Building Stories Review

The Academic Moves that Matter? Not Templates.

Writing is a process that balances ideas and structure. In their book They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein try to make this balance in writing easier through the use of templates. They argue that “Templates can bring out aspects of students’ thoughts that, as they themselves sometimes remark, they didn’t even realize were there” (Graff and Birkenstein xxi). The authors tell us that templates facilitate students’ writing through their structure. This is not a universal sentiment, including for author Anne Lamott. In her book, she argues that writing is “where you let it all pour out and let it romp all over the place” (Lamott 22). In other words, she argues for a free-write method that begins by writing down everything without order or structure. She would argue that you cannot say what you mean if you have to fit in the constraints of a template. On the other hand, structural ideas presented in the book can be great for organizing your thoughts in a final essay. For that reason, I will argue that the “big picture” templates from They Say / I Say create structure and readability, while specific templates for invention only add clutter. 

Broad ‘templates’, especially when used as ideas, can really benefit the architecture and organization of your writing. The “They Say / I Say” structure’s most foundational element is setting up a conversation between two or more scholars, the “they say”. Graff and Birkenstein argue that “you need to present arguments as a part of some larger conversation.” (Graff and Birkenstein 21). They say that placing an argument as a part of a larger context allows the reader to better understand it. The most clear and succinct parts of my essays for WRI101 have been keeping this idea in mind. In Essay 1, I tried to respond to arguments made by other scholars, saying “He [Kirschenbaum] discusses the idea that “you may not always be able to presume human authorship behind whatever it is that you are reading” (Kirschenbaum 2). The ideas presented here are fundamental because they destroy what is, in my opinion, the underlying foundation of our society as a whole”. The example clearly sets up a conversation between myself and Kirchenbaum, even though it’s full of clutter. Using this, the reader is able to better understand my argument. The organizational ideas presented in They Say / I Say allow writers to better organize their work and create a stronger argument, even if the writing itself is not the strongest. 

While templates for the logic and structure of an essay are effective, micromanaging specific lines is not. The biggest problems arise when writers limit themselves, word-for-word, to templates. When discussing quotation sandwiches, Graff and Birkenstein introduce templates such as “She argues ______, and I agree because _________” (Graff and Birkenstein 46). Templates like this one limit ideas as writers are molding ideas to fit into the templates rather than creating ideas. Anne Lamott would disagree with the use of the templates, especially in early drafts. Templates limit your ability to “get it all down on paper” (Lamott 26), one of her key ideas. Templates limit the ability of a writer to fully express all of their ideas. Writers can feel limited by the narrow set of responses to a template. For this reason, logic is hampered by templates.

Templates not only limit the ideas of the author, but also the way arguments are framed. Clutter and clarity are the biggest issue that I struggle with, and the templates did not help me combat that at all. TS/IS argues that templates are a “language for expressing them [ideas] in clear, organized ways.” (Graff and Birkenstein 2). In one early draft of my Essay 3, I used a template from chapter 7 to say “If policymakers, historians, and authors stopped to think about it, many of them might simply assume that we have conservatives and the War on Drugs to blame for our ginormous prison population”. This sentence, trying to say ‘why my argument matters’ is filled with clutter as it is long and wordy. I narrowed it down by completely eliminating the template, saying “Alexander argues that the War on Drugs was the primary driver for imprisoning millions of people”. This quote is much more precise and moves the paragraph along, while still following the structure and logic that They Say / I Say argues for. Templates usually create “fluff” which ends up taking away from what the writer actually has to say. 

Some people might argue for a hybrid model, using the strategies of Lamott to write your first draft and narrowing that with templates. A style like this may work for some people, but I have not found success. I would point to my essay 2 because this is exactly the strategy I attempted to use. At one point, I attempt to address a counterargument, saying “Even though the novel is thought to be speculative, it can be difficult for the reader to truly comprehend the difference between Hamid’s argument and reality without the context that is lacking in the book”. Even though this sentence is wordy, it addresses a potential counter argument that made my argument much stronger. After revision, I removed this idea because it did not align with the templates. Even when templates are being implemented in later drafts, they still take away from the ideas of the author. 

Graff and Birkenstein argue that the templates are a great organizational tool that allow writers to express their ideas more effectively. I agree that the “They Say / I Say” model allows writers to organize their overall essays. In my essay 1, I show that setting up a conversation between the experts and myself benefits an argument by providing context for the reader. On the other hand, individual templates do not facilitate good ideas and good writing. In my experience, they create clutter and take away from being able to express your ideas, such as my essay 3, where sentences were long and wordy before I brought focus to them by removing the templates. 

Works Cited

Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (Fourth Edition). W.W. Norton, 2017.

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 2008.

Honor Code TH

Annotated Essays – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2_02V_o7-bmpp6EaUYwVV1NS33w3t3HyPUHQbcRYZg/edit?usp=sharing