The Art of Quoting
Chapter 3 in They Say/ I Say is all about quoting. Graff and Birkenstein, not only explain to readers the correct and incorrect way to quote a text, but also why it’s important to use quotes the right way. The authors insist that, in order to successfully compose an effective argument, the writer needs to incorporate what others have previously said into their own text. By doing so, it enhances your creditability, while at the same time makes sure your writing remains fair and accurate.
According to Graff and Birkenstein, some of the most common mistakes made when quoting an another author include not quote enough or at all, over quoting, and lastly thinking that there is no need to explain the meaning of chosen quote. They
When writing a paper that involves research you can under and over cite. It is an annoyance when you are reading a paper and someone improperly drops a quote on you, totally wrecking your train of thought. Kyle D. Stedman states that one of the fundamental ideas of rhetoric is that whomever is using it should shape what they do based on what they want it to inspire, where they're publishing it , and what they know about their audience. When integrating sources you should slowly ease your audience into it, maybe by use of an introduction. Doing this shows your audience there is a quote coming, where it is coming from, and how to interpret it. Something people should not do it to start or end a paragraph with a quote, doing
Normally in an essay or article you give people evidence as to why what you say could be true, one way people do this is to use quotes from people that are known by everyone as very knowledgable professionals on the topic the writer is
Chapter 5 of They Say I Say is a very interesting chapter because it talks about improving your writing. In the chapter, they talk about learning how to state your own opinion without sounding biased. I believe that one great example of this is when the author exclaims, “I have a problem with what liberals call cultural differences.” This type of writing is important because you can express your own views and opinions without sounding biased. This type of writing only works if you can integrate parts of their argument into your own. Another method discussed in this text was using references to things you said prior to that. One good example of this could be when it states that,“ We would argue that voice markers we identified earlier, are extremely
The first part of They Say I Say focuses on how to properly introduce what others are saying and stresses the importance of providing context for one’s own argument. The authors explain how the context and purpose for the writing needs to be established, preferably early on, in order to interest readers to about an argument (20). By giving the readers background information, the readers will have a much easier time relating to the author’s argument. After demonstrating the need to provide the “they say” portion of an essay, the authors move on to how exactly one can introduce others’ arguments. The three main ways of introducing others’ ideas discussed throughout the first part of the book are paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting. For each of the three, the authors discuss pitfalls that writers should avoid and strategies that writers can use to improve. An example of a pitfall when summarizing is how many writers can accidentally create a “list summary”, which does not differentiate the information in the original work that is
By critically thinking and researching during the course work of writing my papers, I found that putting direct quotations of my sources into my paper was the method I chose over others. For example, the quote used in my Peer Review Essay #1 “Shazam works because every song generates something like a “fingerprint”… Shazam stores that fingerprint for tens of millions of songs, and then matches (or tries to) with what’s coming out of the speaker” (Garling). I found that by using direct quotes like this one into my papers instead of paraphrasing them, made my essay stronger. I personally feel that by using a direct quote of a person who is more creditable than me creates a sense of assurance for the reader, knowing that it is a creditable source. I was able to use the quote directly and weave the information into my essay by supporting the direct quote given with my own thoughts. This allowed me to better voice my opinion on the topic I was writing about.
