not undermine it. As we argue

throughout this book, writing well does not mean piling up

uncontroversial truths in a vacuum; it means engaging others

in a dialogue or debate—not only by opening your text with

a summary of what others have said, as we suggest in Chapter 1,

but also by imagining what others might say against your argu-

ment as it unfolds. Once you see writing as an act of entering

a conversation, you should also see how opposing arguments

can work for you rather than against you.

Paradoxically, the more you give voice to your critics’ objec-

tions, the more you tend to disarm those critics, especially if you

go on to answer their objections in convincing ways. When you

entertain a counterargument, you make a kind of preemptive

strike, identifying problems with your argument before oth-

ers can point them out for you. Furthermore, by entertaining

counterarguments, you show respect for your readers, treating

them not as gullible dupes who will believe anything you say

7 8

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text

but as independent, critical thinkers who are aware that your

view is not the only one in town. In addition, by imagining

what others might say against your claims, you come across as

a generous, broad-minded person who is confident enough to

open himself or herself to debate—like the writer in the figure

on the following page.

Conversely, if you don’t entertain counterarguments, you may

very likely come across as closed-minded, as if you think your

beliefs are beyond dispute. You might also leave important ques-

tions hanging and concerns about your arguments unaddressed.

Finally, if you fail to plant a naysayer in your text, you may

find that you have very little to say. Our own students often say

that entertaining counterarguments makes it easier to generate

enough text to meet their assignment’s page-length requirements.

Planting a naysayer in your text is a relatively simple move,

as you can see by looking at the following passage from a book

by the writer Kim Chernin. Having spent some thirty pages

complaining about the pressure on American women to be

thin, Chernin inserts a whole chapter entitled “The Skeptic,”

opening it as follows.

At this point I would like to raise certain objections that have been

inspired by the skeptic in me. She feels that I have been ignoring

some of the most common assumptions we all make about our bod-

ies and these she wishes to see addressed. For example: “You know

perfectly well,” she says to me, “that you feel better when you lose

weight. You buy new clothes. You look at yourself more eagerly in

the mirror. When someone invites you to a party you don’t stop

and ask yourself whether you want to go. You feel sexier. Admit

it. You like yourself better.”

Kim Chernin, The Obsession:

Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness

7 9

s i x “ S K E P T I C S M A Y O B J E C T ”

8 0

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text

The remainder of Chernin’s chapter consists of her answers

to this inner skeptic. In the face of the skeptic’s challenge to

her book’s central premise (that the pressure to diet seriously

harms women’s lives), Chernin responds neither by repressing

the skeptic’s critical voice nor by giving in to it and relinquish-

ing her own position. Instead, she embraces that voice and

writes it into her text. Note too that instead of dispatching

this naysaying voice quickly, as many of us would be tempted

to do, Chernin stays with it and devotes a full paragraph to

it. By borrowing some of Chernin’s language, we can come up

with templates for entertaining virtually any objection.

templates for entertaining objections

j At this point I would like to raise some objections that have been

inspired by the skeptic in me. She feels that I have been ignoring

the complexities of the situation.

j

Yet some readers may challenge my view by insisting that

.

j Of course, many will probably disagree on the grounds that

.

Note that the objections in the above templates are

attributed not to any specific person or group, but to “skep-

tics,” “readers,” or “many.” This kind of nameless, faceless

naysayer is perfectly appropriate in many cases. But the ideas

that motivate arguments and objections often can—and, where

possible, should—be ascribed to a specific ideology or school

of thought (for example, liberals, Christian fundamentalists,

neopragmatists) rather than to anonymous anybodies. In other

8 1

s i x “ S K E P T I C S M A Y O B J E C T ”

words, naysayers can be labeled, and you can add precision and

impact to your writing by identifying what those labels are.

templates for naming your naysayers

j Here many feminists would probably object that gender does

influence language.

j But social Darwinists would certainly take issue with the argu-

ment that

.

j

Biologists, of course, may want to question whether

.

j Nevertheless, both followers and critics of Malcolm X will prob-

ably suggest otherwise and argue that

.

To be sure, some people dislike such labels and may even

resent having labels applied to themselves. Some feel that

labels put individuals in boxes, stereotyping them and glossing

over what makes each of us unique. And it’s true that labels

can be used inappropriately, in ways that ignore individuality

and promote stereotypes. But since the life of ideas, includ-

ing many of our most private thoughts, is conducted through

groups and types rather than solitary individuals, intellectual

exchange requires labels to give definition and serve as a

convenient shorthand. If you categorically reject all labels,

you give up an important resource and even mislead readers

by presenting yourself and others as having no connection to

anyone else. You also miss an opportunity to generalize the

importance and relevance of your work to some larger con-

versation. When you attribute a position you are summarizing

to liberalism, say, or historical materialism, your argument is

no longer just about your own solitary views but about the

8 2

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text

intersection of broad ideas and habits of mind that many

readers may already have a stake in.

The way to minimize the problem of stereotyping, then, is

not to categorically reject labels but to refine and qualify their

use, as the following templates demonstrate.

j Although not all Christians think alike, some of them will prob-

ably dispute my claim that

.

j

Non-native English speakers are so diverse in their views that it’s

hard to generalize about them, but some are likely to object on

the grounds that

.

Another way to avoid needless stereotyping is to qualify labels

carefully, substituting “pro bono lawyers” for “lawyers” in gen-

eral, for example, or “quantitative sociologists” for all “social

scientists,” and so on.

templates for introducing objections

informally

Objections can also be introduced in more informal ways. For

instance, you can frame objections in the form of questions.

j But is my proposal realistic? What are the chances of its actually

being adopted?

j Yet is it necessarily true that

? Is it always the case,

as I have been suggesting, that

?

j

However, does the evidence I’ve cited prove conclusively

that

?

8 3

s i x “ S K E P T I C S M A Y O B J E C T ”

You can also let your naysayer speak directly.

j “Impossible,” some will say. “You must be reading the research

selectively.”

Moves like this allow you to cut directly to the skeptical voice

itself, as the singer-songwriter Joe Jackson does in the follow-

ing excerpt from a New York Times article complaining about

the restrictions on public smoking in New York City bars and

restaurants.

I like a couple of cigarettes or a cigar with a drink, and like many

other people, I only smoke in bars or nightclubs. Now I can’t go to

any of my old haunts. Bartenders who were friends have turned into

cops, forcing me outside to shiver in the cold and curse under my

breath… . It’s no fun. Smokers are being demonized and victim-

ized all out of proportion.

“Get over it,” say the anti-smokers. “You’re the minority.” I

thought a great city was a place where all kinds of minorities could

thrive… . “Smoking kills,” they say. As an occasional smoker

with otherwise healthy habits, I’ll take my chances. Health con-

sciousness is important, but so are pleasure and freedom of choice.

Joe Jackson, “Want to Smoke? Go to Hamburg”

See the essay

Jackson could have begun his second paragraph, in which

on Family Guy

(p. 145) that

he shifts from his own voice to that of his imagined nay-

addresses

sayer, more formally, as follows: “Of course anti-smok-

naysayers

throughout.

ers will object that since we smokers are in the minor-

ity, we should simply stop complaining and quietly

make the sacrifices we are being called on to make for the

larger social good.” Or “Anti-smokers might insist, however,

8 4

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text

that the smoking minority should submit to the nonsmoking

majority.” We think, though, that Jackson gets the job done

in a far more lively way with the more colloquial form he

chooses. Borrowing a standard move of playwrights and novel-

ists, Jackson cuts directly to the objectors’ view and then to

his own retort, then back to the objectors’ view and then to

his own retort again, thereby creating a kind of dialogue or

miniature play within his own text. This move works See Chapter 5

well for Jackson, but only because he uses quotation for more

advice on

marks and other voice markers to make clear at every using voice

point whose voice he is in.

markers.

represent objections fairly

Once you’ve decided to introduce a differing or opposing view

into your writing, your work has only just begun, since you

still need to represent and explain that view with fairness and

generosity. Although it is tempting to give opposing views short

shrift, to hurry past them, or even to mock them, doing so is usu-

ally counterproductive. When writers make the best case they

can for their critics (playing Peter Elbow’s “believing game”),

they actually bolster their credibility with readers rather See pp. 31–32

than undermine it. They make readers think, “This is a for more on

the believing

writer I can trust.”

game.

We recommend, then, that whenever you entertain objec-

tions in your writing, you stay with them for several sentences

or even paragraphs and take them as seriously as possible. We

also recommend that you read your summary of opposing views

with an outsider’s eye: put yourself in the shoes of someone who

disagrees with you and ask if such a reader would recognize

himself in your summary. Would that reader think you have

8 5

s i x “ S K E P T I C S M A Y O B J E C T ”

taken his views seriously, as beliefs that reasonable people might

hold? Or would he detect a mocking tone or an oversimplifica-

tion of his views?

There will always be certain objections, to be sure, that you

believe do not deserve to be represented, just as there will be

objections that seem so unworthy of respect that they inspire

ridicule. Remember, however, that if you do choose to mock a

view that you oppose, you are likely to alienate those readers

who don’t already agree with you—likely the very readers you

want to reach. Also be aware that in mocking another’s view

you may contribute to a hostile argument culture in which

someone may ridicule you in return.

answer objections

Do be aware that when you represent objections successfully,

you still need to be able to answer those objections persuasively.

After all, when you write objections into a text, you take the

risk that readers will find those objections more convincing

than the argument you yourself are advancing. In the edito-

rial quoted above, for example, Joe Jackson takes the risk that

readers will identify more with the anti-smoking view he sum-

marizes than with the pro-smoking position he endorses.

This is precisely what Benjamin Franklin describes hap-

pening to himself in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

(1793), when he recalls being converted to Deism (a religion

that exalts reason over spirituality) by reading anti-Deist books.

When he encountered the views of Deists being negatively

summarized by authors who opposed them, Franklin explains,

he ended up finding the Deist position more persuasive.

To avoid having this kind of unintentional reverse effect on

8 6

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text

readers, you need to do your best to make sure that any counter-

arguments you address are not more convincing than your own

claims. It is good to address objections in your writing, but only

if you are able to overcome them.

One surefire way to fail to overcome an objection is to dis-

miss it out of hand—saying, for example, “That’s just wrong.”

The difference between such a response (which offers no sup-

porting reasons whatsoever) and the types of nuanced responses

we’re promoting in this book is the difference between bullying

your readers and genuinely persuading them.

Often the best way to overcome an objection is not to try

to refute it completely but to agree with part of it while chal-

lenging only the part you dispute. In other words, in answer-

ing counterarguments, it is often best to say “yes, but” or “yes

and no,” treating the counterview as an opportunity to See pp. 59–62

revise and refine your own position. Rather than build for more on

agreeing, with

your argument into an impenetrable fortress, it is often a difference.

best to make concessions while still standing your ground, as

Kim Chernin does in the following response to the counter-

argument quoted above. While in the voice of the “skeptic,”

Chernin writes: “Admit it. You like yourself better when you’ve

lost weight.” In response, Chernin replies as follows.

Can I deny these things? No woman who has managed to lose

weight would wish to argue with this. Most people feel better about

themselves when they become slender. And yet, upon reflection,

it seems to me that there is something precarious about this well-

being. After all, 98 percent of people who lose weight gain it back.

Indeed, 90 percent of those who have dieted “successfully” gain

back more than they ever lost. Then, of course, we can no longer

bear to look at ourselves in the mirror.

8 7

s i x “ S K E P T I C S M A Y O B J E C T ”

In this way, Chernin shows how you can use a counterview to

improve and refine your overall argument by making a conces-

sion. Even as she concedes that losing weight feels good in the

short run, she argues that in the long run the weight always

returns, making the dieter far more miserable.

templates for making concessions

while still standing your ground

j Although I grant that the book is poorly organized, I still maintain

that it raises an important issue.

j Proponents of X are right to argue that

. But they

exaggerate when they claim that

.

j While it is true that

, it does not necessarily follow

that

.

j On the one hand, I agree with X that

. But on the

other hand, I still insist that

.

Templates like these show that answering naysayers’ objec-

tions does not have to be an all-or-nothing affair in which you

either definitively refute your critics or they definitively refute

you. Often the most productive engagements among differing

views end with a combined vision that incorporates elements

of each one.

But what if you’ve tried out all the possible answers you can

think of to an objection you’ve anticipated and you still have

a nagging feeling that the objection is more convincing than

your argument itself? In that case, the best remedy is to go

back and make some fundamental revisions to your argument,

8 8

Planting a Naysayer in Your Text

even reversing your position completely if need be. Although

finding out late in the game that you aren’t fully convinced by

your own argument can be painful, it can actually make your

final text more intellectually honest, challenging, and serious.

After all, the goal of writing is not to keep proving that what-

ever you initially said is right, but to stretch the limits of your

thinking. So if planting a strong naysayer in your text forces

you to change your mind, that’s not a bad thing. Some would

argue that that is what the academic world is all about.

Exercises

1.

Read the following passage by the cultural critic Eric

Schlosser. As you’ll see, he hasn’t planted any naysayers

in this text. Do it for him. Insert a brief paragraph stating

an objection to his argument and then responding to the

objection as he might.

The United States must declare an end to the war on drugs. This

war has filled the nation’s prisons with poor drug addicts and small-

time drug dealers. It has created a multibillion-dollar black market,

enriched organized crime groups and promoted the corruption of

government officials throughout the world. And it has not stemmed

the widespread use of illegal drugs. By any rational measure, this

war has been a total failure.

We must develop public policies on substance abuse that are

guided not by moral righteousness or political expediency but by

common sense. The United States should immediately decriminal-

ize the cultivation and possession of small amounts of marijuana for

personal use. Marijuana should no longer be classified as a Sched-

ule I narcotic, and those who seek to use marijuana as medicine

8 9

s i x “ S K E P T I C S M A Y O B J E C T ”

should no longer face criminal sanctions. We must shift our entire

approach to drug abuse from the criminal justice system to the

public health system. Congress should appoint an independent

commission to study the harm-reduction policies that have been

adopted in Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. The

commission should recommend policies for the United States based

on one important criterion: what works.

In a nation where pharmaceutical companies advertise powerful

antidepressants on billboards and where alcohol companies run amus-

ing beer ads during the Super Bowl, the idea of a “drug-free society”

is absurd. Like the rest of American society, our drug policy would

greatly benefit from less punishment and more compassion.

Eric Schlosser, “A People’s Democratic Platform”

2. Look over something you’ve written that makes an argu-

ment. Check to see if you’ve anticipated and responded to

any objections. If not, revise your text to do so. If so, have

you anticipated all the likely objections? Who if anyone

have you attributed the objections to? Have you represented

the objections fairly? Have you answered them well enough,

or do you think you now need to qualify your own argu-

ment? Could you use any of the language suggested in this

chapter? Does the introduction of a naysayer strengthen your

argument? Why, or why not?

9 0

SEVEN

“so what? who cares?”

Saying Why It Matters

H

Baseball is the national pastime. Bernini was the best

sculptor of the baroque period. All writing is conversational.

So what? Who cares? Why does any of this matter?

How many times have you had reason to ask these ques-

tions? Regardless of how interesting a topic may be to you as a

writer, readers always need to know what is at stake in a text

and why they should care. All too often, however, these ques-

tions are left unanswered—mainly because writers and speakers

assume that audiences will know the answers already or will

figure them out on their own. As a result, students come away

from lectures feeling like outsiders to what they’ve just heard,

just as many of us feel left hanging after talks we’ve attended.

The problem is not necessarily that the speakers lack a clear,

well-focused thesis or that the thesis is inadequately supported

with evidence. Instead, the problem is that the speakers don’t

address the crucial question of why their arguments matter.

That this question is so often left unaddressed is unfortunate

since the speakers generally could offer interesting, engaging

answers. When pressed, for instance, most academics will tell

you that their lectures and articles matter because they address

9 1

s e v e n “ S O W H A T ? W H O C A R E S ? ”

some belief that needs to be corrected or updated—and because

their arguments have important, real-world consequences. Yet

many academics fail to identify these reasons and consequences

explicitly in what they say and write. Rather than assume that

audiences will know why their claims matter, all writers need

to answer the “so what?” and “who cares?” questions up front.

Not everyone can claim to have a cure for cancer or a solution

to end poverty. But writers who fail to show that others should

care or already do care about their claims will ultimately lose

their audiences’ interest.

This chapter focuses on various moves that you can make to

answer the “who cares?” and “so what?” questions in your own

writing. In one sense, the two questions get at the same thing: the

relevance or importance of what you are saying. Yet they get at this

significance in different ways. Whereas “who cares?” literally asks

you to identify a person or group who cares about your claims, “so

what?” asks about the real-world applications and consequences of

those claims—what difference it would make if they were accepted.

We’ll look first at ways of making clear who cares.

“who cares?”

To see how one writer answers the “who cares?” question,

consider the following passage from the science writer Denise

Grady. Writing in the New York Times, she explains some of

the latest research into fat cells.

Scientists used to think body fat and the cells it was made of

were pretty much inert, just an oily storage compartment. But

within the past decade research has shown that fat cells act like

chemical factories and that body fat is potent stuff: a highly active

9 2

Saying Why It Matters

tissue that secretes hormones and other substances with profound

and sometimes harmful effects… .

In recent years, biologists have begun calling fat an “endocrine

organ,” comparing it to glands like the thyroid and pituitary, which

also release hormones straight into the bloodstream.

Denise Grady, “The Secret Life of a Potent Cell”

Notice how Grady’s writing reflects the central advice we

give in this book, offering a clear claim and also framing that

claim as a response to what someone else has said. In so doing,

Grady immediately identifies at least one group with a stake

in the new research that sees fat as “active,” “potent stuff ”:

namely, the scientific community, which formerly believed

that body fat is inert. By referring to these scientists, Grady

implicitly acknowledges that her text is part of a larger con-

versation and shows who besides herself has an interest in

what she says.

Consider, however, how the passage would read had Grady

left out what “scientists used to think” and simply explained

the new findings in isolation.

Within the past few decades research has shown that fat cells act

like chemical factories and that body fat is potent stuff: a highly

active tissue that secretes hormones and other substances. In recent

years, biologists have begun calling fat an “endocrine organ,” com-

paring it to glands like the thyroid and pituitary, which also release

hormones straight into the bloodstream.

Though this statement is clear and easy to follow, it lacks any

indication that anyone needs to hear it. Okay, one nods while

reading this passage, fat is an active, potent thing. Sounds plau-

sible enough; no reason to think it’s not true. But does anyone

really care? Who, if anyone, is interested?

9 3

s e v e n “ S O W H A T ? W H O C A R E S ? ”

templates for indicating who cares

To address “who cares?” questions in your own writing, we

suggest using templates like the following, which echo Grady

in refuting earlier thinking.

j

Parents used to think spanking was necessary. But recently

[or within the past few decades] experts suggest that it can be

counterproductive.

j This interpretation challenges the work of those critics who have

long assumed that

.

j These findings challenge the work of earlier researchers, who

tended to assume that

.

j Recent studies like these shed new light on

, which

previous studies had not addressed.

Grady might have been more explicit by writing the “who cares?”

question directly into her text, as in the following template.

j But who really cares? Who besides me and a handful of recent

researchers has a stake in these claims? At the very least, the

researchers who formerly believed

should care.

To gain greater authority as a writer, it can help to name spe-

cific people or groups who have a stake in your claims and to

go into some detail about their views.

j Researchers have long assumed that

. For instance,

one eminent scholar of cell biology,

, assumed

in

, her seminal work on cell structures and functions,

that fat cells

. As

herself put it, “

”

(2012). Another leading scientist,

, argued that fat

9 4

Saying Why It Matters

cells “

” (2011). Ultimately, when it came to the nature

of fat, the basic assumption was that

.

But a new body of research shows that fat cells are far more

complex and that

.

