They Say, I Say

Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein have published a book, They Say I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. It has received positive reviews and a not-so-positive review.

My review is positive.  Novice writers must start somewhere, and They Say, I Say lays a good foundation.  Scholars expect certain “moves” that signal the accepted parts of an argument.  To execute those “moves,” academic writers can start by structuring arguments around certain phrases and clauses. Below are some clauses that I use. 

Move 1:   Announce consensus—a kind of “they say.”

It is widely believed that

Today, most people believe that…

Normally, one would expect that…

Experts in [a discipline, such as social work or French literature] have shown that…

Snow & Crow (2011) have demonstrated that    [Cite the appropriate research]

Theory X predicts that…

Move 2, usually right after Move 1:   Announce the contrast that points toward your paper’s thesis or "point."

However, there is some evidence that

But two very recent studies suggest that

Yet no research has yet tested whether

On the other hand, many practitioners find that

However, in the case of X,

Yet this current research fails to examine/answer

However, no studies have investigated the case of

On the one hand, every X wants to…   On the other hand, no X wants to…

Currently, theorists [or researchers] are divided; some believe X, while others hold that [not X]. 

Move 3  Announce your point.

Thus the purpose of this [paper, research, study…] is to

Therefore the present study will test whether

Move 4   Review the literature to provide a fuller context for your own research question.

            Here the trick is not so much clauses as verbs.  I can send you a list of verbs that bring lit reviews to life—verbs such as posit, maintain, suggest, contend, theorize, refute, etc.

Move 5, usually later in the paper:  Acknowledge arguments that rival your own.

This result seems to contrast with the findings of Snow & Crow (2011), perhaps because

Swallow & Spring (2011) disagree, asserting that …  This apparent contradiction could arise because

Our novel result could be explained if

Move 6   Later in the paper: Acknowledge limitations; thus you preempt attacks.

The present study is limited by

This research has several methodological limitations:

We acknowledge certain limitations of this research design:

Move 7   Conclude with a “Big Picture” ending.

This study has several implications.

If this study can be replicated, it would imply that

A next research question might be, “…..?”
How can we generalize this result?
Based on these results what larger problem can we solve?

This study may point to the notion that

Future researchers might well ask

Ultimately these results, if substantiated, may mean that X should