The art of quoting and summarizing an argument is one of the main skills to acquire when it comes to writing a successful piece of work. In the book, They Say I Say the art of inserting quotations is mentioned to be one of the highest mistakes made by writers. Many insert a quote that has no frame of introduction or background information which is considered a “hit and run quote.” Readers need to be able to comprehend not only the writings, but the background information and quotes from another author writing in order to have the whole work cohesive. Dire necessity for the writer is to go back to the initial text and truly understand the background from which they are quoting to make sure their audience understands the quote and why
When writing any kind of paper or essay, it is essential that you give Plagiarism is a serious credit to the sources that you use; you do this by appropriately citing these sources in parenthetical citations within your paper and in a academic violation. reference list at the end of the paper. Failing to appropriately cite To avoid plagiarism, sources—either intentionally or unintentionally—is a serious academic violation called plagiarism. You should never represent someone else’s use this rule of thumb: work or ideas as your own. Any time you have taken a statement, a When in doubt, cite it. fact, or even an idea from another author, you must cite it. A good rule to go by is that if you are in doubt about
Using couple quotes from our reading added about one paragraph to our essay, but all the quotes were stuck in one paragraph instead of having them all scattered throughout our writing. That was not the only problem with the quotes, we didn’t explain the quotes after we wrote them. One good quote we used talks
One topic that went quite unexplored during the Socratic Seminars was how we all individually incorporated quotes seamlessly into our essays. As a result, I would like point out that there are multiple ways to seamlessly fit quotes into sentences, such as informing the reader about how the character feels about the event, what exactly the character is talking about, and beginning the sentence containing the quote with paraphrasing. For example, I included as an example in my essay, "Secondly, Ashleigh questions her father's plan on page 4 of Ashes, ' "That's a lot of money. What if Mom finds out?" ' " I inform the reader as to how Ashleigh is feeling about her father's plan. It's simple for the reader to see that Ashleigh is skeptical about
I’ve made it through Part 1 of They Say I Say, and I have to say that it’s one of the most readable writing texts that I’ve ever read. It’s not as good as Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird, but that’s my all-time favorite. The authors lay the foundation of the book’s premise that good argumentative writing begins with a reaction to (or acknowledgement of) existing arguments. The start of the section featured an anecdote about a presenter’s lauding of Dr. X’s research. The authors (who were in the audience) appreciated the information, but there was the nagging “So what?” question. The authors go on to suggest that much of the academic writing assigned to students reflects scenario.
In chapter 4 of They Say I Say, Graff, Birkenstein, Durst focus on the strategies in offering the writers’ response to the other’s idea. Generally, the three most common attitudes of response are agreement, disagreement and combination of the former two attitudes. Since a disagreement to someone’s idea means a new argument in the essay, authors claim that the writer who shows a disagreement to someone’s idea should continue providing a reason or explanation. Equally, writer who shows a combination attitude to someone’s idea should continue stating the part that he/she disagree and the reasons of this attitude. Besides the strategies, authors also provide the templates in clearly responding the “they say”.
They Say I Say is extremely useful in learning how to write argumentative papers because the authors discuss the “I say” of an argumentative paper by providing many real life examples and templates for new writers to experiment with. For example, on page 60, templates are provided for disagreeing with an argument and using reasoning. One of the templates reads, “X claims that ___ rests upon the questionable assumption that ___”(Graff). On page 62, templates for agreeing are presented, one of which is, “X is surely right about ___ because, as she may not be aware, recent studies have shown”(Graff). It is also expressed in this chapter that students feel uncomfortable agreeing with arguments made or disagreeing. On page 63 the authors also recognize
By putting the information from your research into your own words, you can show that you have a deeper knowledge of the material. Furthermore, papers overloaded with quotations may distract your instructor from your own ideas and writing. Use a quotation from a source only when there is absolutely no better way to present the information. A well-written paper balances quotations and paraphrases with your own interpretation of the research.
Although this appeared to be a good rule of thumb, in college new discoveries have been made. The English 101 course at Rutgers, has taught me that explaining a quote does not serve a purpose, but rather analyzing why the author used the quote in their work serves a better purpose. Semiotic analysis is another concept that the course has made evident to students such as myself. This type of analysis is a topic that was never fully discussed in high school, which altered the manner in which I read a text. Analyzing, the use of quotes, the time period that the text was written, the structure of the text, and the connections the text can have in regards to other personal topics, such as shopping, are all taken into
In this research, the researcher discusses the figurative language based on Perrine’s perception. According to Perrine (1977:61-109), figurative language consists of 12 kinds, they are: simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, symbol, allegory, paradox, hyperbole/overstatement, understatement, and irony.