In other cases, you might refer to certain people or groups who

should care about your claims.

j If sports enthusiasts stopped to think about it, many of them

might simply assume that the most successful athletes

. However, new research shows

.

j

These findings challenge neoliberals’ common assumption

that

.

j At first glance, teenagers might say

. But on closer

inspection

.

As these templates suggest, answering the “who cares?” question

involves establishing the type of contrast between what others

say and what you say that is central to this book. Ultimately,

such templates help you create a dramatic tension or clash of

views in your writing that readers will feel invested in and want

to see resolved.

“so what?”

Although answering the “who cares?” question is crucial, in

many cases it is not enough, especially if you are writing for

general readers who don’t necessarily have a strong investment

in the particular clash of views you are setting up. In the case of

Grady’s argument about fat cells, such readers may still wonder

why it matters that some researchers think fat cells are active,

9 5

s e v e n “ S O W H A T ? W H O C A R E S ? ”

while others think they’re inert. Or, to move to a different field

of study, American literature, so what if some scholars disagree

about Huck Finn’s relationship with the runaway slave Jim

in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Why should

anyone besides a few specialists in the field care about such

disputes? What, if anything, hinges on them?

The best way to answer such questions about the larger con-

sequences of your claims is to appeal to something that your

audience already figures to care about. Whereas the “who cares?”

question asks you to identify an interested person or group, the

“so what?” question asks you to link your argument to some larger

matter that readers already deem important. Thus in analyzing

Huckleberry Finn, a writer could argue that seemingly narrow

disputes about the hero’s relationship with Jim actually shed light

on whether Twain’s canonical, widely read novel is a critique of

racism in America or is itself marred by it.

Let’s see how Grady invokes such broad, general concerns

in her article on fat cells. Her first move is to link researchers’

interest in fat cells to a general concern with obesity and health.

Researchers trying to decipher the biology of fat cells hope to find

new ways to help people get rid of excess fat or, at least, prevent

obesity from destroying their health. In an increasingly obese world,

their efforts have taken on added importance.

Further showing why readers should care, Grady’s next move

is to demonstrate the even broader relevance and urgency of

her subject matter.

Internationally, more than a billion people are overweight. Obesity

and two illnesses linked to it, heart disease and high blood pressure,

are on the World Health Organization’s list of the top 10 global health

risks. In the United States, 65 percent of adults weigh too much,

9 6

Saying Why It Matters

compared with about 56 percent a decade ago, and government

researchers blame obesity for at least 300,000 deaths a year.

What Grady implicitly says here is “Look, dear reader, you may

think that these questions about the nature of fat cells I’ve been

pursuing have little to do with everyday life. In fact, however,

these questions are extremely important—particularly in our

‘increasingly obese world’ in which we need to prevent obesity

from destroying our health.”

Notice that Grady’s phrase “in an increasingly Writer danah

world” can be adapted as a strategic move boyd explains

the “so

to address the “so what?” question in other fields as what” of her

well. For example, a sociologist analyzing back-to-

argument on

p. 220, ¶ 2–3.

nature movements of the past thirty years might make

the following statement.

In a world increasingly dominated by cell phones and sophisticated

computer technologies, these attempts to return to nature appear futile.

This type of move can be readily applied to other disciplines

because no matter how much disciplines may differ from one

another, the need to justify the importance of one’s concerns

is common to them all.

templates for establishing

why your claims matter

j

Huckleberry Finn matters/is important because it is one of the

most widely taught novels in the American school system.

j Although X may seem trivial, it is in fact crucial in terms of today’s

concern over

.

9 7

s e v e n “ S O W H A T ? W H O C A R E S ? ”

j Ultimately, what is at stake here is

.

j

These findings have important implications for the broader

domain of

.

j If we are right about

, then major consequences fol-

low for

.

j These conclusions/This discovery will have significant applica-

tions in

as well as in

.

Finally, you can also treat the “so what?” question as a related

aspect of the “who cares?” question.

j

Although X may seem of concern to only a small group

of

, it should in fact concern anyone who cares

about

.

All these templates help you hook your readers. By suggesting

the real-world applications of your claims, the templates not only

demonstrate that others care about your claims but also tell your

readers why they should care. Again, it bears repeating that simply

stating and proving your thesis isn’t enough. You also need to

frame it in a way that helps readers care about it.

what about readers who already

know why it matters?

At this point, you might wonder if you need to answer the

“who cares?” and “so what?” questions in everything you write.

Is it really necessary to address these questions if you’re propos-

ing something so obviously consequential as, say, a treatment

for autism or a program to eliminate illiteracy? Isn’t it obvious

9 8

Saying Why It Matters

that everyone cares about such problems? Does it really need

to be spelled out? And what about when you’re writing for

audiences who you know are already interested in your claims

and who understand perfectly well why they’re important? In

other words, do you always need to address the “so what?” and

“who cares?” questions?

As a rule, yes—although it’s true that you can’t keep

answering them forever and at a certain point must say enough

is enough. Although a determined skeptic can infinitely ask why

something matters—“Why should I care about earning a salary?

And why should I care about supporting a family?”—you have to

stop answering at some point in your text. Nevertheless, One writer

we urge you to go as far as possible in answering such explains the

seriousness of

questions. If you take it for granted that readers will unemployment

somehow intuit the answers to “so what?” and “who among men—

and why it

cares?” on their own, you may make your work seem less matters for

everyone, p. 616,

interesting than it actually is, and you run the risk that ¶ 26–27.

readers will dismiss your text as irrelevant and unimportant. By

contrast, when you are careful to explain who cares and why,

it’s a little like bringing a cheerleading squad into your text.

And though some expert readers might already know why your

claims matter, even they need to be reminded. Thus the safest

move is to be as explicit as possible in answering the “so what?”

question, even for those already in the know. When you step

back from the text and explain why it matters, you are urging

your audience to keep reading, pay attention, and care.

Exercises

1.

Find several texts (scholarly essays, newspaper articles,

emails, memos, blogs, etc.) and see whether they answer

9 9

s e v e n “ S O W H A T ? W H O C A R E S ? ”

the “so what?” and “who cares?” questions. Probably some do,

some don’t. What difference does it make whether they do

or do not? How do the authors who answer these questions

do so? Do they use any strategies or techniques that you

could borrow for your own writing? Are there any strategies

or techniques recommended in this chapter, or that you’ve

found or developed on your own, that you’d recommend to

these authors?

2. Look over something you’ve written yourself. Do you indi-

cate “so what?” and “who cares”? If not, revise your text to

do so. You might use the following template to get started.

My point here (that

) should interest those who

. Beyond this limited audience, however, my point

should speak to anyone who cares about the larger issue of

.

1 0 0

EIGHT

“as a result”

Connecting the Parts

H

We once had a student named Bill, whose characteristic

sentence pattern went something like this.

Spot is a good dog. He has fleas.

“Connect your sentences,” we urged in the margins of Bill’s

papers. “What does Spot being good have to do with his fleas?”

“These two statements seem unrelated. Can you connect them

in some logical way?” When comments like these yielded no

results, we tried inking in suggested connections for him.

Spot is a good dog, but he has fleas.

Spot is a good dog, even though he has fleas.

But our message failed to get across, and Bill’s disconnected

sentence pattern persisted to the end of the semester.

And yet Bill did focus well on his subjects. When he men-

tioned Spot the dog (or Plato, or any other topic) in one sen-

tence, we could count on Spot (or Plato) being the topic of

the following sentence as well. This was not the case with

1 0 1

e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

some of Bill’s classmates, who sometimes changed topic from

sentence to sentence or even from clause to clause within a

single sentence. But because Bill neglected to mark his con-

nections, his writing was as frustrating to read as theirs. In all

these cases, we had to struggle to figure out on our own how

the sentences and paragraphs connected or failed to connect

with one another.

What makes such writers so hard to read, in other words,

is that they never gesture back to what they have just said or

forward to what they plan to say. “Never look back” might be

their motto, almost as if they see writing as a process of think-

ing of something to say about a topic and writing it down, then

thinking of something else to say about the topic and writing

that down, too, and on and on until they’ve filled the assigned

number of pages and can hand the paper in. Each sentence

basically starts a new thought, rather than growing out of or

extending the thought of the previous sentence.

When Bill talked about his writing habits, he acknowl-

edged that he never went back and read what he had written.

Indeed, he told us that, other than using his computer software

to check for spelling errors and make sure that his tenses were

all aligned, he never actually reread what he wrote before turn-

ing it in. As Bill seemed to picture it, writing was something one

did while sitting at a computer, whereas reading was a separate

activity generally reserved for an easy chair, book in hand. It

had never occurred to Bill that to write a good sentence he had

to think about how it connected to those that came before and

after; that he had to think hard about how that sentence fit

into the sentences that surrounded it. Each sentence for Bill

existed in a sort of tunnel isolated from every other sentence

on the page. He never bothered to fit all the parts of his essay

1 0 2

Connecting the Parts

together because he apparently thought of writing as a matter

of piling up information or observations rather than building

a sustained argument. What we suggest in this chapter, then,

is that you converse not only with others in your writing but

with yourself: that you establish clear relations between one

statement and the next by connecting those statements.

This chapter addresses the issue of how to connect all the

parts of your writing. The best compositions establish a sense

of momentum and direction by making explicit connections

among their different parts, so that what is said in one sentence

(or paragraph) both sets up what is to come and is clearly

informed by what has already been said. When you write a

sentence, you create an expectation in the reader’s mind that

the next sentence will in some way echo and extend it, even

if— especially if—that next sentence takes your argument in a

new direction.

It may help to think of each sentence you write as having arms

that reach backward and forward, as the figure below suggests.

When your sentences reach outward like this, they establish con-

nections that help your writing flow smoothly in a way readers

appreciate. Conversely, when writing lacks such connections and

moves in fits and starts, readers repeatedly have to go back over

the sentences and guess at the connections on their own. To pre-

vent such disconnection and make your writing flow, we advise

1 0 3

e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

following a “do-it-yourself ” principle, which means that it is your

job as a writer to do the hard work of making the connections

rather than, as Bill did, leaving this work to your readers.

This chapter offers several strategies you can use to put this

principle into action: (1) using transition terms (like “there-

fore” and “as a result”); (2) adding pointing words (like “this”

or “such”); (3) developing a set of key terms and phrases for

each text you write; and (4) repeating yourself, but with a

difference—a move that involves repeating what you’ve said,

but with enough variation to avoid being redundant. All these

moves require that you always look back and, in crafting any

one sentence, think hard about those that precede it.

Notice how we ourselves have used such connecting devices

thus far in this chapter. The second paragraph of this chapter,

for example, opens with the transitional “And yet,” signaling

a change in direction, while the opening sentence of the third

includes the phrase “in other words,” telling you to expect a

restatement of a point we’ve just made. If you look through this

book, you should be able to find many sentences that contain

some word or phrase that explicitly hooks them back to some-

thing said earlier, to something about to be said, or both. And

many sentences in this chapter repeat key terms related to the

idea of connection: “connect,” “disconnect,” “link,” “relate,”

“forward,” and “backward.”

use transitions

For readers to follow your train of thought, you need not only

to connect your sentences and paragraphs to each other, but

also to mark the kind of connection you are making. One of

the easiest ways to make this move is to use transitions (from

1 0 4

Connecting the Parts

the Latin root trans, “across”), which help you cross from one

point to another in your text. Transitions are usually placed

at or near the start of sentences so they can signal to readers

where your text is going: in the same direction it has been

moving, or in a new direction. More specifically, transitions

tell readers whether your text is echoing a previous sentence or

paragraph (“in other words”), adding something to it (“in addi-

tion”), offering an example of it (“for example”), generalizing

from it (“as a result”), or modifying it (“and yet”).

The following is a list of commonly used transitions, catego-

rized according to their different functions.

addition

also

in fact

and indeed

besides moreover

furthermore

so too

in addition

elaboration

actually

to put it another way

by extension

to put it bluntly

in other words

to put it succinctly

in short

ultimately

that is

example

after all

for instance

as an illustration

specifically

consider

to take a case in point

for example

1 0 5

e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

cause and effect

accordingly so

as a result

then

consequently therefore

hence thus

since

comparison

along the same lines

likewise

in the same way

similarly

contrast

although nevertheless

but nonetheless

by contrast

on the contrary

conversely

on the other hand

despite regardless

even though

whereas

however

while yet

in contrast

concession

admittedly naturally

although it is true

of course

granted

to be sure

conclusion

as a result

in sum

consequently therefore

hence thus

in conclusion

to sum up

in short

to summarize

1 0 6

Connecting the Parts

Ideally, transitions should operate so unobtrusively in a piece

of writing that they recede into the background and readers

do not even notice that they are there. It’s a bit like what

happens when drivers use their turn signals before turning

right or left: just as other drivers recognize such signals almost

unconsciously, readers should process transition terms with

a minimum of thought. But even though such terms should

function unobtrusively in your writing, they can be among the

most powerful tools in your vocabulary. Think how your heart

sinks when someone, immediately after praising you, begins a

sentence with “but” or “however.” No matter what follows, you

know it won’t be good.

Notice that some transitions can help you not only to move

from one sentence to another, but to combine two or more sen-

tences into one. Combining sentences in this way helps prevent

the choppy, staccato effect that arises when too many short sen-

tences are strung together, one after the other. For instance, to

combine Bill’s two choppy sentences (“Spot is a good dog. He

has fleas.”) into one, better-flowing sentence, we suggested that

he rewrite them as “Spot is a good dog, even though he has fleas.”

Transitions like these not only guide readers through the

twists and turns of your argument but also help ensure that you

have an argument in the first place. In fact, we think of words

like “but,” “yet,” “nevertheless,” “besides,” and others as argu-

ment words, since it’s hard to use them without making some

kind of argument. The word “therefore,” for instance, commits

you to making sure that the claims preceding it lead logically to

the conclusion that it introduces. “For example” also assumes an

argument, since it requires the material you are introducing to

stand as an instance or proof of some preceding generalization.

As a result, the more you use transitions, the more you’ll be able

not only to connect the parts of your text but also to construct

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e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

a strong argument in the first place. And if you draw on them

frequently enough, using them should eventually become sec-

ond nature.

To be sure, it is possible to overuse transitions, so take time to

read over your drafts carefully and eliminate any transitions that

are unnecessary. But following the maxim that you need to learn

See how Mary

the basic moves of argument before you can deliberately

Maxfield uses

depart from them, we advise you not to forgo explicit

transitions on

p. 642.

transition terms until you’ve first mastered their use. In

all our years of teaching, we’ve read countless essays that suffered

from having few or no transitions, but cannot recall one in which

the transitions were overused. Seasoned writers sometimes omit

explicit transitions, but only because they rely heavily on the

other types of connecting devices that we turn to in the rest of

this chapter.

Before doing so, however, let us warn you about inserting tran-

sitions without really thinking through their meanings—using

“therefore,” say, when your text’s logic actually requires “nev-

ertheless” or “however.” So beware. Choosing transition terms

should involve a bit of mental sweat, since the whole point of

using them is to make your writing more reader-friendly, not less.

The only thing more frustrating than reading Bill-style passages

like “Spot is a good dog. He has fleas” is reading mis-connected

sentences like “Spot is a good dog. For example, he has fleas.”

use pointing words

Another way to connect the parts of your argument is by using

pointing words—which, as their name implies, point or refer

backward to some concept in the previous sentence. The most

common of these pointing words include “this,” “these,” “that,”

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Connecting the Parts

“those,” “their,” and “such” (as in “these pointing words” near

the start of this sentence) and simple pronouns like “his,” “he,”

“her,” “she,” “it,” and “their.” Such terms help you create the

flow we spoke of earlier that enables readers to move effortlessly

through your text. In a sense, these terms are like an invisible

hand reaching out of your sentence, grabbing what’s needed in

the previous sentences and pulling it along.

Like transitions, however, pointing words need to be used

carefully. It’s dangerously easy to insert pointing words into

your text that don’t refer to a clearly defined object, assuming

that because the object you have in mind is clear to you it will

also be clear to your readers. For example, consider the use of

“this” in the following passage.

Alexis de Tocqueville was highly critical of democratic societ-

ies, which he saw as tending toward mob rule. At the same time,

he accorded democratic societies grudging respect. This is seen in

Tocqueville’s statement that …

When “this” is used in such a way it becomes an ambiguous or

free-floating pointer, since readers can’t tell if it refers to Tocque-

ville’s critical attitude toward democratic societies, his grudging

respect for them, or some combination of both. “This what?”

readers mutter as they go back over such passages and try to

figure them out. It’s also tempting to try to cheat with pointing

words, hoping that they will conceal or make up for conceptual

confusions that may lurk in your argument. By referring to a

fuzzy idea as “this” or “that,” you might hope the fuzziness will

somehow come across as clearer than it is.

You can fix problems caused by a free-floating pointer by

making sure there is one and only one possible object in the

vicinity that the pointer could be referring to. It also often helps

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e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

to name the object the pointer is referring to at the same time

that you point to it, replacing the bald “this” in the example

above with a more precise phrase like “this ambivalence toward

democratic societies” or “this grudging respect.”

repeat key terms and phrases

A third strategy for connecting the parts of your argument is

to develop a constellation of key terms and phrases, including

their synonyms and antonyms, that you repeat throughout your

text. When used effectively, your key terms should be items

that readers could extract from your text in order to get a solid

sense of your topic. Playing with key terms also can be a good

way to come up with a title and appropriate section headings

for your text.

Notice how often Martin Luther King Jr. uses the key words

“criticism,” “statement,” “answer,” and “correspondence” in the

opening paragraph of his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across

your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and

untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and

ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk,

my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such

correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time

for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine

good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to

try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and

reasonable terms.

Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

1 1 0

Connecting the Parts

Even though King uses the terms “criticism” and “answer” three

times each and “statement” twice, the effect is not overly repeti-

tive. In fact, these key terms help build a sense of momentum

in the paragraph and bind it together.

For another example of the effective use of key terms, con-

sider the following passage, in which the historian Susan Doug-

las develops a constellation of sharply contrasting key terms

around the concept of “cultural schizophrenics”: women like

herself who, Douglas claims, have mixed feelings about the

images of ideal femininity with which they are constantly bom-

barded by the media.

In a variety of ways, the mass media helped make us the cultural

schizophrenics we are today, women who rebel against yet submit

to prevailing images about what a desirable, worthwhile woman

should be… . [T]he mass media has engendered in many women a

kind of cultural identity crisis. We are ambivalent toward feminin-

ity on the one hand and feminism on the other. Pulled in opposite

directions—told we were equal, yet told we were subordinate; told

we could change history but told we were trapped by history—we

got the bends at an early age, and we’ve never gotten rid of them.

When I open Vogue, for example, I am simultaneously infu-

riated and seduced… . I adore the materialism; I despise the

materialism… . I want to look beautiful; I think wanting to look

beautiful is about the most dumb-ass goal you could have. The

magazine stokes my desire; the magazine triggers my bile. And this

doesn’t only happen when I’m reading Vogue; it happens all the

time… . On the one hand, on the other hand—that’s not just

me—that’s what it means to be a woman in America.

To explain this schizophrenia …

Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are:

Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

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e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

In this passage, Douglas establishes “schizophrenia” as a key

concept and then echoes it through synonyms like “identity

crisis,” “ambivalent,” “the bends”—and even demonstrates it

through a series of contrasting words and phrases:

rebel against / submit

told we were equal / told we were subordinate

told we could change history / told we were trapped by history

infuriated / seduced

I adore / I despise

I want / I think wanting … is about the most dumb-ass goal

stokes my desire / triggers my bile

on the one hand / on the other hand

These contrasting phrases help flesh out Douglas’s claim that

women are being pulled in two directions at once. In so doing,

they bind the passage together into a unified whole that, despite

its complexity and sophistication, stays focused over its entire

length.

repeat yourself—but with a difference

The last technique we offer for connecting the parts of your

text involves repeating yourself, but with a difference—which

basically means saying the same thing you’ve just said, but in

a slightly different way that avoids sounding monotonous. To

effectively connect the parts of your argument and keep it mov-

ing forward, be careful not to leap from one idea to a different

idea or introduce new ideas cold. Instead, try to build bridges

between your ideas by echoing what you’ve just said while

simultaneously moving your text into new territory.

