3. State Your Ideas as a
Response to Others
Academic writing is argumentative writing.
To argue effectively, you need to use the ideas of
others as the basis of your own ideas.
In order to make an impact as a writer, we need to
identify how our ideas are responding to what
“they say.”
Using the “they say, I say” format can help you “to
disagree with others, to challenge standard ways
of thinking, and thus to stir up controversy” (7).
4. Ways of Responding
There can be a variety of ways to respond to
what others say. For example, you may:
Disagree with what they say
Agree with what they say
Both agree and disagree with what they say
5. Putting in Your Oar
The purpose of looking at writing from this view is
to become a critical thinker who:
Is not passively recounting ideas
Can participate in conversations and debates
Can build informed ideas
Can become an engaged member of society.
7. Starting with What Others
Are Saying
It is often important to “start with what others are
saying” in order to explain what you are
responding to (18).
Doing this provides a context or frame into which
your ideas or arguments can provide a new
voice.
It‟s a good idea to present “your own position and
the one it‟s responding to together, and to think
of the two as a unit” (19). This presentation
should happen at the beginning of your
text, preferably in the introduction.
8. Keep What “They Say” in
View
In addition to presenting what “they say” at the
beginning of your text, “it is very important to
continue to keep those ideas in view” (25).
One way of doing so is to create a return
sentence that “keep[s] returning to the motivating
„they say‟” (26).
Return sentences “help to ensure that your
argument is a genuine response to other‟s views
rather than just a set of observations about a
given subject” (26).