1 1 2

Connecting the Parts

Several of the connecting devices discussed in this chapter

are ways of repeating yourself in this special way. Key terms,

pointing terms, and even many transitions can be used in a

way that not only brings something forward from the previous

sentence but in some way alters it. When Douglas, for instance,

uses the key term “ambivalent” to echo her earlier reference

to schizophrenics, she is repeating herself with a difference—

repeating the same concept, but with a different word that adds

new associations.

In addition, when you use transition phrases like “in other

words” and “to put it another way,” you repeat yourself with a

difference, since these phrases help you restate earlier claims but

in a different register. When you open a sentence with “in other

words,” you are basically telling your readers that in case they

didn’t fully understand what you meant in the last sentence,

you are now coming at it again from a slightly different angle,

or that since you’re presenting a very important idea, you’re

not going to skip over it quickly but will explore it further to

make sure your readers grasp all its aspects.

We would even go so far as to suggest that after your first

sentence, almost every sentence you write should refer back

to previous statements in some way. Whether you are writing

a “furthermore” comment that adds to what you have just said

or a “for example” statement that illustrates it, each sentence

should echo at least one element of the previous sentence in

some discernible way. Even when your text changes direction

and requires transitions like “in contrast,” “however,” or “but,”

you still need to mark that shift by linking the sentence to

the one just before it, as in the following example.

Cheyenne loved basketball. Nevertheless, she feared her height

would put her at a disadvantage.

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e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

These sentences work because even though the second sen-

tence changes course and qualifies the first, it still echoes key

concepts from the first. Not only does “she” echo “Cheyenne,”

since both refer to the same person, but “feared” echoes “loved”

by establishing the contrast mandated by the term “neverthe-

less.” “Nevertheless,” then, is not an excuse for changing sub-

jects radically. It too requires repetition to help readers shift

gears with you and follow your train of thought.

Repetition, in short, is the central means by which you can

move from point A to point B in a text. To introduce one last

analogy, think of the way experienced rock climbers move up a

steep slope. Instead of jumping or lurching from one handhold

to the next, good climbers get a secure handhold on the position

they have established before reaching for the next ledge. The

same thing applies to writing. To move smoothly from point to

point in your argument, you need to firmly ground what you say

in what you’ve already said. In this way, your writing remains

focused while simultaneously moving forward.

“But hold on,” you may be thinking. “Isn’t repetition pre-

cisely what sophisticated writers should avoid, on the grounds

that it will make their writing sound simplistic—as if they are

belaboring the obvious?” Yes and no. On the one hand, writers

certainly can run into trouble if they merely repeat themselves

and nothing more. On the other hand, repetition is key to creat-

ing continuity in writing. It is impossible to stay on track in a

piece of writing if you don’t repeat your points throughout the

length of the text. Furthermore, writers would never make an

impact on readers if they didn’t repeat their main points often

enough to reinforce those points and make them stand out above

subordinate points. The trick therefore is not to avoid repeating

yourself but to repeat yourself in varied and interesting enough

ways that you advance your argument without sounding tedious.

1 1 4

Connecting the Parts

Exercises

1. Read the following opening to Chapter 2 of The Road to

Wigan Pier, by George Orwell. Annotate the connecting

devices by underlining the transitions, circling the key

terms, and putting boxes around the pointing terms.

Our civilisation … is founded on coal, more completely than

one realises until one stops to think about it. The machines that

keep us alive, and the machines that make the machines, are

all directly or indirectly dependent upon coal. In the metabolism

of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance

only to the man who ploughs the soil. He is a sort of grimy cary-

atid upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy

is supported. For this reason the actual process by which coal is

extracted is well worth watching, if you get the chance and are

willing to take the trouble.

When you go down a coal-mine it is important to try and get

to the coal face when the “fillers” are at work. This is not easy,

because when the mine is working visitors are a nuisance and

are not encouraged, but if you go at any other time, it is possible

to come away with a totally wrong impression. On a Sunday, for

instance, a mine seems almost peaceful. The time to go there

is when the machines are roaring and the air is black with coal

dust, and when you can actually see what the miners have to

do. At those times the place is like hell, or at any rate like my

own mental picture of hell. Most of the things one imagines in

hell are there—heat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and,

above all, unbearably cramped space. Everything except the fire,

for there is no fire down there except the feeble beams of Davy

lamps and electric torches which scarcely penetrate the clouds

of coal dust.

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e i g h t “ A S A R E S U LT ”

When you have finally got there—and getting there is a job in

itself: I will explain that in a moment—you crawl through the last

line of pit props and see opposite you a shiny black wall three or

four feet high. This is the coal face. Overhead is the smooth ceiling

made by the rock from which the coal has been cut; underneath is

the rock again, so that the gallery you are in is only as high as the

ledge of coal itself, probably not much more than a yard. The first

impression of all, overmastering everything else for a while, is the

frightful, deafening din from the conveyor belt which carries the

coal away. You cannot see very far, because the fog of coal dust

throws back the beam of your lamp, but you can see on either side

of you the line of half-naked kneeling men, one to every four or

five yards, driving their shovels under the fallen coal and flinging

it swiftly over their left shoulders… .

George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

2. Read over something you’ve written with an eye for the

devices you’ve used to connect the parts. Underline all

the transitions, pointing terms, key terms, and repetition.

Do you see any patterns? Do you rely on certain devices

more than others? Are there any passages that are hard to

follow—and if so, can you make them easier to read by trying

any of the other devices discussed in this chapter?

1 1 6

NINE

“you mean i can just

say it that way?”

Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean

Setting Aside Your Own Voice

H

We wish we had a dollar for each time a student has

asked us a version of the above question. It usually comes when

the student is visiting us during our office hours, seeking advice

about how to improve a draft of an essay he or she is working

on. When we ask the student to tell us in simple words the

point he or she is trying to make in the essay, the student will

almost invariably produce a statement that is far clearer and

more incisive than anything in the draft.

“Write that down,” we will urge. “What you just said is sooo

much better than anything you wrote in your draft. We suggest

going home and revising your paper in a way that makes that

claim the focal point of your essay.”

“Really?” our student will ask, looking surprised. “You mean

I can just say it that way?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Well, saying it that way seems just so elementary—so obvi-

ous. I mean, I don’t want to sound stupid.”

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n i n e “ Y O U M E A N I C A N J U S T S A Y I T T H A T W A Y ? ”

The goal of this chapter is to counteract this common

misconception: that relying in college on the straightforward,

down-to-earth language you use every day will make you sound

stupid; that to impress your teachers you need to set aside your

everyday voice and write in a way that nobody can understand.

It’s easy to see how this misconception took hold, since aca-

demic writing is notoriously obscure. Students can’t be blamed

for such obscurity when so much of the writing they’re assigned

to read is so hard to understand—as we can see in the follow-

ing sentence from a science paper that linguist Steven Pinker

quotes in his essay “Why Academics Stink at Writing”:

Participants read assertions whose veracity was either affirmed or

denied by the subsequent presentation of an assessment word.

After struggling to determine what the writer of this sentence

was trying to say, Pinker finally decided it was probably some-

thing as simple as this:

Participants read sentences, each followed by the word true or false.

Had the author revised the original statement by tapping into his

or her more relaxed, everyday language, as Pinker did in revising

it, much of this struggle could have been avoided. In our view,

then, mastering academic writing does not mean completely

abandoning your normal voice for one that’s stiff, convoluted,

or pompous, as students often assume. Instead, it means creating

a new voice that draws on the voice you already have.

This is not to suggest that any language you use among

friends has a place in academic writing. Nor is it to suggest

that you may fall back on your everyday voice as an excuse to

remain in your comfort zone and avoid learning the rigorous

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Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice

forms and habits that characterize academic culture. After all,

learning new words and forms—moves or templates, as we call

them in this book—is a major part of getting an education.

We do, however, wish to suggest that everyday language can

often enliven such moves and even enhance your precision in

using academic terminology. In our view, then, it is a mistake

to assume that the academic and everyday are completely sepa-

rate languages that can never be used together. Ultimately, we

suggest, academic writing is often at its best when it combines

what we call “everydayspeak” and “academicspeak.”

blend academic and

colloquial styles

In fact, we would argue that, despite their bad reputation, many

academics are highly successful writers who provide models of

how to blend everyday and academic styles. Note, for example,

how Judith Fetterley, a prominent scholar in the field of literary

studies, blends academic and everyday ways of talking in the

following passage on the novelist Willa Cather:

As Merrill Skaggs has put it, “[Cather] is neurotically controlling

and self-conscious about her work, but she knows at all points what

she is doing. Above all else, she is self-conscious.”

Without question, Cather was a control freak.

Judith Fetterley, “Willa Cather and the

Question of Sympathy: An Unofficial Story”

In this passage, Fetterley makes use of what is probably See pp. 369 for

the most common technique for blending academic and an essay that

mixes colloquial

everyday language: she puts them side by side, juxtapos- and academic

styles.

ing “neurotically controlling” and “self-conscious” from

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n i n e “ Y O U M E A N I C A N J U S T S A Y I T T H A T W A Y ? ”

a quoted source with her own colloquial term, “control freak.”

In this way, Fetterley lightens a potentially dry subject and

makes it more accessible and even entertaining.

a translation recipe

But Fetterley does more than simply put academicspeak and

everydayspeak side by side. She takes a step further by trans-

lating the one into the other. By translating Skaggs’s poly-

syllabic description of Cather as “neurotically controlling and

self-conscious” into the succinct, if blunt, “control freak,” Fet-

terley shows how rarefied, academic ways of talking and more

familiar language can not only coexist but actually enhance

one another—her informal “control freak” serving to explain

the formal language that precedes it.

To be sure, slangy, colloquial expressions like “control freak”

may be far more common in the humanities than in the sci-

ences, and even in the humanities such casual usages are a

recent development. Fifty years ago academic writing in all

disciplines was the linguistic equivalent of a black-tie affair.

But as times have changed, so has the range of options open to

academic writers—so much so that it is not surprising to find

writers in all fields using colloquial expressions and referring

to movies, music, and other forms of popular culture.

Indeed, Fetterley’s passage offers a simple recipe for mixing

styles that we encourage you to try out in your own writing: first

state the point in academic language, then translate the point

into everyday language. Everyone knows that academic terms like

“neurotically controlling” and “self-conscious”—and others you

might encounter like “subject position” or “bifurcate”—can be

hard to understand. But this translation recipe, we think, eases

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Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice

such difficulties by making the academic familiar. Here is one

way you might translate academicspeak into everydayspeak:

j Scholar X argues, “

.” In other words,

.

Instead of “In other words,” you might try variations like the

following:

j Essentially, X argues

.

j X’s point, succinctly put, is that

.

j Plainly put,

.

Following Fetterley’s lead and making moves like these can help

you not only demystify challenging academic material, but also

reinterpret it, showing you understand it (and helping readers

understand it) by putting it into your own terms.

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n i n e “ Y O U M E A N I C A N J U S T S A Y I T T H A T W A Y ? ”

self-translation

But this translation recipe need not be limited to clarifying the

ideas of others. It can also be used to clarify your own com-

plex ideas, as the following passage by the philosopher Rebecca

Goldstein illustrates:

We can hardly get through our lives—in fact, it’s hard to get

through a week—without considering what makes specific actions

right and others wrong and debating with ourselves whether that

is a difference that must compel the actions we choose. (Okay, it’s

wrong! I get it! But why should I care?)

Rebecca Goldstein, Plato at the Googleplex:

Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away

Though Goldstein’s first sentence may require several reread-

ings, it is one that most of us, with varying degrees of effort,

can come to understand: that we all wrestle regularly with the

challenging philosophical questions of what the ethics of a

given situation are and whether those ethics should alter our

behavior. But instead of leaving us entirely on our own to figure

out what she is saying, Goldstein helps us out in her closing

parenthenthetical remarks, which translate the abstractions of

her first sentence into the kind of concrete everydayspeak that

runs through our heads.

Yet another example of self-translation—one that actually

uses the word “translation”—can be found on the opening page

of a book by scholar Helen Sword:

There is a massive gap between what most readers consider to be

good writing and what academics typically produce and publish. I’m

not talking about the kinds of formal strictures necessarily imposed

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Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice

by journal editors—article length, citation style, and the like—but

about a deeper, duller kind of disciplinary monotony, a compul-

sive proclivity for discursive obscurantism and circumambulatory

diction (translation: an addiction to big words and soggy syntax).

Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing

In this passage, Sword gives her own unique twist to the

translation technique we’ve been discussing. After a stream

of difficult polysyllabic words—“a compulsive proclivity for

discursive obscurantism and circumambulatory diction”—she

then concludes by translating these words into everydayspeak:

“an addiction to big words and soggy syntax.” The effect is

to dramatize her larger point: the “massive gap between what

most readers consider to be good writing and what academics

typically produce and publish.”

famous examples

Even notoriously difficult thinkers could be said to use the

translation practice we have been advocating in this chapter,

as the following famous and widely quoted claims illustrate:

I think, therefore I am.

The master’s tools will never

—René Descartes

dismantle the master’s house.

—Audre Lorde

The medium is the message.

Form follows function.

—Marshall McLuhan

—Louis Sullivan

These sentences can be read almost as sound bites, short,

catchy statements that express a more complex idea. Though

the term “sound bite” is usually used to refer to mindless media

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n i n e “ Y O U M E A N I C A N J U S T S A Y I T T H A T W A Y ? ”

simplifications, the succinct statements above show what valu-

able work they can do. These distillations are admittedly reduc-

tive in that they do not capture all the nuances of the more

complex ideas they represent. But consider their power to stick

in the minds of readers. Without these memorable translations,

we wonder if these authors’ ideas would have achieved such

widespread circulation.

Consider Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” for example,

which comes embedded in the following passage, in which

Descartes is struggling to find a philosophical foundation for

absolute truth in the face of skeptical doctrines that doubt that

anything can be known for certain. After putting himself in the

shoes of a radical skeptic and imagining what it would be like to

believe all apparent truths to be false, Descartes “immediately …

observed,” he writes,

whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely

necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I

observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am ( cogito ergo sum),

was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, how-

ever extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shak-

ing it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the

first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.

René Descartes, “Discourse on the Method, Part IV”

Had Descartes been less probing and scrupulous, we speculate,

he would have stopped writing and ended the passage after

the statement “it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus

thought, should be somewhat.” After all, the passage up to

this point contains all the basic ingredients that the rest of it

goes on to explain, the simpler, more accessible formulation

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Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice

“I think, therefore I am” being merely a reformulation of this

earlier material. But just imagine if Descartes had decided that

his job as a writer was finished after his initial claim and had

failed to add the more accessible phrase “I think, therefore I

am.” We suspect this idea of his would not have become one

of the most famous touchstones of Western philosophy.

everyday language as a thinking tool

As the examples in this chapter suggest, then, translating aca-

demic language into everydayspeak can be an indispensable

tool for clarifying and underscoring ideas for readers. But at an

even more basic level, such translation can be an indispensable

means for you as a writer to clarify your ideas to yourself. In

other words, translating academicspeak into everydayspeak can

function as a thinking tool that enables you to discover what

you are trying to say to begin with.

For as writing theorists often note, writing is generally not

a process in which we start with a fully formed idea in our

heads that we then simply transcribe in an unchanged state

onto the page. On the contrary, writing is more often a means

of discovery in which we use the writing process to figure out

what our idea is. This is why writers are often surprised to find

that what they end up with on the page is quite different from

what they thought it would be when they started. What we

are trying to say here is that everydayspeak is often crucial for

this discovery process, that translating your ideas into more

common, simpler terms can help you figure out what your ideas

really are, as opposed to what you initially imagined they were.

Even Descartes, for example, may not have had the formulation

“I think, therefore I am” in mind before he wrote the passage

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n i n e “ Y O U M E A N I C A N J U S T S A Y I T T H A T W A Y ? ”

above; instead, he may have arrived at it as he worked through

the writing process.

We ourselves have been reminded of this point when engaged

in our own writing. One major benefit of writing collaboratively,

as the two of us do, is that it repeatedly forces us to explain in

simpler terms our less-than-clear ideas when one of us doesn’t

already know what the other means. In the process of writing

and revising this book, for instance, we were always turning to

each other after reading something the other had written and

asking a version of the “Can-you-explain-that-more-simply?”

question that we described asking our students in our office in

this chapter’s opening anecdote: “What do you mean?” “I don’t

get it—can you explain?” “Huh!?” Sometimes, when the idea is

finally stated in plain, everyday terms, we realize that it doesn’t

make sense or that it amounts to nothing more than a cliché—or

that we have something worth pursuing. It’s as if using everyday

language to talk through a draft—as any writer can do by asking

others to critique his or her drafts—shines a bright light on our

writing to expose its strengths and weaknesses.

still not convinced?

To be sure, not everyone will be as enthusiastic as we are about

the benefits of everydayspeak. Many will insist that, while some

fields in the humanities may be open to everyday language,

colloquial expressions, and slang, most fields in the sciences

are not. And some people in both the humanities and the

sciences will argue that some ideas simply can’t be done justice

to in everyday language. “Theory X,” they will say, “is just too

complex to be explained in simple terms,” or “You have to

be in the field to understand it.” Perhaps so. But at least one

1 2 6

Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice

distinguished scientist, the celebrated atomic physicist Enrico

Fermi, thought otherwise. Fermi, it is said, believed that all

faculty in his field should teach basic physics to undergradu-

ates, because having to explain the science in relatively plain

English helped to clarify their thinking. This last point can be

stated as a rule of thumb: if you can’t explain it to your Aunt

Franny, chances are you don’t understand it yourself.

Furthermore, when writers tell themselves that their ideas

are just too complex to be explained to nonspecialists, they risk

fooling themselves into thinking that they are making more

sense than they actually are. Translating academicspeak into

everydayspeak functions as a kind of baloney detector, a way

of keeping us honest when we’re in danger of getting carried

away by our own verbosity.

code-meshing

“But come on,” some may say. “Get real! Academic writing

must, in many cases, mean setting aside our own voices.” Sure,

it may be fine to translate challenging academic ideas into

plain everyday language, as Goldstein, Sword, and Descartes

do above, when it’s a language that your audience will under-

stand and find acceptable. But what if your everyday language—

the one you use when you’re most relaxed, with family and

friends—is filled with slang and questionable grammar? And

what if your everyday language is an ethnic or regional dialect—

or a different language altogether? Is there really a place for such

language in academic, professional, or public writing?

Yes and no. On the one hand, there are many situations—

like when you’re applying for a job or submitting a proposal to

be read by an official screening body—in which it’s probably

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n i n e “ Y O U M E A N I C A N J U S T S A Y I T T H A T W A Y ? ”

safest to write in “standard” English. On the other hand, the

line between language that might confuse audiences and lan-

guage that engages or challenges them is not always obvious.

Nor is the line between foreign words that readers don’t already

know and those that readers might happily learn. After all,

“standard” written English is more open and inclusive than it

may at first appear. And readers often appreciate writers who

take risks and mix things up.

Many prominent writers mix standard written English with

other dialects or languages, employing a practice that cultural

and linguistic theorists Vershawn Ashanti Young and Suresh

Canagarajah call “code-meshing.” For instance, in the titles of

two of her books, Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black

America and Black Talk: Words and Phrases From the Hood

to the Amen Corner, the language scholar Geneva Smither-

man mixes African American vernacular phrases with more

scholarly language in order to suggest, as she explicitly argues

in these books, that black vernacular English is as legitimate

a variety of language as “standard” English. Here are three

typical passages:

In Black America, the oral tradition has served as a fundamental

vehicle for gittin ovah. That tradition preserves the Afro-American

heritage and reflects the collective spirit of the race.

Blacks are quick to ridicule “educated fools,” people who done

gone to school and read all dem books and still don’t know nothin!

It is a socially approved verbal strategy for black rappers to talk

about how bad they is.

Geneva Smitherman, Talkin and Testifyin:

The Language of Black America

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Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice

In these examples, Smitherman blends the types of terms we

expect in scholarly writing like “oral tradition” and “fundamen-

tal vehicle” with black vernacular phrases like “gittin ovah.”

She even blends the standard English spelling of words with

African American English variants like “dem” and “ovah” in

a way that evokes how some speakers of African American

English sound. Some might object to these unconventional

practices, but this is precisely Smitherman’s point: that our

habitual language practices need to be opened up, and that the

number of participants in the academic conversation needs to

be expanded.

Along similar lines, the writer and activist Gloria Anzaldúa

mixes standard English with what she calls Chicano Spanish

to make a political point about the suppression of the Spanish

language in the United States. In one typical passage, she writes:

From this racial, ideological, cultural, and biological cross-

pollinization, an “alien” consciousness is presently in the making—

a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer.

Gloria Anzaldúa,

Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Anzaldúa gets her point across not only through what she says

but through the way she says it, showing that the new hybrid,

or “mestiza consciousness,” that she celebrates is, as she puts

it, “presently in the making.” Ultimately, such code-meshing

suggests that languages, like the people who speak them, are

not distinct, separate islands.

Because there are so many options in writing, then, there is

no need to ever feel limited in your choice of words. You can

always experiment with your language and improve it. Depend-

ing on your audience and purpose, and how much risk you’re

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n i n e “ Y O U M E A N I C A N J U S T S A Y I T T H A T W A Y ? ”

willing to take, you can dress up your language, dress it down,

or some combination of both. You could even recast the title of

this book, “They Say / I Say,” as a teenager might say it: “She

Goes / I’m Like.”

We hope you agree with us, then, that to succeed as a college

writer, you need not always set aside your everyday voice, even

when that voice may initially seem unwelcome in the academic

world. It is by blending everyday language with standard written

English that what counts as “standard” changes and the range

of possibilities open to academic writers continues to grow.

Exercises

1. Take a paragraph from this book and dress it down, rewrit-

ing it in informal colloquial language. Then rewrite the same

paragraph again by dressing it up, making it much more for-

mal. Then rewrite the paragraph one more time in a way that

blends the two styles. Share your paragraphs with a classmate,

and discuss which versions are most effective and why.

2. Find something you’ve written for a course, and study it to see

whether you’ve used any of your own everyday expressions,

any words or structures that are not “academic.” If by chance

you don’t find any, see if there’s a place or two where shifting

into more casual or unexpected language would help you make

a point, get your reader’s attention, or just add liveliness to

your text. Be sure to keep your audience and purpose in mind,

and use language that will be appropriate to both.

1 3 0

TEN

“but don’t get me wrong”

The Art of Metacommentary

H

When we tell people that we are writing a chapter on the

art of metacommentary, they often give us a puzzled look and

tell us that they have no idea what “metacommen tary” is. “We

know what commentary is,” they’ll sometimes say, “but what

does it mean when it’s meta?” Our answer is that whether or

not they know the term, they practice the art of metacommen-

tary on a daily basis whenever they make a point of explain-

ing something they’ve said or written: “What I meant to say

was

,” “My point was not

, but

,”

or “You’re probably not going to like what I’m about to say,

but

.” In such cases, they are not offering new points

but telling an audience how to interpret what they have already

said or are about to say. In short, then, metacommentary is a

way of commenting on your claims and telling others how—and

how not—to think about them.

It may help to think of metacommentary as being like the

chorus in a Greek play that stands to the side of the drama

unfolding on the stage and explains its meaning to the

audience—or like a voice-over narrator who comments on

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t e n “ B U T D O N ’ T G E T M E W R O N G ”

and explains the action in a television show or movie. Think

of metacommentary as a sort of second text that stands along-

side your main text and explains what it means. In the main

text you say something; in the metatext you guide your readers

in interpreting and processing what you’ve said.

What we are suggesting, then, is that you think of your text

as two texts joined at the hip: a main text in which you make

your argument and another in which you “work” your ideas,

distinguishing your views from others they may be confused

with, anticipating and answering objections, connecting one

point to another, explaining why your claim might be contro-

versial, and so forth. The figure below demonstrates what we

mean.

1 3 2

The Art of Metacommentary

use metacommentary to clarify

and elaborate

But why do you need metacommentary to tell readers what

you mean and guide them through your text? Can’t you just

clearly say what you mean up front? The answer is that, no

matter how clear and precise your writing is, readers David

can still fail to understand it in any number of ways. Freedman uses

metacommentory

Even the best writers can provoke reactions in readers when he writes

“to repeat”

that they didn’t intend, and even good readers can get to further

lost in a complicated argument or fail to see how one emphasize his

point, ¶ 32,

point connects with another. Readers may also fail to p. 694.

see what follows from your argument, or they may follow your

reasoning and examples yet fail to see the larger conclusion

you draw from them. They may fail to see your argument’s

overall significance, or mistake what you are saying for a

related argument that they have heard before but that you

want to distance yourself from. As a result, no matter how

straightforward a writer you are, readers still need you to

help them grasp what you really mean. Because the written

word is prone to so much mischief and can be interpreted in

so many different ways, we need metacommentary to keep

misinterpretations and other communication misfires at bay.

Another reason to master the art of metacommentary is that

it will help you develop your ideas and generate more text.

If you have ever had trouble producing the required number

of pages for a writing project, metacommentary can help you

add both length and depth to your writing. We’ve seen many

students who try to produce a five-page paper sputter to a halt

at two or three pages, complaining they’ve said everything

they can think of about their topic. “I’ve stated my thesis and

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t e n “ B U T D O N ’ T G E T M E W R O N G ”

presented my reasons and evidence,” students have told us.

“What else is there to do?” It’s almost as if such writers have

generated a thesis and don’t know what to do with it. When

these students learn to use metacommentary, however, they

get more out of their ideas and write longer, more substantial

texts. In sum, metacommentary can help you extract the full

potential from your ideas, drawing out important implications,

explaining ideas from different perspectives, and so forth.

So even when you may think you’ve said everything pos-

sible in an argument, try inserting the following types of

metacommentary.

j In other words, she doesn’t realize how right she is.

j What

really means is

.

j My point is not

but

.

j Ultimately, then, my goal is to demonstrate that

.

Ideally, such metacommentary should help you recognize some

implications of your ideas that you didn’t initially realize were

there.

Let’s look at how the cultural critic Neil Postman uses meta-

commentary in the following passage describing the shift in

American culture when it began to move from print and read-

ing to television and movies.

It is my intention in this book to show that a great … shift has

taken place in America, with the result that the content of much

of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense. With this

in view, my task in the chapters ahead is straightforward. I must,

first, demonstrate how, under the governance of the printing

1 3 4

The Art of Metacommentary

press, discourse in America was different from what it is now—

generally coherent, serious and rational; and then how, under the

governance of television, it has become shriveled and absurd.

But to avoid the possibility that my analysis will be interpreted as

standard-brand academic whimpering, a kind of elitist complaint

against “junk” on television, I must first explain that … I appreci-

ate junk as much as the next fellow, and I know full well that the

printing press has generated enough of it to fill the Grand Canyon

to overflowing. Television is not old enough to have matched

printing’s output of junk.

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death:

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

To see what we mean by metacommentary, look at the phrases

above that we have italicized. With these moves, Postman

essentially stands apart from his main ideas to help readers

follow and understand what he is arguing.

He previews what he will argue: It is my intention in this book

to show …

He spells out how he will make his argument: With this in

view, my task in the chapters ahead is … I must, first, dem-

onstrate … and then …

He distinguishes his argument from other arguments it may

easily be confused with: But to avoid the possibility that my

analysis will be interpreted as … I must first explain that …

titles as metacommentary

Even the title of Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death:

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, functions as a form of

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metacommentary since, like all titles, it stands apart from the text

itself and tells readers the book’s main point: that the very plea-

sure provided by contemporary show business is destructive.

Titles, in fact, are one of the most important forms of

metacommentary, functioning rather like carnival barkers

telling passersby what they can expect if they go inside. Sub-

titles, too, function as metacommentary, further explaining

or elaborating on the main title. The subtitle of this book,

for example, not only explains that it is about “the moves

that matter in academic writing,” but indicates that “they

say / I say” is one of these moves. Thinking of a title as

metacommentary can actually help you develop sharper

titles, ones that, like Postman’s, give readers a hint of what

your argument will be. Contrast such titles with unhelpfully

open-ended ones like “Shakespeare” or “Steroids” or “English

Essay” or essays with no titles at all. Essays with vague titles

(or no titles) send the message that the writer has simply

not bothered to reflect on what he or she is saying and is

uninterested in guiding or orienting readers.

use other moves as metacommentary

Many of the other moves covered in this book function as

metacommentary: entertaining objections, adding transitions,

framing quotations, answering “so what?” and “who cares?”

When you entertain objections, you stand outside of your text

and imagine what a critic might say; when you add transitions,

you essentially explain the relationship between various claims.

And when you answer the “so what?” and “who cares?” ques-

tions, you look beyond your central argument and explain who

should be interested in it and why.

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The Art of Metacommentary

templates for introducing

metacommentary

to ward off potential misunderstandings

The following moves help you differentiate certain views from

ones they might be mistaken for.

j Essentially, I am arguing not that we should give up the policy,

but that we should monitor effects far more closely.

j This is not to say

, but rather

.

j X is concerned less with

than with

.

to elaborate on a previous idea

The following moves elaborate on a previous point, saying to

readers: “In case you didn’t get it the first time, I’ll try saying

the same thing in a different way.”

j In other words,

.

j To put it another way,

.

j What X is saying here is that

.

to provide a road map to your text

This move orients readers, clarifying where you have been and

where you are going—and making it easier for them to process

and follow your text.

j

Chapter 2 explores

, while Chapter 3 examines

.

j Having just argued that

, I want now to complicate the

point by

.

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t e n “ B U T D O N ’ T G E T M E W R O N G ”

to move from a general claim to a specific example

These moves help you explain a general point by providing a

concrete example that illustrates what you’re saying.

j For example,

.

j

, for instance, demonstrates

.

j Consider

, for example.

j To take a case in point,

.

to indicate that a claim is more, less, or equally important

The following templates help you give relative emphasis to the

claim that you are introducing, showing whether that claim is

of more or less weight than the previous one, or equal to it.

j Even more important,

.

j But above all,

.

j Incidentally, we will briefly note,

.

j Just as important,

.

j Equally,

.

j Finally,

.

to explain a claim when you anticipate objections

Here’s a template to help you anticipate and respond to pos-

sible objections.

j Although some readers may object that

, I would

answer that

.

1 3 8

The Art of Metacommentary

to guide readers to your most general point

Chapter 6

has more

These moves show that you are wrapping things up and templates for

anticipating

tying up various subpoints previously made.

objections.

j In sum, then,

.

j My conclusion, then, is that

.

j In short,

.

In this chapter we have tried to show that the most persuasive

writing often doubles back and comments on its own claims in

ways that help readers negotiate and process them. Instead of

simply piling claim upon claim, effective writers are constantly

“stage-managing” how their claims will be received. It’s true of

course that to be persuasive a text has to have strong claims

to argue in the first place. But even the strongest arguments

will flounder unless writers use metacommentary to prevent

potential misreadings and make their arguments shine.

Exercises

1. Read an essay or article and annotate it to indicate the

different ways the author uses metacommentary. Use the

templates on pages 137–39 as your guide. For example, you

may want to circle transitional phrases and write “trans” in

the margins, to put brackets around sentences that elaborate

on earlier sentences and mark them “elab,” or underline

sentences in which the author sums up what he or she has

been saying, writing “sum” in the margins.

How does the author use metacommentary? Does the

author follow any of the templates provided in this book

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t e n “ B U T D O N ’ T G E T M E W R O N G ”

word for word? Did you find any forms of metacommentary

not discussed in this chapter? If so, can you identify them,

name them, and perhaps devise templates based on them for

use in your own writing? And finally, how do you think the

author’s use of metacommentary enhances (or harms) his or

her writing?

2. Complete each of the following metacommentary templates

in any way that makes sense.

j

In making a case for the medical use of marijuana, I am not

saying that

.

j

But my argument will do more than prove that one particular

industrial chemical has certain toxic properties. In this article,

I will also

.

j

My point about the national obsessions with sports reinforces

the belief held by many

that

.

j

I believe, therefore, that the war is completely unjustified.

But let me back up and explain how I arrived at this conclu-

sion:

. In this way, I came to believe that this war is

a big mistake.

1 4 0

ELEVEN

“he says contends”

Using the Templates to Revise

H

One of the most important stages of the writing process

is revision, when you look at a draft with an eye for how well

you’ve made your argument and what you need to do to make

it better. The challenge is to figure out what needs work—and

then what exactly you need to do.

Sometimes you’ll have specific comments and suggestions

from a teacher, noting that you need to state your position more

explicitly, that your point is unclear, that you’ve misunderstood

an author you’re summarizing, and so forth. But what if you

don’t have any such guidance, or aren’t sure what to do with

it? The list of guidelines below offers help and points you back

to relevant advice and templates in this book.

Do you present your argument as a response to what others

say? Do you make reference to other views besides your own? Do

you use voice markers to distinguish clearly for readers between

your views and those of others? In order to make your argument

as convincing as possible, would it help to add more concessions

to opposing views, using “yes but” templates?

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e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

Asking yourself these large-scale revision questions will

help you see how well you’ve managed the “they say / I say”

framework and this in turn should help you see where further

revisions are needed. The checklist below follows the order of

chapters in this book.

How Do You Represent What Others Say?

Do you start with what others say? If not, try revising to do so.

See pages 23–28 for templates that can help.

Do you summarize or paraphrase what they’ve said? If so, have you

represented their views accurately—and adequately?

Do you quote others? Do you frame each quotation successfully,

integrating it into your text? Does the quotation support your

argument? Have you introduced each quotation adequately,

naming the person you’re quoting (and saying who that per-

son is if your readers won’t know)? Do you explain in your

own words what the quotation means? Do you then clearly

indicate how the quotation bears on your own argument? See

pages 45–47 for tips on creating a “quotation sandwich.”

Check the verbs you use to introduce any summaries and quo-

tations: do they express accurately what was said? If you’ve

used common signal phrases such as “X said” or “Y believes,”

is there a verb that reflects more accurately what was said?

See pages 40–41 for a list of verbs for introducing summaries

and quotations.

Have you documented all summaries and quotations, both with

parenthetical documentation in your text and a references or

works-cited list?

1 4 2

Using the Templates to Revise

Do you remind readers of what others say at various points

throughout your text? If not, see pages 27–28 for help revising

in order to do so.

What Do You Say?

Do you agree, disagree, or both with those you’re responding to?

Have you said so explicitly?

If you disagree, do you give reasons why you disagree? If you

agree, what more have you added to the conversation? If you

both agree and disagree, do you do so without confusing readers

or seeming evasive?

Have you stated your position and the one it responds to as a

connected unit?

What reasons and evidence do you offer to support your “I say”?

In other words, do your argument and the argument you are

responding to—your “I say” and “they say”—address the same

topic or issue, or does a switch occur that takes you on a tan-

gent that will confuse readers? One way to ensure that your

“I say” and “they say” are aligned rather than seeming like ships

passing in the night is to use the same key terms in both. See

Chapter 8 for tips on how to do so.

Will readers be able to distinguish what you say from what

others say? See Chapter 5 for advice about using voice

markers to make that distinction clear, especially at moments

when you are moving from your view to someone else’s view

or back.

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e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

Have You Introduced Any Naysayers?

Have you acknowledged likely objections to your argument?

If so, have you represented these views fairly—and responded

to them persuasively? See Chapter 6 for tips on how to do so.

If not, think about what other perspectives exist on your topic,

and incorporate them into your draft.

Have You Used Metacommentary to Clarify What You

Do or Don’t Mean?

No matter how clearly you’ve explained your points, it’s a good

idea to explain what you mean—or don’t mean—with phrases

like “in other words” or “don’t get me wrong.” See Chapter 10

for examples of how to do so.

Do you have a title? If so, does it tell readers what your main

point or issue is, and does it do so in a lively manner? Should

you add a subtitle to elaborate on the title?

Have You Tied It All Together?

Can readers follow your argument from one sentence and para-

graph to the next and see how each successive point supports

your overall argument?

Check your use of transitions, words like “however” and “therefore.”

Such words make clear how your ideas relate to one another; if

you need to add transitions, see pages 105–06 for a complete list.

Check your use of pointing words. Do you use common pointers

like “this” and “that,” which help lead readers from one sentence

1 4 4

Using the Templates to Revise

to the next? If so, is it always clear what “this” and “that” refer

to, or do you need to add nouns in order to avoid ambiguity?

See pages 108–10 for help working with pointing words.

Have you used what we call “repetition with a difference” to help

connect parts of your argument? See pages 112–14 for examples

of how to do so.

Have You Shown Why Your Argument Matters?

Don’t assume that readers will see why your argument is

important—or why they should care. Be sure that you have

told them why. See Chapter 7 if you need help.

a revised student essay

Here is an example of how one student, Antonia Peacocke,

used this book to revise an essay. Starting with an article she’d

written for her high school newspaper, Peacocke then followed

the advice in our book as she turned her article into a college-

level academic essay. Her original article was a brief account of

why she liked Family Guy, and her first step in revising was to

open with a “they say” and an “I say,” previewing her overall

argument in brief form at the essay’s beginning. While her

original version had acknowledged that many find the show

“objectionable,” she hadn’t named these people or indicated

why they didn’t like the show. In her revised version, after

doing further research, Peacocke identified those with whom

she disagreed and responded to them at length, as the essay

itself illustrates.

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e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

In addition, Peacocke strengthened existing transitions,

added new ones, and clarified the stakes of her argument, saying

more explicitly why readers should care about whether Family

Guy is good or bad. In making these revisions she gave her own

spin to several templates in this book.

We’ve annotated Peacocke’s essay in the margins to point

out particular rhetorical moves discussed in our book and the

chapters in which those discussions appear. We hope studying

her essay and our annotations will suggest how you might craft

and revise your own writing.

Antonia Peacocke wrote this essay in the summer between

high school and her first year at Harvard. She is now a

PhD student in philosophy at the University of California at

Berkeley.

1 4 6

Using the Templates to Revise

Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and

Their Relation to the Unconscious

a n t o n i a p e a c o c k e

H

While slouching in front of the television after a

long day, you probably don’t think a lot about famous

psychologists of the twentieth century. Somehow, these

figures don’t come up often in prime-time—or even

Starts with

what others

daytime—TV programming. Whether you’re watching

are saying

(Chapter 1)

Living Lohan or the NewsHour, the likelihood is that you

are not thinking of Sigmund Freud, even if you’ve heard

of his book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.

Responds to

what they say

I say that you should be.

(Chapter 4)

What made me think of Freud in the first place,

actually, was Family Guy, the cartoon created by Seth

MacFarlane. (Seriously—stay with me here.) Any of

Metacommenmy friends can tell you that this program holds endless

tary wards

off potential

fascination for me; as a matter of fact, my high school

skepticism

(Chapter 10)

rag-sheet “perfect mate” was the baby Stewie Griffin, a

character on the show (see Fig. 1). Embarrassingly enough,

I have almost reached the point at which I can perform

1 4 7

e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

one-woman versions of several episodes. I know every

website that streams the show for free, and I still refuse to

return the five Family Guy DVDs a friend lent me in 2006.

Before I was such a devotee, however, I was adamantly

opposed to the program for its particular brand of humor.

It will come as no surprise that I was not alone in this

view; many still denounce Family Guy as bigoted and crude.

Quotes and

summarizes New York Times journalist Stuart Elliott claimed just this

what others year that “the characters on the Fox television series Family

say (Chapters

2 and 3)

Guy … purposely offen[d] just about every group of people

Fig 1. Peter and Stewie Griffin. (Everett Collection)

1 4 8

Using the Templates to Revise

you could name.” Likewise Stephen Dubner, coauthor of

Freakonomics, called Family Guy “a cartoon comedy that

packs more gags per minute about race, sex, incest, bestiality,

etc. than any other show [he] can think of.” Comparing its

level of offense to that of Don Imus’s infamous comments

about the Rutgers women’s basketball team in the same year,

comments that threw the popular CBS radio talk-show host

off the air, Dubner said he wondered why Imus couldn’t get

away with as much as Family Guy could.

Dubner did not know about all the trouble Family Guy

has had. In fact, it must be one of the few television shows

in history that has been canceled not just once, but twice.

After its premiere in April 1999, the show ran until August

2000, but was besieged by so many complaints, some of

them from MacFarlane’s old high school headmaster, Rev.

Richardson W. Schell, that Fox shelved it until July 2001

(Weinraub). Still afraid of causing a commotion, though,

Fox had the cartoon censored and irregularly scheduled;

as a result, its ratings fell so low that 2002 saw its second

cancellation (Weinraub). But then it came back with a

vengeance—I’ll get into that later.

Family Guy has found trouble more recently, too. In

2007, comedian Carol Burnett sued Fox for 6 million dol-

lars, claiming that the show’s parody of the Charwoman,

a character that she had created for The Carol Burnett

Show, not only violated copyright but also besmirched the

1 4 9

e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

character’s name in revenge for Burnett’s refusal to grant

permission to use her theme song (“Carol Burnett Sues”).

The suit came after MacFarlane had made the Charwoman

into a cleaning woman for a pornography store in one

episode of Family Guy. Burnett lost, but U.S. district judge

Dean Pregerson agreed that he could “fully appreciate how

distasteful and offensive the segment [was] to Ms. Burnett”

(qtd. in Grossberg).

I must admit, I can see how parts of the show might

seem offensive if taken at face value. Look, for example,

Represents

a naysayer’s at the mock fifties instructional video that features in the

objections

fairly episode “I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar.”

(Chapter 6)

[ The screen becomes black and white. Vapid music

plays in the background. The screen reads “women in

the workplace ca. 1956,” then switches to a shot of

an office with various women working on typewriters.

A businessman speaks to the camera. ]

businessman : Irrational and emotionally fragile by

nature, female coworkers are a peculiar animal. They

are very insecure about their appearance. Be sure to

tell them how good they look every day, even if they’re

homely and unkempt. [ He turns to an unattractive female

typist. ] You’re doing a great job, Muriel, and you’re

prettier than Mamie van Doren! [ She smiles. He grins

at the camera, raising one eyebrow knowingly, and winks. ]

1 5 0

Using the Templates to Revise

And remember, nothing says “Good job!” like a firm

open-palm slap on the behind. [ He walks past a woman

bent over a file cabinet and demonstrates enthusiastically.

She smiles, looking flattered. He grins at the camera again

as the music comes to an end. ]

Laughing at something so blatantly sexist could cause

anyone a pang of guilt, and before I thought more about

Agrees,

the show this seemed to be a huge problem. I agreed with but with a

Dubner, and I failed to see how anyone could laugh at such difference

(Chapter 4)

jokes without feeling at least slightly ashamed.

Soon, though, I found myself forced to give Family Guy

a chance. It was simply everywhere: my brother and many of

my friends watched it religiously, and its devoted fans relent-

lessly proselytized for it. In case you have any doubts about Anticipates

a naysayer’s

its immense popularity, consider these facts. On Facebook, skepticism

(Chapter 6)

the universal forum for my generation, there are currently

23 separate Family Guy fan groups with a combined member-

ship of 1,669 people (compared with only 6 groups protesting

against Family Guy, with 105 members total). Users of the

well-respected Internet Movie Database rate the show 8.8

out of 10. The box-set DVDs were the best-selling television

DVDs of 2003 in the United States (Moloney). Among the

public and within the industry, the show receives fantastic

acclaim; it has won eight awards, including three prime-

time Emmys (IMDb). Most importantly, each time it was

cancelled fans provided the brute force necessary to get it

1 5 1

e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

back on the air. In 2000, online campaigns did the trick; in

2002, devotees demonstrated outside Fox Studios, refused to

watch the Fox network, and boycotted any companies that

advertised on it (Moloney). Given the show’s high profile,

both with my friends and family and in the world at large, it

would have been more work for me to avoid the Griffin fam-

ily than to let myself sink into their animated world.

With more exposure, I found myself crafting a more pos-

itive view of Family Guy. Those who don’t often watch the

Distinguishes

between what program, as Dubner admits he doesn’t, could easily come to

others say and think that the cartoon takes pleasure in controversial humor

what she says

(Chapter 5)

just for its own sake. But those who pay more attention and

think about the creators’ intentions can see that Family Guy

intelligently satirizes some aspects of American culture.

Some of this satire is actually quite obvious. Take, for

instance, a quip Brian the dog makes about Stewie’s liter-

Mixes

academic and ary choices in a fourth-season episode, “PTV.” (Never mind

colloquial that a dog and a baby can both read and hold lengthy

styles

(Chapter 9)

conversations.)

[ The Griffins are in their car. Brian turns to Stewie, who

sits reading in his car seat. ]

Uses a

brian : East of Eden? So you, you, you pretty much do

quotation

sandwich

whatever Oprah tells you to, huh?

to explicate

stewie : You know, this book’s been around for fifty

this excerpt

(Chapter 3)

years. It’s a classic.

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Using the Templates to Revise

brian : But you just got it last week. And there’s a giant

Oprah sticker on the front.

stewie : Oh—oh—oh, is that what that is? Oh, lemme

just peel that right off.

brian : So, uh, what are you gonna read after that one?

stewie : Well, she hasn’t told us yet—damn!

Brian and Stewie demonstrate insightfully and comically

how Americans are willing to follow the instructions of a

celebrity blindly—and less willing to admit that they are

doing so.

The more off-color jokes, though, those that give

Family Guy a bad name, attract a different kind of viewer.

Such viewers are not “rats in a behaviorist’s maze,” as

Distinguishes

Slate writer Dana Stevens labels modern American televi- what others

say from what

sion consumers in her article “Thinking Outside the Idiot she says

Box.” They are conscious and critical viewers, akin to the (Chapter 5)

“screenagers” identified by Douglas Rushkoff in an essay

entitled “Bart Simpson: Prince of Irreverence” (294). They

are not—and this I cannot stress enough, self-serving as it

may seem—immoral or easily manipulated people.

Rushkoff’s piece analyzes the humor of The Simpsons,

a show criticized for many of the same reasons as Family

Guy. “The people I call ‘screenagers,’ ” Rushkoff explains,

“speak the media language better than their parents do and

they see through clumsy attempts to program them into

submission” (294). He claims that gaming technology has

1 5 3

e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

made my generation realize that television is programmed

for us with certain intentions; since we can control

characters in the virtual world, we are more aware that

characters on TV are similarly controlled. “Sure, [these

‘screenagers’] might sit back and watch a program now and

again,” Rushkoff explains, “but they do so voluntarily, and

with full knowledge of their complicity. It is not an invol-

untary surrender” (294). In his opinion, our critical eyes

and our unwillingness to be programmed by the program-

mers make for an entirely new relationship with the shows

we watch. Thus we enjoy The Simpsons’ parodies of mass

media culture since we are skeptical of it ourselves.

Rushkoff’s argument about The Simpsons actually

applies to Family Guy as well, except in one dimen-

sion: Rushkoff writes that The Simpsons’ creators do “not

comment on social issues as much as they [do on] the

media imagery around a particular social issue” (296).

MacFarlane and company seem to do the reverse. Trusting

in their viewers’ ability to analyze what they are watch-

ing, the creators of Family Guy point out the weaknesses

and defects of US society in a mocking and sometimes

intolerant way.

Taken in this light, the “instructional video” quoted

Uses

transitions above becomes not only funny but also insightful. In its sat-

to connect ire, viewers can recognize the sickly sweet and falsely sensi-

the parts

(Chapter 8)

tive sexism of the 1950s in observing just how conveniently

1 5 4

Using the Templates to Revise

self-serving the speaker of the video appears. The message

of the clip denounces and ridicules sexism rather than

condoning it. It is an excerpt that perfectly exemplifies the

bald-faced candor of the show, from which it derives a lot of

its appeal.

Making such comically outrageous remarks on the air

also serves to expose certain prejudiced attitudes as outra-

geous themselves. Taking these comments at face value

would be as foolish as taking Jonathan Swift’s “Modest

Proposal” seriously. Furthermore, while they put bigoted

words into the mouths of their characters, the show’s

writers cannot be accused of portraying these characters

positively. Peter Griffin, the “family guy” of the show’s

title, probably says and does the most offensive things of

all—but as a lazy, overweight, and insensitive failure of a

man, he is hardly presented as someone to admire. Nobody

in his or her right mind would observe Peter’s behavior and

deem it worth emulation.

Family Guy has its own responses to accusations

of crudity. In the episode “PTV,” Peter sets up his own

television station broadcasting from home and the Griffin

family finds itself confronting the Federal Communications

Commission directly (see Fig. 2 for a picture of the whole

family). The episode makes many tongue-in-cheek jabs

at the FCC, some of which are sung in a rousing musical

number, but also sneaks in some of the creator’s own

1 5 5

e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

Fig 2. The Griffin family watches TV. (Everett Collection)

opinions. The plot comes to a climax when the FCC

begins to censor “real life” in the town of Quahog; officials

place black censor bars in front of newly showered Griffins

and blow foghorns whenever characters curse. MacFarlane

makes an important point: that no amount of television

censorship will ever change the harsh nature of reality—

and to censor reality is mere folly. Likewise, he puts explicit

arguments about censorship into lines spoken by his

1 5 6

Using the Templates to Revise

characters, as when Brian says that “responsibility lies with

the parents [and] there are plenty of things that are much

worse for children than television.”

It must be said too that not all of Family Guy’s humor

could be construed as offensive. Some of its jokes are more

tame and insightful, the kind you might expect from The

New Yorker. The following light commentary on the useful-

ness of high school algebra from “When You Wish Upon a

Weinstein” could hardly be accused of upsetting anyone—

except, perhaps, a few high school math teachers.

[ Shot of Peter on the couch and his son Chris lying at his

feet and doing homework. ]

chris : Dad, can you help me with my math? [My

teacher] says if I don’t learn it, I won’t be able to func-

tion in the real world.

[ Shot of Chris standing holding a map in a run-down gas

station next to an attendant in overalls and a trucker cap

reading “PUMP THIS.” The attendant speaks with a

Southern accent and gestures casually to show the different

road configurations. ]

attendant : Okay, now what you gotta do is go down

the road past the old Johnson place, and you’re gonna

find two roads, one parallel and one perpendicular.

Now keep going until you come to a highway that

1 5 7

e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

bisects it at a 45-degree angle. [ Crosses his arms. ] Solve

for x.

[ Shot of Chris lying on the ground next to the attendant in

fetal position, sucking his thumb. His map lies abandoned

near him. ]

In fact, Family Guy does not aim to hurt, and its creators

take certain measures to keep it from hitting too hard.

Uses In an interview on Access Hollywood, Seth MacFarlane

transitions

to connect plainly states that there are certain jokes too upsetting to

the parts certain groups to go on the air. Similarly, to ensure that

(Chapter 8)

the easily misunderstood show doesn’t fall into the hands

of those too young to understand it, Fox will not license

Family Guy rights to any products intended for children

under the age of fourteen (Elliott).

However, this is not to say that MacFarlane’s mission

is corrective or noble. It is worth remembering that he

wants only to amuse, a goal for which he was criticized

by several of his professors at the Rhode Island School of

Agrees and

disagrees; Design (Weinraub). For this reason, his humor can be dan-

makes

concessions gerous. On the one hand, I don’t agree with George Will’s

while standing reductive and generalized statement in his article “Reality

her ground

(Chapters 4 Television: Oxymoron” that “entertainment seeking a mass

and 6)

audience is ratcheting up the violence, sexuality, and deg-

radation, becoming increasingly coarse and trying to be …

shocking in an unshockable society.” I believe Family Guy

1 5 8

Using the Templates to Revise

has its intelligent points, and some of its seemingly “coarse”

scenes often have hidden merit. I must concede, though,

that a few of the show’s scenes seem to be doing just what

Will claims; sometimes the creators do seem to cross—or,

perhaps, eagerly race past—the line of indecency. In one

such crude scene, an elderly dog slowly races a paraplegic

and Peter, who has just been hit by a car, to get to a sev-

ered finger belonging to Peter himself (“Whistle While

Your Wife Works”). Nor do I find it particularly funny

when Stewie physically abuses Brian in a bloody fight over

gambling money (“Patriot Games”).

Thus, while Family Guy can provide a sort of relief by

breaking down taboos, we must still wonder whether or not

these taboos exist for a reason. An excess of offensive jokes,

especially those that are often misconstrued, can seem to

Concludes by

grant tacit permission to think offensively if it’s done for

showing who

cares and why

comedy—and laughing at others’ expense can be cruel,

her argument

matters

no matter how funny. Jokes all have their origins, and the (Chapter 7)

funniest ones are those that hit home the hardest; if we

listen to Freud, these are the ones that let our animalistic

and aggressive impulses surface from the unconscious. The

distinction between a shamelessly candid but insightful joke

and a merely shameless joke is a slight but important one.

While I love Family Guy as much as any fan, it’s important

not to lose sight of what’s truly unfunny in real life—even

as we appreciate what is hilarious in fiction.

1 5 9

e l e v e n “ H E S A Y S C O N T E N D S ”

Works Cited

“Carole Burnett Sues over Family Guy Parody.” CBC, 16 Mar.

2007, www.cbc.ca/news/arts/carol-burnett-sues-over

-family-guy-parody-1.693570. Accessed 14 July 2008.

Dubner, Stephen J. “Why Is Family Guy Okay When

Imus Wasn’t?” Freakonomics Blog, 3 Dec. 2007,

freakonomics.com. Accessed 14 July 2008.

Elliott, Stuart. “Crude? So What? These Characters Still

Find Work in Ads.” The New York Times, 19 June

2008, nyti.ms/2bZWSAs. Accessed 14 July 2008.

Facebook search for Family Guy under “Groups.” www

.facebook.com. Accessed 14 July 2008.

Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.

1905. Translated by James Strachey, W. W. Norton, 1989.

Grossberg, Josh. “Carole Burnett Can’t Stop Stewie.”

E! News, Entertainment Television, 5 June 2007,

www.eonline.com. Accessed 14 July 2008.

“I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar.” Family Guy, season 2, episode 8,

20th Century Fox, 28 Mar. 2000. Hulu, www.hulu.com/

watch/171050. Accessed 14 July 2008.

“Family Guy.” IMDb, 1999–2016, www.imdb.com/title/

tt0182576. Accessed 14 July 2008.

MacFarlane, Seth. Interview. Access Hollywood, NBC

Universal, 8 May 2007. YouTube, www.youtube.com/

watch?v=rKURWCicyQU. Accessed 14 July 2008.

Moloney, Ben Adam. “Family Guy.” BBC.com, 30 Sept.

2004, www.bbc.com. Accessed 14 July 2008.

1 6 0

Using the Templates to Revise

“Patriot Games.” Family Guy, season 4, episode 20, 20th

Century Fox, 29 Jan. 2006. Hulu, www.hulu.com/

watch/171089. Accessed 22 July 2008.

“PVT.” Family Guy, season 4, episode 14, 20th Century Fox,

6 Nov. 2005. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/171083.

Accessed 14 July 2008.

Rushkoff, Douglas. “Bart Simpson: Prince of Irreverence.”

Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of

Oppositional Culture, edited by John Alberti, Wayne

State UP, 2004, pp. 292–301.

Stevens, Dana. “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box.” Slate,

25 Mar. 2005, www.slate.com/articles/news_and_

politics/surfergirl/2005/04/thinkingoutside_the_

idiot_box.html. Accessed 14 July 2008.

Weinraub, Bernard. “The Young Guy of ‘Family Guy’: A

30-Year-Old’s Cartoon Hit Makes an Unexpected

Comeback.” The New York Times, 7 July 2004,

nyti.ms/1IEBiUA. Accessed 14 July 2008.

“When You Wish Upon a Weinstein.” Family Guy, season 3,

episode 22, 20th Century Fox, 9 Nov. 2003. Hulu,

www.hulu.com/watch/171136. Accessed 22 July 2008.

“Whistle While Your Wife Works.” Family Guy, season 5,

episode 5, 20th Century Fox, 12 Nov. 2006. Hulu,

www.hulu.com/watch/171160. Accessed 22 July 2008.

Will, George F. “Reality Television: Oxymoron.” The

Washington Post, 21 June 2001, p. A25.

1 6 1

TWELVE

“i take your point”

Entering Class Discussions

H

Have you ever been in a class discussion that feels less like

a genuine meeting of the minds than like a series of discrete,

disconnected monologues? You make a comment, say, that

seems provocative to you, but the classmate who speaks after

you makes no reference to what you said, instead going off in

an entirely different direction. Then, the classmate who speaks

next makes no reference either to you or to anyone else, making

it seem as if everyone in the conversation is more interested in

their own ideas than in actually conversing with anyone else.

We like to think that the principles this book advances can

help improve class discussions, which increasingly include various

forms of online communication. Particularly important for class

discussion is the point that our own ideas become more cogent

and powerful the more responsive we are to others, and the more

we frame our claims not in isolation but as responses to what

others before us have said. Ultimately, then, a good face-to-face

classroom discussion (or online communication) doesn’t just hap-

pen spontaneously. It requires the same sorts of disciplined moves

and practices used in many writing situations, particularly that of

identifying to what and to whom you are responding.

1 6 2

Entering Class Discussions

frame your comments as a response

to something that has already been said

The single most important thing you need to do when joining a

class discussion is to link what you are about to say to something

that has already been said.

j I really liked Aaron’s point about the two sides being closer than

they seem. I’d add that both seem rather moderate.

j I take your point, Nadia, that

. Still …

j Though Sheila and Ryan seem to be at odds about

,

they may actually not be all that far apart.

In framing your comments this way, it is usually best to name

both the person and the idea you’re responding to. If you name

the person alone (“I agree with Aaron because

”),

it may not be clear to listeners what part of what Aaron

said you are referring to. Conversely, if you only summa-

rize what Aaron said without naming him, you’ll probably

leave your classmates wondering whose comments you’re

referring to.

But won’t you sound stilted and deeply redundant in

class if you try to restate the point your classmate just made?

After all, in the case of the first template above, the entire

class will have just heard Aaron’s point about the two sides

being closer than they seem. Why then would you need to

restate it?

We agree that in oral situations, it does often sound artificial

to restate what others just said precisely because they just said

it. It would be awkward if, on being asked to pass the salt at

1 6 3

t w e l v e “ I T A K E Y O U R P O I N T ”

lunch, one were to reply: “If I understand you correctly, you

have asked me to pass the salt. Yes, I can, and here it is.” But

in oral discussions about complicated issues that are open to

multiple interpretations, we usually do need to resummarize

what others have said to make sure that everyone is on the

same page. Since Aaron may have made several points when

he spoke and may have been followed by other commentators,

the class will probably need you to summarize which point of his

you are referring to. And even if Aaron made only one point,

restating that point is helpful, not only to remind the group

what his point was (since some may have missed or forgotten it)

but also to make sure that he, you, and others have interpreted

his point in the same way.

to change the subject,

indicate explicitly that you are doing so

It is fine to try to change the conversation’s direction. There’s

just one catch: you need to make clear to listeners that this is

what you are doing. For example:

j So far we have been talking about the characters in the film. But

isn’t the real issue here the cinematography?

j

I’d like to change the subject to one that hasn’t yet been

addressed.

You can try to change the subject without indicating that you

are doing so. But you risk that your comment will come across as

irrelevant rather than as a thoughtful contribution that moves

the conversation forward.

1 6 4

Entering Class Discussions

be even more explicit

than you would be in writing

Because listeners in an oral discussion can’t go back and reread

what you just said, they are more easily overloaded than are

readers of a print text. For this reason, in a class discussion you

will do well to take some extra steps to help listeners follow

your train of thought. (1) When you make a comment, limit

yourself to one point only, though you can elaborate on this

point, fleshing it out with examples and evidence. If you feel

you must make two points, either unite them under one larger

umbrella point, or make one point first and save the other for

later. Trying to bundle two or more claims into one comment

can result in neither getting the attention it deserves. (2) Use

metacommentary to highlight your key point so that listeners

can readily grasp it.

j In other words, what I’m trying to get at here is

.

j My point is this:

.

j My point, though, is not

, but

.

j This distinction is important because

.

1 6 5

THIRTEEN

don’t make them scroll up

Entering Online Conversations

H

The internet has transformed communication in more

ways than we can count. With just a few taps on a keyboard, we

can be connected with what others have said not only through-

out history, but right now, in the most remote places. Almost

instantaneously, communities can be created that are powerful

enough to change the world. In addition, virtually the moment

we voice an opinion online, we can get responses from sup-

porters and critics alike, while any links we provide to sources

can connect readers to voices they might otherwise never have

known about, and to conversations they might never have been

able to join.

Because of this connectivity, the internet lends itself per-

fectly to the type of conversational writing at the core of this

book. Just the other day, we were on a discussion board in which

one of the participants wrote to another, let’s call him X, in

a form that could have provided a template for this textbook:

“Fascinating point about , X. I’d never thought of it

that way before. I’d always thought that , but if you’re

right, then that would explain why .”

1 6 6

Entering Online Conversations

identify what you’re responding to

Unfortunately, not all online writers make clear who or what

prompted them to write. As a result, too many online exchanges

end up being not true conversations but a series of statements

without clear relationships to one another. All too often, it’s

hard to tell if the writer is building on what someone else has

said, challenging it, or trying to change the discussion topic

altogether. So although the digital world may connect us far

more rapidly and with far more people than ever, it doesn’t

always encourage a genuine meeting of minds.

We’ve seen this type of confusion in the writing our own

students submit to online discussions. Even students who use

the “they say / I say” framework routinely and effectively in

the essays they write often neglect to make those same moves

online. While our students engage enthusiastically in online

discussions, their posts are often all “I say” with little or no

“they say.” As a result, they end up talking past rather than to

one another.

What is happening here, we suspect, is that the easy acces-

sibility made possible by the internet makes slowing down and

summarizing or even identifying what others say seem unneces-

sary. Why repeat the views you are responding to, writers seem

to assume, when readers can easily find them by simply scrolling

up or clicking on a link?

The problem with this way of thinking is that readers won’t

always take the time to track down the comments you’re

responding to, assuming they can figure out what those com-

ments are to begin with. And even when readers do make the

effort to find the comments you’re responding to, they may not

be sure what aspect or part of those comments you’re referring to,

1 6 7

t h i r t e e n D O N ’ T M A K E T H E M S C R O L L U P

or how you interpret them. Ultimately, when you fail to iden-

tify your “they say,” you leave readers guessing, like someone

listening to one side of a phone conversation trying to piece

together what’s being said at the other end.

It is true, of course, that there are some situations online

where summarizing what you’re responding to would indeed

be redundant. When, for instance, you’re replying to a friend’s

text asking, “Meet in front of the theater at 7?” a mere “OK”

suffices, whereas a more elaborate response—“With regard to

your suggestion that we meet in front of the theater at 7, my

answer is yes”—would be not only redundant but downright

bizarre. But in more complex academic conversations where

the ideas are challenging, many people are involved, and there

is therefore a greater chance of misunderstanding, you do need

to clarify whom or what you’re responding to.

To see how hard it can be to make sense of a post that

fails to identify the “they say” it is responding to, consider the

following example from an online class discussion devoted to

Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

1 6 8

Entering Online Conversations

Blogs and social media allow us to reach many people all at

once. The internet makes us more efficient.

When we first read this post, we could see that this writer was

making a claim about the efficiency of the internet, but we

weren’t sure what the claim had to do with Carr or with any of

the other comments in the discussion. After all, the writer never

names Carr or anyone else in the conversation. Nor does she

use templates such as “Like Carr, I believe

” or “What

X overlooks is

” to indicate whether she’s agreeing or

disagreeing with Carr or with one of her classmates. Indeed, we

couldn’t tell if the writer had even read Carr or any of the other

posts, or if she was just expressing her own views on the topic.

We suspect, however, that in arguing that the internet is

making us more efficient, this writer was probably trying to

refute Carr’s argument that the internet is, as Carr puts it in his

title, “making us stupid.” Then again, she could also have been

criticizing someone who agreed with Carr—or, conversely, sid-

ing with someone else who disagreed with Carr.

It would have been better if she had used the “they say / I

say” framework taught in this book, opening not with her own

“I say,” as she did, but with the “they say” that’s motivated her

to respond, perhaps using one of the following templates:

j X argues that

.

j Like X, Y would have us believe that

.

j In challenging X’s argument that

, Y asserts

that

.

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t h i r t e e n D O N ’ T M A K E T H E M S C R O L L U P

It would also have helped if, in her “I say,” she had identified the

“they say” she is addressing, using a template like one of these:

j But what X overlooks is that

.

j What both X and Y fail to see is that

.

j Z’s point is well taken. Like him, I contend that

is not,

as X insists,

but

.

Here’s one way this writer might have responded:

Carr argues that Google is undermining our ability to think and

read deeply. But far from making people “stupid,” as Carr puts

it in his title, the internet, in my view, is making people more

efficient. What Carr ignores is how blogs and social media allow

us to reach many people at once.

This version makes clear that the writer is not just making a

claim out of the blue, but that she had a reason for making her

claim: to take a position in a conversation or debate.

technology won’t do all the work

But still, you might wonder, doesn’t the internet enable

writers to connect so directly with others that summariz-

ing their claims is unnecessary? Granted, the internet does

provide several unique ways of referring to what others are

saying, like linking and embedding, that help us connect to

what others are saying. But as the following examples show,

these techniques don’t mean that technology will do all the

work for you.

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Entering Online Conversations

linking to what “they say”

One way the internet makes it especially easy to connect

directly with others is by allowing us to insert a link to what

others have said into our own text. Anything with a URL can

be linked to—blog posts, magazine articles, Facebook posts, and

so forth. Readers can then click on the words to which you’ve

attached the link and be taken directly to that page, as we can

see in the following comment in another online class discussion

about how the internet affects our brains.

In his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr

argues that the kind of skimming we do when we read online

destroys deep reading and thinking. But I would argue the

opposite: that all the complex information we’re exposed to

online actually makes us read and think more deeply.

By including a link to Carr’s essay, this writer gives her readers

direct access to Carr’s arguments, allowing them to assess how

well she has summarized and responded to what he wrote. But

the reason the writer’s post succeeds is that she introduces the

link to Carr’s essay, summarizes what she takes Carr to be say-

ing, and gives her response to it.

Here are a few templates for framing a link:

j As X mentions in this article, “

.”

j In making this comment, X warns that

.

j Economists often assume

; however, new research by

X suggests

.

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juxtaposing your “they say”

with your “i say”

Another way that online forums enhance our ability to connect

with others is by allowing readers to respond—not only to the

original article or post but also to one another through what

we might call juxtaposition. On many online forums, when

you reply to someone else’s comment, your response appears

below the original comment and indented slightly, so that it

is visually clear whom you’re responding to. This means that,

in many cases, your “they say” and “I say” are presented almost

as a single conversational unit, as the following example from

the online discussion of Carr’s article illustrates:

Lee, 4/12/17, 3:02 PM

Carr argues that the internet has harmed us by making it hard

for us to read without breaks to look at other things. That

might be true, but overall I think it has improved our lives by

giving us access to so many different viewpoints.

Cody, 4/12/17, 5:15 PM

Like Lee, I think the internet has improved our

lives more than it’s hurt them. I would add that

it’s enabled us to form and participate in political

communities online that make people way more

politically engaged.

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Entering Online Conversations

Twitter also allows for this type of close proximity, by enabling

you to embed someone else’s tweet inside your own. For

instance, consider the following tweet:

Jade T. Moore @JadeTMoore

@willwst I agree—access to books is a social justice issue.

William West @willwst

Every child has the right to access to a school library.

Cody’s response in the discussion board and Jade’s on Twitter

are effective not only because the platforms connect Cody

and Jade to their “they say” but also because they take the

time to make those connections clear. Cody connects his com-

ment to his “they say” by including the words “Like Lee” and

restating Lee’s view, while Jade does so by including West’s

Twitter handle, @willwst, and the words “I agree.” Sure, the

technology does some of the work, by making the comments

being answered directly available for readers to see—no scroll-

ing or searching involved. But it can’t do it all. Imagine if

Cody, for instance, had merely written, “We’re able to form and

participate in political communities online that make people

way more politically engaged.” Or if Jade hadn’t included an

“I agree” with her comment. As readers, we’d have been left

scratching our heads, unable to tell what Cody’s claim had to do

with Lee’s claim, or what Jade’s claim had to do with William’s,

despite how close together these claims are on the screen.

Digital communication, then, does shrink the world, as

is often said, allowing us to connect with others in ways we

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t h i r t e e n D O N ’ T M A K E T H E M S C R O L L U P

couldn’t before. But technology doesn’t relieve writers of the

need to use the “they say / I say” framework. A central prem-

ise of this book is that this framework is a rhetorical move

that transcends the differences between all types of writing.

Whether you’re writing online or off, if you want others to listen

to what you say, you’d better pay attention to what they think,

and start with what they say. However limited your space, what-

ever your format, and whatever the technology, you can always

find a way to identify and summarize your “they say.”

Exercises

1. Look back on some of your old posts on a social media site,

a class discussion board, or some other website. How well

did you let other readers know whom and what you were

responding to and what your own position was? What kinds

of moves did you make? Does that site have any conventions

or special features that you used? Are there any features not

available on that site that might have helped you connect

your comment to other people’s comments? Having read this

chapter, try revising one of your posts to reflect the advice

covered here.

2. Choose an online forum ( Facebook, theysayiblog.com, etc.)

and describe how you might apply the advice given here to

that site. Are there any features or norms specific to that

forum (e.g., embedding, linking, etc.) that would influ-

ence how you formulate your “they say”? Go to that site

and evaluate how well people use these specific features

to communicate their “they say.” Is it easy to tell whom

and what people are responding to? Why or why not? Can

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Entering Online Conversations

you make your own contribution to the forum using the

“they say / I say” format?

3. As a test case for thinking about the questions raised in

this chapter, go to the blog that accompanies this book,

theysayiblog.com. Examine some of the exchanges that

appear there and evaluate the quality of the responses. For

example, how well do the participants in these exchanges

summarize one another’s claims before making their own

responses? How would you characterize any discussion? How

well do people listen to each other? How do these online dis-

cussions compare with the face-to-face discussions you have

in class? What advantages does each offer? Go to other blogs

on topics that interest you and ask these same questions.

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FOURTEEN

what’s motivating this writer?

Reading for the Conversation

H

“What is the author’s argument? What is he or she

trying to say?” For many years, these were the first questions we

would ask our classes in a discussion of an assigned reading. The

discussion that resulted was often halting, as our students strug-

gled to get a handle on the argument, but eventually, after some

awkward silences, the class would come up with something we

could all agree was an accurate summary of the author’s main

thesis. Even after we’d gotten over that hurdle, however, the

discussion would often still seem forced, and would limp along

as we all struggled with the question that naturally arose next:

now that we had determined what the author was saying, what

did we ourselves have to say?

For a long time we didn’t worry much about these halting

discussions, justifying them to ourselves as the predictable result

of assigning difficult, challenging readings. Several years ago,

however, as we started writing this book and began thinking

about writing as the art of entering conversations, we latched

on to the idea of leading with some different questions: “What

other argument(s) is the writer responding to?” “Is the writer

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Reading for the Conversation

disagreeing or agreeing with something, and if so, what?” “What

is motivating the writer’s argument?” “Are there other ideas

that you have encountered in this class or elsewhere that might

be pertinent?” The results were often striking. The discussions

that followed tended to be far livelier and to draw in a greater

number of students. We were still asking students to look for

the main argument, but we were now asking them to see that

argument as a response to some other argument that provoked

it, gave it a reason for being, and helped all of us see why we

should care about it.

What had happened, we realized, was that by changing

the opening question, we changed the way our students

approached reading, and perhaps the way they thought about

academic work in general. Instead of thinking of the argu-

ment of a text as an isolated entity, they now thought of that

argument as one that responded to and provoked other argu-

ments. Since they were now dealing not with one argument

but at least two (the author’s argument and the one[s] he or

she was responding to), they now had alternative ways of see-

ing the topic at hand. This meant that, instead of just trying

to understand the view presented by the author, they were

more able to question that view intelligently and engage in

the type of discussion and debate that is the hallmark of a

college education. In our discussions, animated debates often

arose between students who found the author’s argument con-

vincing and others who were more convinced by the view it

was challenging. In the best of these debates, the binary posi-

tions would be questioned by other students, who suggested

each was too simple, that both might be right or that a third

alternative was possible. Still other students might object that

the discussion thus far had missed the author’s real point and

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suggest that we all go back to the text and pay closer attention

to what it actually said.

We eventually realized that the move from reading for the

author’s argument in isolation to reading for how the author’s

argument is in conversation with the arguments of others helps

readers become active, critical readers rather than passive recip-

ients of knowledge. On some level, reading for the conversa-

tion is more rigorous and demanding than reading for what

one author says. It asks that you determine not only what the

author thinks, but how what the author thinks fits with what

others think, and ultimately with what you yourself think. Yet

on another level, reading this way is a lot simpler and more

familiar than reading for the thesis alone, since it returns writ-

ing to the familiar, everyday act of communicating with other

people about real issues.

deciphering the conversation

We suggest, then, that when assigned a reading, you imagine

the author not as sitting alone in an empty room hunched

over a desk or staring at a screen, but as sitting in a crowded

coffee shop talking to others who are making claims that he

or she is engaging with. In other words, imagine the author as

participating in an ongoing, multisided conversation in which

everyone is trying to persuade others to agree or at least to take

his or her position seriously.

The trick in reading for the conversation is to figure out

what views the author is responding to and what the author’s

own argument is—or, to put it in the terms used in this book,

to determine the “they say” and how the author responds to

it. One of the challenges in reading for the “they say” and

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Reading for the Conversation

“I say” can be figuring out which is which, since it may not

be obvious when writers are summarizing others and when

they are speaking for themselves. Readers need to be alert for

any changes in voice that a writer might make, since instead

of using explicit road-mapping phrases like “although many

believe,” authors may simply summarize the view that they

want to engage with and indicate only subtly that it is not

their own.

Consider again the opening to the selection by David

Zinczenko on page 647.

If ever there were a newspaper headline custom-made for Jay Leno’s

monologue, this was it. Kids taking on McDonald’s this week, suing

the company for making them fat. Isn’t that like middle-aged men

suing Porsche for making them get speeding tickets? Whatever

happened to personal responsibility?

I tend to sympathize with these portly fast-food patrons, though.

Maybe that’s because I used to be one of them.

David Zinczenko, “Don’t Blame the Eater”

Whenever we teach this passage, some students inevitably

assume that Zinczenko must be espousing the view expressed in

his first paragraph: that suing McDonald’s is ridiculous. See Chapter 6

When their reading is challenged by their classmates, for more

discussion of

these students point to the page and reply, “Look. It’s naysayers.

right here on the page. This is what Zinczenko wrote. These

are his exact words.” The assumption these students are mak-

ing is that if something appears on the page, the author must

endorse it. In fact, however, we ventriloquize views that we

don’t believe in, and may in fact passionately disagree with, all

the time. The central clues that Zinczenko disagrees with the

view expressed in his opening paragraph come in the second

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f o u r t e e n W H A T ’ S M O T I V A T I N G T H I S W R I T E R ?

paragraph, when he finally offers a first-person declaration and

uses a contrastive transition, “though,” thereby resolving any

questions about where he stands.

when the “they say” is unstated

Another challenge can be identifying the “they say” when it is

not explicitly identified. Whereas Zinczenko offers an up-front

summary of the view he is responding to, other writers assume

that their readers are so familiar with these views that they need

not name or summarize them. In such cases, you the reader

have to reconstruct the unstated “they say” that is motivating

the text through a process of inference.

See, for instance, if you can reconstruct the position that

Tamara Draut is challenging in the opening paragraph of her

essay “The Growing College Gap.”

“The first in her family to graduate from college.” How many times

have we heard that phrase, or one like it, used to describe a success-

ful American with a modest background? In today’s United States, a

four-year degree has become the all-but-official ticket to middle-class

security. But if your parents don’t have much money or higher edu-

cation in their own right, the road to college—and beyond—looks

increasingly treacherous. Despite a sharp increase in the proportion of

high school graduates going on to some form of postsecondary educa-

tion, socio-economic status continues to exert a powerful influence on

college admission and completion; in fact, gaps in enrollment by class

and race, after declining in the 1960s and 1970s, are once again as

wide as they were thirty years ago, and getting wider, even as college

has become far more crucial to lifetime fortunes.

Tamara Draut, “The Growing College Gap”

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Reading for the Conversation

You might think that the “they say” here is embedded in the

third sentence: they say (or we all think) that a four-year degree

is “the all-but-official ticket to middle-class security,” and you

might assume that Draut will go on to disagree.

If you read the passage this way, however, you would be

mistaken. Draut is not questioning whether a college degree has

become the “ticket to middle-class security,” but whether most

Americans can obtain that ticket, whether college is within the

financial reach of most American families. You may have been

thrown off by the “but” following the statement that college

has become a prerequisite for middle-class security. However,

unlike the “though” in Zinczenko’s opening, this “but” does

not signal that Draut will be disagreeing with the view she has

just summarized, a view that in fact she takes as a given. What

Draut disagrees with is that this ticket to middle-class security

is still readily available to the middle and working classes.

Were one to imagine Draut in a room talking with others

with strong views on this topic, one would need to picture her

challenging not those who think college is a ticket to financial

security (something she agrees with and takes for granted), but

those who think the doors of college are open to anyone willing

to put forth the effort to walk through them. The view that

Draut is challenging, then, is not summarized in her opening.

Instead, she assumes that readers are already so familiar with

this view that it need not be stated.

Draut’s example suggests that in texts where the central “they

say” is not immediately identified, you have to construct it your-

self based on the clues the text provides. You have to start by

locating the writer’s thesis and then imagine some of the argu-

ments that might be made against it. What would it look like

to disagree with this view? In Draut’s case, it is relatively easy

to construct a counterargument: it is the familiar faith in the

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f o u r t e e n W H A T ’ S M O T I V A T I N G T H I S W R I T E R ?

American Dream of equal opportunity when it comes to access

to college. Figuring out the counterargument not only reveals

what motivated Draut as a writer but helps you respond to her

essay as an active, critical reader. Constructing this counter-

argument can also help you recognize how Draut challenges

your own views, questioning opinions that you previously took

for granted.

when the “they say” is about something

“nobody has talked about”

Another challenge in reading for the conversation is that writ-

ers sometimes build their arguments by responding to a lack

of discussion. These writers build their case not by playing off

views that can be identified (like faith in the American Dream

or the idea that we are responsible for our body weight), but by

pointing to something others have overlooked. As the writing

theorists John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak point out, one

effective way to “create a research space” and “establish a niche”

in the academic world is “by indicating a gap in … previous

research.” Much research in the sciences and humanities takes

this “Nobody has noticed X” form.

In such cases, the writer may be responding to scientists,

for example, who have overlooked an obscure plant that offers

insights into global warming, or to literary critics who have been

so busy focusing on the lead character in a play that they have

overlooked something important about the minor characters.

reading particularly challenging texts

Sometimes it is difficult to figure out the views that writers

are responding to not because these writers do not identify

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Reading for the Conversation

those views but because their language and the concepts they

are dealing with are particularly challenging. Consider, for

instance, the first two sentences of Gender Trouble: Feminism

and the Subversion of Identity, a book by the feminist philosopher

and literary theorist Judith Butler, thought by many to be a

particularly difficult academic writer.

Contemporary feminist debates over the meaning of gender lead

time and again to a certain sense of trouble, as if the indeterminacy

of gender might eventually culminate in the failure of feminism.

Perhaps trouble need not carry such a negative valence.

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble:

Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

There are many reasons readers may stumble over this relatively

short passage, not the least of which is that Butler does not

explicitly indicate where her own view begins and the view

she is responding to ends. Unlike Zinczenko, Butler does not

use the first-person “I” or a phrase such as “in my own view” to

show that the position in the second sentence is her own. Nor

does Butler offer a clear transition such as “but” or “however” at

the start of the second sentence to indicate, as Zinczenko does

with “though,” that in the second sentence she is questioning

the argument she has summarized in the first. And finally, like

many academic writers, Butler uses abstract, challenging words

that many readers may need to look up, like “contemporary”

(occurring in the present), “indeterminacy” (the quality of being

impossible to define or pin down), “culminate” (finally result

in), and “negative valence” (a term borrowed from chemistry,

roughly denoting “negative significance” or “meaning”). For all

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these reasons, we can imagine many readers feeling intimidated

before they reach the third sentence of Butler’s book.

But readers who break down this passage into its essential

parts will find that it is actually a lucid piece of writing that

conforms to the classic “they say / I say” pattern. Though it can

be difficult to spot the clashing arguments in the two sentences,

close analysis reveals that the first sentence offers a way of

looking at a certain type of “trouble” in the realm of feminist

politics that is being challenged in the second.

To understand difficult passages of this kind, you need to

For more on

translating,

translate them into your own words—to build a bridge,

see Chapter 9.

in effect, between the passage’s unfamiliar terms and

ones more familiar to you. Building such a bridge should help

you connect what you already know to what the author is say-

ing—and will then help you move from reading to writing,

providing you with some of the language you will need to sum-

marize the text. One major challenge in translating the author’s

words into your own, however, is to stay true to what the author

is actually saying, avoiding what we call “the closest cliché

syndrome,” in which one mistakes a commonplace idea for an

author’s more complex one (mistaking Butler’s critique of the

concept of “woman,” for instance, for the common idea that

women must have equal rights). The work of complex writ-

For more on the

ers like Butler, who frequently challenge conventional

closest cliché

thinking, cannot always be collapsed into the types of

syndrome,

see Chapter 2.

ideas most of us are already familiar with. Therefore,

when you translate, do not try to fit the ideas of such writers

into your preexisting beliefs, but instead allow your own views

to be challenged. In building a bridge to the writers you read,

it is often necessary to meet those writers more than halfway.

So what, then, does Butler’s opening say? Translating But-

ler’s words into terms that are easier to understand, we can

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Reading for the Conversation

see that the first sentence says that for many feminists today,

“the indeterminacy of gender”—the inability to define the

essence of sexual identity—spells the end of feminism; that

for many feminists the inability to define “gender,” presumably

the building block of the feminist movement, means serious

“trouble” for feminist politics. In contrast, the second sen-

tence suggests that this same “trouble” need not be thought of

in such “negative” terms, that the inability to define feminin-

ity, or “gender trouble” as Butler calls it in her book’s title,

may not be such a bad thing—and, as she goes on to argue

in the pages that follow, may even be something that femi-

nist activists can profit from. In other words, Butler suggests,

highlighting uncertainties about masculinity and femininity

can be a powerful feminist tool.

Pulling all these inferences together, then, the opening sen-

tences can be translated as follows: “While many contempo-

rary feminists believe that uncertainty about what it means to

be a woman will undermine feminist politics, I, Judith Butler,

believe that this uncertainty can actually help strengthen femi-

nist politics.” Translating Butler’s point into our own book’s

basic move: “They say that if we cannot define ‘woman,’ femi-

nism is in big trouble. But I say that this type of trouble is

precisely what feminism needs.” Despite its difficulty, then,

we hope you agree that this initially intimidating passage does

make sense if you stay with it.

We hope it is clear that critical reading is a two-way street.

It is just as much about being open to the way that writers

can challenge you, maybe even transform you, as it is about

questioning those writers. And if you translate a writer’s argu-

ment into your own words as you read, you should allow the

text to take you outside the ideas that you already hold and

to introduce you to new terms and concepts. Even if you end

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up disagreeing with an author, you first have to show that you

have really listened to what he or she is saying, have fully

grasped his or her arguments, and can accurately summarize

those arguments. Without such deep, attentive listening, any

critique you make will be superficial and decidedly uncritical.

It will be a critique that says more about you than about the

writer or idea you’re supposedly responding to.

In this chapter we have tried to show that reading for the

conversation means looking not just for the thesis of a text in

isolation but for the view or views that motivate that thesis—

the “they say.” We have also tried to show that reading for

the conversation means being alert for the different strategies

writers use to engage the view(s) that are motivating them,

since not all writers engage other perspectives in the same way.

Some writers explicitly identify and summarize a view they are

responding to at the outset of their text and then return to it

frequently as their text unfolds. Some refer only obliquely to

a view that is motivating them, assuming that readers will be

able to reconstruct that view on their own. Other writers may

not explicitly distinguish their own view from the views they

are questioning in ways that all of us find clear, leaving some

readers to wonder whether a given view is the writer’s own or

one that he or she is challenging. And some writers push off

against the “they say” that is motivating them in a challeng-

ing academic language that requires readers to translate what

they are saying into more accessible, everyday terms. In sum,

then, though most persuasive writers do follow a conversational

“they say / I say” pattern, they do so in a great variety of ways.

What this means for readers is that they need to be armed with

various strategies for detecting the conversations in what they

read, even when those conversations are not self-evident.

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FIFTEEN

“analyze this”

Writing in the Social Sciences

e r i n a c k e r m a n

H

Social science is the study of people—how they behave

and relate to one another, and the organizations and institu-

tions that facilitate these interactions. People are complicated,

so any study of human behavior is at best partial, taking into

account some elements of what people do and why, but not

always explaining those actions definitively. As a result, it is

the subject of constant conversation and argument.

Consider some of the topics studied in the social sciences:

minimum wage laws, immigration policy, health care, what causes

aggressive behavior, employment discrimination. Got an opinion

on any of these topics? You aren’t alone. But in the writing you do

as a student of the social sciences, you need to write about more

Erin Ackerman is the Social Sciences Librarian at The College of

New Jersey and formerly taught political science at John Jay College,

City University of New York. Her research and teaching interests

include American law and politics, women and law, and information

literacy in the social sciences.

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

than just your opinions. Good writing in the social sciences, as

in other academic disciplines, requires that you demonstrate that

you have examined what you think and why. The best way to do

that is to bring your views into conversation with those expressed

by others and to test what you and others think against a review

of evidence. In other words, you’ll need to start with what others

say and then present what you say as a response.

Consider the following example from an op-ed in the New

York Times by two psychology professors:

Is video game addiction a real thing?

It’s certainly common to hear parents complain that their chil-

dren are “addicted” to video games. Some researchers even claim that

these games are comparable to illegal drugs in terms of their influence

on the brain—that they are “digital heroin” (the neuroscientist Peter

C. Whybrow) or “digital pharmakeia” (the neuroscientist Andrew

Doan). The American Psychiatric Association has identified inter-

net gaming disorder as a possible psychiatric illness, and the World

Health Organization has proposed including “gaming disorder” in its

catalog of mental diseases, along with drug and alcohol addiction.

This is all terribly misguided. Playing video games is not addic-

tive in any meaningful sense. It is normal behavior that, while

perhaps in many cases a waste of time, is not damaging or disruptive

of lives in the way drug or alcohol use can be.

Christopher J. Ferguson and Patrick Markey,

“Video Games Aren’t Addictive”

In other words, “they” (parents, other researchers, health

organizations) say that the video games are addictive, whereas

Ferguson and Markey disagree. In the rest of the op-ed, they

argue that video game critics have misinterpreted the evidence

and are not being very precise with what counts as “addiction.”

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Writing in the Social Sciences

This chapter explores some of the basic moves social science

writers make. Writing in the social sciences often takes the form

of a research paper that generally includes several core compo-

nents: a strong introduction and thesis, a literature review, and the

writer’s own analysis, including presentation of evidence / data and

consideration of implications. The introduction sets out the thesis,

or point, of the paper, briefly explaining the topic or question you

are investigating and, previewing what you will say in your paper

and how it fits into the preexisting conversation. The literature

review summarizes what has already been said on your topic. Your

analysis allows you to present evidence (the information, or data,

about human behavior that you are measuring or testing against

what other people have said), to explain the conclusions you have

drawn based on your investigation, and to discuss the implications

of your research. Do you agree, disagree, or some combination of

both, with what has been said by others? What reasons can you

give for why you feel that way? And so what? Who should be

interested in what you have to say, and why?

You may get other types of writing assignments in the social

sciences, such as preparing a policy memo, writing a legal brief,

or designing a grant or research proposal. While there may be

differences from the research papers in terms of the format and

audience for these assignments, the purposes of sections of the

research paper and the moves discussed here will help you with

those assignments as well.

the introduction and thesis:

“this paper challenges …”

Your introduction sets forth what you plan to say in your essay.

You might evaluate the work of earlier scholars or certain widely

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

held assumptions and find them incorrect when measured

against new events or data. Alternatively, you might point out

that an author’s work is largely correct, but that it could use

some qualifications or be extended in some way. Or you might

identify a gap in our knowledge—we know a great deal about

topic X but almost nothing about some other closely related

topic. In each of these instances, your introduction needs to

cover both “they say” and “I say” perspectives. If you stop after

the “they say,” your readers won’t know what you are bringing

to the conversation. Similarly, if you were to jump right to the

“I say” portion of your argument, readers might wonder why

you need to say anything at all.

Sometimes you join the conversation at a point where the

discussion seems settled. One or more views about a topic have

become so widely accepted among a group of scholars or society

at large that these views are essentially the conventional way of

thinking about the topic. You may wish to offer new reasons to

support this interpretation, or you may wish to call these standard

views into question. To do so, you must first introduce and iden-

tify these widely held beliefs and then pre sent your own view. In

fact, much of the writing in the social sciences takes the form

of calling into question that which we think we already know.

Consider the following example from an article in The Journal

of Economic Perspectives:

Fifteen years ago, Milton Friedman’s 1957 treatise A Theory of the

Consumption Function seemed badly dated. Dynamic optimization

theory had not been employed much in economics when Friedman

wrote, and utility theory was still comparatively primitive, so his

statement of the “permanent income hypothesis” never actually

specified a formal mathematical model of behavior derived explicitly

from utility maximization … [W]hen other economists subsequently

1 9 0

Writing in the Social Sciences

found multiperiod maximizing models that could be solved explicitly,

the implications of those models differed sharply from Friedman’s

intuitive description of his “model.” Furthermore, empirical tests in

the 1970s and 1980s often rejected these rigorous versions of the

permanent income hypothesis in favor of an alternative hypothesis

that many households simply spent all of their current income.

Today, with the benefit of a further round of mathematical (and

computational) advances, Friedman’s (1957) original analysis looks

more prescient than primitive …

Christopher D. Carroll, “A Theory of Consumption

Function, With and Without Liquidity Constraints,”

The Journal of Economic Perspectives

This introduction makes clear that Carroll will defend Milton

Friedman against some major criticisms of his work. Carroll

mentions what has been said about Friedman’s work and then

goes on to say that the critiques turn out to be wrong and to

suggest that Friedman’s work reemerges as persuasive. A tem-

plate of Carroll’s introduction might look something like this:

Economics research in the last fifteen years suggested Fried-

man’s 1957 treatise was

because

. In other

words, they say that Friedman’s work is not accurate because

of

,

, and

. Recent research

convinces me, however, that Friedman’s work makes sense.

In some cases, however, there may not be a strong consensus

among experts on a topic. You might enter the ongoing debate

by casting your vote with one side or another or by offering an

alternative view. In the following example, Shari Berman iden-

tifies two competing accounts of how to explain world events

in the twentieth century and then puts forth a third view.

Conventional wisdom about twentieth-century ideologies rests on

two simple narratives. One focuses on the struggle for dominance

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

between democracy and its alternatives… . The other narrative

focuses on the competition between free-market capitalism and its

rivals… . Both of these narratives obviously contain some truth.

… Yet both only tell part of the story, which is why their common

conclusion—neoliberalism as the “end of History”—is unsatisfying

and misleading.

What the two conventional narratives fail to mention is that

a third struggle was also going on: between those ideologies that

believed in the primacy of economics and those that believed in

the primacy of politics.

Shari Berman, “The Primacy of Economics versus the

Primacy of Politics: Understanding the Ideological Dynamics

of the Twentieth Century,” Perspectives on Politics

After identifying the two competing narratives, Berman sug-

gests a third view—and later goes on to argue that this third

view explains current debates over globalization. A template

for this type of introduction might look something like this:

In recent discussions of

, a controversial aspect has

been

. On the one hand, some argue that

.

On the other hand, others argue that

. Neither of

these arguments, however, considers the alternative view

that

.

Given the complexity of many of the issues studied in

the social sciences, however, you may sometimes agree and

disagree with existing views—pointing out things that you

For more on

believe are correct or have merit, while disagreeing

different ways

with or refining other points. In the example below,

of responding,

see Chapter 4.

anthropologist Sally Engle Merry agrees with another

scholar about something that is a key trait of modern society

but argues that this trait has a different origin than the other

author identifies.

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Writing in the Social Sciences

Although I agree with Rose that an increasing emphasis on

governing the soul is characteristic of modern society, I see the

transformation not as evolutionary but as the product of social

mobilization and political struggle.

Sally Engle Merry, “Rights, Religion, and Community:

Approaches to Violence against Women in the

Context of Globalization,” Law and Society Review

Here are some templates for agreeing and disagreeing:

j Although I agree with X up to a point, I cannot accept his overall

conclusion that

.

j Although I disagree with X on

and

, I agree

with her conclusion that

.

j

Political scientists studying

have argued that it

is caused by

. While

contributes to the

problem,

is also an important factor.

j While noting

, I contend

.

In the process of examining people from different angles, social

scientists sometimes identify gaps—areas that have not been

explored in previous research.

In the following example, several sociologists identify such

a gap.

Family scholars have long argued that the study of dating deserves

more attention (Klemer, 1971), as dating is an important part of the

life course at any age and often a precursor to marriage (Levesque

& Caron, 2004)… .

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

The central research questions we seek to answer with this study

are whether and how the significance of particular dating rituals

are patterned by gender and race simultaneously. We use a racially

diverse data set of traditional-aged college students from a variety

of college contexts. Understanding gender and racial differences

in the assessment of dating rituals helps us explore the extent to

which relationship activities are given similar importance across

institutional and cultural lines. Most of the studies that inform our

knowledge of dating and relationships are unable to draw conclu-

sions regarding racial differences because the sample is Caucasian

(e.g., Bogle, 2008), or primarily so (e.g., Manning & Smock, 2005).

Race has been recently argued to be an often-overlooked variable

in studies examining social psychological processes because of the

prevalence of sample limitations as well as habitual oversight in the

literature (Hunt, Jackson, Powell, & Steelman, 2000). Addition-

ally, a failure to examine both gender and race prevents assessment

of whether gendered beliefs are shared across groups. Gauging the

extent of differences in beliefs among different population sub-

groups is critical to advancing the study of relationship dynamics

(see Weaver & Ganong, 2004).

Pamela Braboy Jackson, Sibyl Kleiner,

Claudia Geist, and Kara Cebulko, “Conventions of Courtship:

Gender and Race Differences in the Significance of Dating Rituals,”

Journal of Family Issues

Jackson and her coauthors note that, while other scholars have

said that studying dating is important and have examined some

aspects of dating, we have little information about whether

attitudes about dating activities (such as sexual intimacy, gift

exchange, and meeting the family) vary across groups by gender

and race. Their study aims to fill this gap in our understanding

of relationships.

1 9 4

Writing in the Social Sciences

Here are some templates for introducing gaps in the existing

research:

j Studies of X have indicated

. It is not clear, however,

that this conclusion applies to

.

j

often take for granted that

. Few have

investigated this assumption, however.

j X’s work tells us a great deal about

. Can this work

be generalized to

?

j Our understanding of

remains incomplete because

previous work has not examined

.

Again, a good introduction indicates what you have to say in

the larger context of what others have said. Throughout the

rest of your paper, you will move back and forth between the

“they say” and the “I say,” adding more details.

the literature review:

“prior research indicates …”

The point of a literature review is to establish the state of

knowledge on your topic. Before you (and your reader) can

properly consider an issue, you need to understand the con-

versation about your topic that has already taken place (and

is likely still in progress). In the literature review, you explain

what “they say” in more detail, summarizing, paraphrasing, or

quoting the viewpoints to which you are responding. But you

need to balance what they are saying with your own focus. You

need to characterize someone else’s work fairly and accurately

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

but set up the points you yourself want to make by select-

ing the details that are relevant to your own perspective and

observations.

It is common in the social sciences to summarize several

arguments in a single paragraph or even a single sentence,

grouping several sources together by their important ideas or

other attributes. The example below cites some key findings

and conclusions of psychological research that should be of

interest to motivated college students looking to improve their

academic performance.

Some people may associate sacrificing hours of sleep with being

studious, but the reality is that sleep deprivation can hurt your

cognitive functioning without your being aware of it (e.g., becom-

ing worse at paying attention and remembering things; Goel, Rao,

Durmer, & Dinges, 2009; Pilcher & Walters, 1997)… . Sleep affects

learning and memory by organizing and consolidating memories

from the day (Diekelmann & Born, 2010; Rasch & Born, 2013),

which can lead to better problem-solving ability and creativity

(Verleger, Rose, Wagner, Yordanova, & Kolev, 2013).

Adam L. Putnam, Victor W. Sungkhasettee, and

Henry L. Roediger, III, “Optimizing Learning in College:

Tips from Cognitive Psychology,” Perspectives on

Psychological Science

A template for this paragraph might look like this: Students

believe

, but researchers disagree because

.

According to researchers, negative consequences of sleep depri-

vation include

. The research shows that a positive

effect of sleep is

, which improves

.

Such summaries are brief, bringing together relevant

arguments by several scholars to provide an overview of

1 9 6

Writing in the Social Sciences

scholarly work on a particular topic. In writing such a sum-

mary, you need to ask yourself how the authors themselves

might describe their positions and also consider what in their

work is relevant for the point you wish to make. This kind

of summary is especially appropriate when you have a large

amount of research material on a topic and want to identify

the major strands of a debate or to show how the work of one

author builds on that of another. Here are some templates for

overview summaries:

j

In addressing the question of

, researchers have

considered several explanations for

. X argues

that

. According to Y and Z, another plausible expla-

nation is

.

j What is the effect of

on

? Previous work

on

by X and by Y and Z supports

.

j Scholars point to the role of

in

.

j Existing research on

presents convincing evidence of

.

Sometimes you may need to say more about the works you cite.

On a midterm or final exam, for example, you may need to

demonstrate that you have a deep familiarity with a particular

work. And in some disciplines of the social sciences, longer,

more detailed literature reviews are the standard. Your instruc-

tor and the articles he or she has assigned are your best guides

for the length and level of detail of your literature review. Other

times, the work of certain authors is especially important for

your argument, and therefore you need to provide more details

to explain what these authors have said. See how political sci-

entists Hahrie Han and Lisa Argyle, in a report for the Ford

1 9 7

F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

Foundation, summarize an argument that is central to their

investigation of improving democratic participation.

[A]t the root of declining rates of participation is the sense that

people do not feel like their participation matters. People do not

feel like they have any real reason or opportunity to exercise voice

in the political process. People’s sense of agency is in decline,

especially given negative or incomplete experiences of govern-

ment in their lives.

This lack of caring comes as no surprise when we examine

research showing that most people have negative or, at best,

incomplete experiences of the role of government in their lives.

Suzanne Mettler, for instance, finds that many middle-class people

who benefit from different government programs—ranging from

education savings accounts to welfare to tax credits—believe that

they “have not used a government social program.” In addition,

other scholars find a trend towards increasing privatization of pub-

lic goods and political processes in the twenty-first century. As a

result, government is what Mettler calls a “submerged state,” since

the role of government in people’s lives is effectively submerged

from view.

Hahrie Han and Lisa Argyle, “A Program Review of the

Promoting Electoral Reform and Democratic

Participation (PERDP) Initiative,” Ford Foundation

Note that Han and Argyle start by identifying the broad prob-

lem of lack of participation and then explain how Mettler’s

work describes how middle-class people may be unaware of the

role of government in their lives, leading Mettler to argue for

the idea of the “submerged state.”

You may want to include direct quotations of what others

have said, as Han and Argyle do. Using an author’s exact words

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Writing in the Social Sciences

helps you demonstrate that you are representing him or her

fairly. But you cannot simply insert a quotation; you need to

explain to your readers what it means for your point. Consider

the following example drawn from a political science book on

the debate over tort reform.

The essence of agenda setting was well enunciated by E. E.

Schattschneider: “In politics as in everything else, it makes a great

difference whose game we play” (1960, 47). In short, the ability to

define or control the rules, terms, or perceived options in a contest

over policy greatly affects the prospects for winning.

William Haltom and Michael McCann,

Distorting the Law: Politics, Media, and the Litigation Crisis

Notice how Haltom and McCann first quote Schattschneider

and then explain in their own words how political agenda set-

ting can be thought of as a game, with winners and losers.

Remember that whenever you summarize, quote, or paraphrase

the work of others, credit must be given in the form of a citation

to the original work. The words may be your own, but if the idea

comes from someone else you must give credit to the original

work. There are several formats for documenting sources. Consult

your instructor for help choosing which citation style to use.

the analysis

The literature review covers what others have said on your

topic. The analysis allows you to present and support your own

response. In the introduction you indicate whether you agree,

disagree, or some combination of both with what others have

said. You will want to expand on how you have formed your

opinion and why others should care about your topic.

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

“The Data Indicate …”

The social sciences use evidence to develop and test explana-

tions. This evidence is often referred to as data. Data can be

quantitative or qualitative and can come from a number of

sources. You might use statistics related to GDP growth, unem-

ployment, voting rates, or demographics. You might report

results from an experiment or simulation. Or you could use

surveys, interviews, or other first-person accounts.

Regardless of the type of data used, it is important to do

three things: define your data, indicate where you got the data,

and then say what you have done with your data. For a chapter

in their book assessing media coverage of female candidates,

political scientists Danny Hayes and Jennifer Lawless explain

how they assembled a data set.

From the perspective of campaign professionals and voters, local

newspaper coverage remains the most important news source dur-

ing House campaigns … .

We began by selecting the appropriate newspaper for each

House race in 2010 and 2014 … . [W]e identified every news story

during the thirty days leading up to the election that mentioned

at least one of the two major-party candidates … .

Our data collection efforts produced 10,375 stories about 1,550

candidates who received at least some local news coverage in either

the 2010 or 2014 midterms … .

Coders read the full text of each article and recorded several

pieces of information. First, they tracked the number of times a

candidate’s sex or gender was mentioned … . Second, we recorded

the number of explicit references to candidate traits, both positive

and negative (e.g., “capable” and “ineffective”) … .

Third, we tracked every time an issue was mentioned in con-

nection with a candidate … . We then classified issues in two ways:

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Writing in the Social Sciences

(1) We assigned each issue to one of the eight broad categories …

and (2) we classified a subset of the topics as “women’s” or “men’s”

issues.

Danny Hayes and Jennifer L. Lawless, Women on the Run:

Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era

Hayes and Lawless explain how they collected their data—local

newspaper coverage of congressional candidates—and explain

how they coded and classified the coverage to allow them to

perform statistical analysis of the news pieces. While you prob-

ably won’t collect 10,000+ news items for a class project, you

could collect information (such as media coverage, interview

responses, or legal briefs) and analyze and sort them to identify

patterns such as repeated words and ideas.

If your data are quantitative, you also need to explain

them. Sociologist Jonathan Horowitz’s research concludes

that job quality influences personal assessments of well-being

by “improving social life, altering class identification, affecting

physical health, and increasing amounts of leisure time.” See

how he introduces the data he analyzes:

In this study, I use data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and

structural equation modeling to test relationships between job qual-

ity and subjective wellbeing. The GSS is a nationally representative

sample of adults in the United States that asks a large number of

questions about experiences at work (Smith et al. 2010). In particu-

lar, the GSS introduced a new battery of questions titled “Quality

of Working Life” in 2002 (and repeated in 2006 and 2010) which

includes multiple questions about several job quality dimensions.

Jonathan Horowitz, “Dimensions of Job Quality,

Mechanisms, and Subjective Well-Being in the United States,”

Sociological Forum

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

Here are some templates for discussing data:

j In order to test the hypothesis that

, we assessed

. Our calculations suggest

.

j I used

to investigate

. The results of this

investigation indicate

.

“But Others May Object …”

No matter how strongly your data support your argument, there

are almost surely other perspectives (and thus other data) that

you need to acknowledge. By considering possible objections

to your argument and taking them seriously, you demonstrate

that you’ve done your work and that you’re aware of other

perspectives—and most important, you present your own argu-

ment as part of an ongoing conversation.

See how law professor Michelle Alexander acknowledges

that there may be objections to her argument describing trends

in mass incarceration as “the new Jim Crow.”

Some might argue that as disturbing as this system appears to be,

there is nothing particularly new about mass incarceration; it is

merely a continuation of past drug wars and biased law enforcement

practices. Racial bias in our criminal justice system is simply an old

problem that has gotten worse, and the social excommunication of

“criminals” has a long history; it is not a recent invention. There

is some merit to this argument.

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow:

Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Alexander imagines a conversation with people who might be

skeptical about her argument, particularly her claim that this

represents a “new” development. And she responds that they

2 0 2

Writing in the Social Sciences

are correct, to a point. After acknowledging her agreement with

the assessment of historical racial bias in the criminal justice

system, she goes on in the rest of her chapter to explain that

the expanded scope and consequences of contemporary mass

incarceration have caused dramatic differences in society.

Someone may object because there are related phenomena

that your analysis does not explain or because you do not have

the right data to investigate a particular question. Or perhaps

someone may object to assumptions underlying your argument

or how you handled your data. Here are some templates for

considering naysayers:

j

might object that

.

j Is my claim realistic? I have argued

, but readers may

question

.

j My explanation accounts for

but does not explain

. This is because

.

“Why Should We Care?”

Who should care about your research, and why? Since the social

sciences attempt to explain human behavior, it is important to

consider how your research affects the assumptions we make

about human behavior. In addition, you might offer recom-

mendations for how other social scientists might continue to

explore an issue, or what actions policymakers should take.

In the following example, sociologist Devah Pager identi-

fies the implications of her study of the way having a criminal

record affects a person applying for jobs.

[I]n terms of policy implications, this research has troubling con-

clusions. In our frenzy of locking people up, our “crime control”

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F I F T E E N “ A N A LY Z E T H I S ”

policies may in fact exacerbate the very conditions that lead to

crime in the first place. Research consistently shows that finding

quality steady employment is one of the strongest predictors of

desistance from crime (Shover 1996; Sampson and Laub 1993;

Uggen 2000). The fact that a criminal record severely limits

employment opportunities—particularly among blacks—suggests

that these individuals are left with few viable alternatives.

Devah Pager, “The Mark of a Criminal Record,”

The American Journal of Sociology

Pager’s conclusion that a criminal record negatively affects

employment chances creates a vicious circle, she says: steady

employment discourages recidivism, but a criminal record

makes it harder to get a job.

In answering the “so what?” question, you need to explain

why your readers should care. Although sometimes the impli-

cations of your work may be so broad that they would be

of interest to almost anyone, it’s never a bad idea to iden-

tify explicitly any groups of people who will find your work

important.

Templates for establishing why your claims matter:

j X is important because

.

j Ultimately, what is at stake here is

.

j The finding that

should be of interest to

because

.

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the complexity of

people allows us to look at their behavior from many different

viewpoints. Much has been, and will be, said about how and

why people do the things they do. As a result, we can look

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Writing in the Social Sciences

at writing in the social sciences as an ongoing conversation.

When you join this conversation, the “they say / I say” frame-

work will help you figure out what has already been said (they

say) and what you can add (I say). The components of social

science writing presented in this chapter are tools to help you

join that conversation.

2 0 5

READINGS

SIXTEEN

how can we bridge

the differences that divide us?

H

“Can we talk?” The late, great comedian Joan Rivers often

began her TV shows by asking the audience that question, and

it became her trademark line. Audiences knew to expect funny,

snarky, sometimes outrageous jokes and stories from her, and

it helped her to establish a close, almost intimate connection

with viewers. But today in the United States, the question “Can

we talk?” has taken on a far less humorous meaning, because

increasingly the answer is “No.”

We have always been divided by such factors as geogra-

phy, political orientation, socioeconomic class, race, gender,

and age, but in recent years it seems like we have become a

nation of people estranged from one another. Social media

and niche viewing have exacerbated these divisions as more

and more we hear from and interact with only those who

share our views.

Across the dividing lines, Americans are increasingly bit-

ter, angry, and suspicious toward one another. In an article

entitled “‘Go to Hell!’ A Divided America Struggles to Heal

after Ugly Election,” Jason Szep, a reporter for Reuters, an inter-

national news agency, wrote that “the 2016 US election was

unprecedented in the way it turned Americans against each

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H O W C A N W E B R I D G E T H E D I F F E R E N C E S T H A T D I V I D E U S ?

other, according to dozens of interviews in rural United States

and across some of the most politically charged battleground

states.” According to Szep, some family members no longer

speak with one another, and longtime friendships have dis-

solved due to differing views. And in January 2017, the Pew

Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank, surveyed over 1,000

people throughout the United States and found that 86 percent

described the country as “more politically divided today than

in the past.”

Many people living in the United States believe that, as

a nation, we need to work to improve communication and

understanding across communities, but where exactly do we

start? Possible first steps involve venturing out of our comfort

zones to listen and pay attention to viewpoints that might chal-

lenge our own, and finding ways of responding respectfully.

The readings in this chapter offer a genuine and much-needed

attempt to break down those differences—probably not to the

point where we can all agree on the burning issues of the day,

but at least to where we can once again live and work together

comfortably and productively.

Several of the writers in this chapter identify divisions that

have arisen, and go further to pose possible ways to bridge the

differences that divide us. Sean Blanda, writer and technology

entrepreneur, suggests that we show compassion and respect for

“the other side,” his term for how we label people who don’t

think exactly the way we do. And danah boyd, a researcher who

examines the intersection of technology and society, reveals

how Americans have self-segregated in recent decades—online,

in college, in the military, and at work—arguing that “we

must find a healthy way to diversify our social connections.”

College student Gabriela Moro explores the role of minority

student clubs on college campuses. She finds that, while such

2 1 0

How Can We Bridge The Differences That Divide us?

organizations offer a positive environment for their members,

such clubs should be supplemented with initiatives that offer

students opportunities to meet and interact across groups.

Other writers in this chapter analyze the attitudes and back-

grounds of particular groups that many see as having been left

behind. Robert Leonard, a news reporter from Iowa, writes

about the economic hardships and political frustrations that

he believes have led many Americans living in rural parts of

the country to a conservative ideology and a deep distrust of

people they see as liberals. In telling his own story, author

J. D. Vance writes about growing up in Ohio and Kentucky

and the sense of hopelessness that he believes is pervading his

community. Legal scholar Michelle Alexander then takes us

to prisons across America to describe the discrimination faced

by incarcerated members of our society, who, as she argues, are

overwhelmingly African American. This prison system is at the

root of what she calls “the new Jim Crow.” Joseph E. Stiglitz,

a Nobel Prize–winning economist, uses tax and income data

to demonstrate that the US tax system continues to favor the

wealthiest 1 percent of our population, to the serious detriment

of the rest of us. Finally, former President Barack Obama, in

a commencement speech at Howard University, urges young

people to get involved in politics—to cast votes and not just

write hashtags—and, above all, to work with people from across

the political spectrum.

As you read this chapter, and its companion blog,

theysayiblog.com you will have the opportunity to listen to a multitude of perspectives, think about and perhaps reconsider

your own opinions, and make your own contribution to this

vital, ongoing conversation.

2 1 1

The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

s e a n b l a n d a

H

There’s a fun game I like to play in a group of trusted

friends called “Controversial Opinion.” The rules are simple:

Don’t talk about what was shared during Controversial Opinion

afterward and you aren’t allowed to “argue” — only to ask ques-

tions about why that person feels that way. Opinions can range

from “I think James Bond movies are overrated” to “I think

Donald Trump would make an excellent president.”

Usually, someone responds to an opinion with, “Oh my god!

I had no idea you were one of those people!” Which is really

another way of saying “I thought you were on my team!”

In psychology, the idea that everyone is like us is called the

“false-consensus bias.” This bias often manifests itself when we

see TV ratings (“Who the hell are all these people that watch

NCIS?”) or in politics (“Everyone I know is for stricter gun

Sean Blanda is the author of Hacking PR: A Guide for Boot-Strapped

Startups (2013) and the editor-in-chief of the websites GrowthLab and I

Will Teach You to Be Rich, both of which advise entrepreneurs on business

innovations. Blanda is also the cofounder of Technically, a startup based

in Philadelphia that “grows local technology communities by connecting

organizations and people through news, events, and services.” This essay

first appeared in Medium, a website for news and commentary.

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The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

control! Who are these backwards rubes that disagree?!”) or

polls (“Who are these people voting for Ben Carson?”).

Online it means we can be blindsided by the opinions of

our friends or, more broadly, America. Over time, this morphs

into a subconscious belief that we and our friends are the sane

ones and that there’s a crazy “Other Side” that must be laughed

at — an Other Side that just doesn’t “get it,” and is clearly not

as intelligent as “us.” But this holier-than-thou social media

behavior is counterproductive; it’s self-aggrandizement at the

cost of actual nuanced discourse, and if we want to consider

online discourse productive, we need to move past this.

What is emerging is the worst kind of echo chamber, one 5

where those inside are increasingly convinced that everyone

shares their world view, that their ranks are growing when they

aren’t. It’s like clockwork: an event happens and then your social

media circle is shocked when a non–social media peer group

public reacts to news in an unexpected way. They then mock

the Other Side for being “out of touch” or “dumb.”

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Fredrik deBoer, one of my favorite writers around, touched

on this in his essay “Getting Past the Coalition of the Cool.”

He writes:

[The Internet] encourages people to collapse any distinction

between their work life, their social life, and their political life.

“Hey, that person who tweets about the TV shows I like also dis-

likes injustice,” which over time becomes “I can identify an ally by

the TV shows they like.” The fact that you can mine a Rihanna

video for political content becomes, in that vague internety way,

the sense that people who don’t see political content in Rihanna’s

music aren’t on your side.

When someone communicates that they are not “on our side”

our first reaction is to run away or dismiss them as stupid. To

be sure, there are hateful, racist people not worthy of the small

amount of electricity it takes [for] just one of your synapses to

fire. I’m instead referencing those who actually believe in an

opposing viewpoint of a complicated issue, and do so for genuine,

considered reasons. Or at least, for reasons just as good as yours.

This is not a “political correctness” issue. It’s a fundamental

rejection of the possibility to consider that the people who don’t

feel the same way you do might be right. It’s a preference to see

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The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

the Other Side as a cardboard cutout, and not the complicated

individual human beings that they actually are.

What happens instead of genuine intellectual curiosity is

the sharing of Slate or Daily Kos or Fox News or Red State links.

Sites that exist almost solely to produce content to be shared

so friends can pat each other on the back and mock the Other

Side. Look at the Other Side! So dumb and unable to see this

the way I do!

Sharing links that mock a caricature of the Other Side isn’t

signaling that we’re somehow more informed. It signals that

we’d rather be smug assholes than consider alternative views. It

signals that we’d much rather show our friends that we’re like

them, than try to understand those who are not.

It’s impossible to consider yourself a curious person and 10

participate in social media in this way. We cannot consider

ourselves “empathetic” only to turn around and belittle those

who don’t agree with us.

On Twitter and Facebook this means we prioritize by shar-

ing stuff that will garner approval of our peers over stuff that’s

actually, you know, true. We share stuff that ignores wider

realities, selectively shares information, or is just an outright

falsehood. The misinformation is so rampant that the Washington

Post stopped publishing its Internet fact-checking column because people didn’t seem to care if stuff was true.

Where debunking an Internet fake once involved some research,

it’s now often as simple as clicking around for an “about” or “dis-

claimer” page. And where a willingness to believe hoaxes once

seemed to come from a place of honest ignorance or misunderstand-

ing, that’s frequently no longer the case. Headlines like “Casey

Anthony found dismembered in truck” go viral via old-fashioned schadenfreude — even hate.

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…

Institutional distrust is so high right now, and cognitive bias so

strong always, that the people who fall for hoax news stories are

frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms

with their views — even when it’s demonstrably fake.

The solution, as deBoer says: “You have to be willing to sac-

rifice your carefully curated social performance and be willing

to work with people who are not like you. ” In other words you

have to recognize that the Other Side is made of actual people.

But I’d like to go a step further. We should all enter every

issue with the very real possibility that we might be wrong

this time.

Isn’t it possible that you, reader of Medium and Twitter

power user, like me, suffer from this from time to time? Isn’t it

possible that we’re not right about everything? That those who

live in places not where you live, watch shows that you don’t

watch, and read books that you don’t read, have opinions and

belief systems just as valid as yours? That maybe you don’t see

the entire picture?

Think political correctness has gotten out of control? Fol-

low the many great social activists on Twitter. Think Amer-

ica’s stance on guns is puzzling? Read the stories of the 31%

of Americans that own a firearm. This is not to say See pp. 133–34

for ways to

the Other Side is “right” but that they likely have real

clarify and

elaborate on

reasons to feel that way. And only after understanding

your point.

those reasons can a real discussion take place.

As any debate club veteran knows, if you can’t make your 15

opponent’s point for them, you don’t truly grasp the issue. We

can bemoan political gridlock and a divisive media all we want.

But we won’t truly progress as individuals until we make an

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The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb

honest effort to understand those that are not like us. And