They Say I Say Academic Writing

How to Actually Use They Say I Say in Your Papers Without Looking Like a Toddler

If you've been assigned They Say I Say Academic Writing in a college composition class, you probably already know the basic template boxes. "They say..." "I say..." The thing most people don't tell you is that these templates are genuinely useful if you use them as a diagnostic tool rather than a fill-in-the-blank exercise. I've seen students paste "They argue that X" into every sentence and wonder why their papers read like a middle school book report. Don't do that. At its foundation, the framework is just teaching you that academic writing is a conversation, not a monologue. Every claim you make exists in response to some prior claim, whether you cite it or not. The "they say" component forces you to identify that prior claim explicitly. The "I say" component is your actual contribution. The template structure works because it makes the conversational nature of argument visible on the page. Here's the part instructors skip: the frames aren't meant to be literal. "They say climate change is accelerating" isn't a real sentence you should write in your paper. It's a thinking tool. You use it to answer the question "what am I responding to?" before you actually write the response. The actual prose should sound like something a human being would say out loud in a department meeting.

Practical Application: A Real Workflow

When I review drafts, the first thing I check is whether the student has identified the actual opposing or supporting position they're engaging with. Too many papers make claims that float in a vacuum. "Research shows that sleep matters." What research? What specific claim are you adding to or pushing back against? The templates force this specificity. My process for using the framework looks like this. I write out the strongest possible version of the counterargument first, using one of their opening frames verbatim. Then I write my response. Then I rewrite both sections without the templates, keeping only the logical structure. The templates are scaffolding, not the building.

A Specific Problem That Almost Broke Me

Early in my grad program, I was working on a literature review where multiple sources used nearly identical terminology but meant fundamentally different things by the same concept. I kept writing "Author A argues X" when actually Author A was using "X" to mean something slightly different from what Author B meant by the same word. The They Say I Say frames exposed this because I couldn't fit them into the templates smoothly. The awkwardness was telling me something was wrong with my understanding, not wrong with the framework. The workaround was going back to the primary sources and mapping out the exact definitional differences before attempting to synthesize them. The templates had been a signal, not the solution itself. I spent an extra day on definitions that should have taken an hour, but the resulting section held up under peer review while three other students' sections fell apart when reviewers asked them to clarify their terms.

What Beginners Miss Every Time

The biggest mistake is treating "they say" as equivalent to "someone disagrees with me." It isn't. "They say" covers any claim you're entering into dialogue with, including claims you agree with, partial claims, implicit assumptions, and entire schools of thought. When you restrict "they say" to only oppositional positions, your writing becomes adversarial and one-dimensional. The framework actually works better when you use it to acknowledge nuance in positions you mostly support. A second miss is the assumption that you only need one "they say" statement per paragraph. Good academic writing usually engages multiple voices within a single paragraph, layered in a specific order. You introduce the dominant position, acknowledge a credible objection, respond to that objection, and then advance your claim with the strengthened position. This is sometimes called a concession-refutation structure, and the templates map directly onto each step.

Where the Framework Actually Fails

The They Say I Say approach breaks down in fields where the conversation itself is still forming or where there genuinely is no established debate to enter. In exploratory research or early-stage disciplinary work, you might be the first person making a particular claim, and forcing it into a "they say/I say" frame can create a false sense of existing controversy where none exists. It can also produce formulaic prose if students use the templates without transitioning to their own voice, which is why your writing sounds stiff even when your argument is sound. Another limitation: the framework assumes a fairly traditional argumentative structure. If you're writing a methods section, a descriptive analysis, or a reflective piece, the templates don't map cleanly. Don't try to force them. Use them where argumentative engagement is the point, and reach for something else when it isn't. If you want the original text, the latest edition of They Say I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenberger is available through most academic publishers and booksellers. The second edition includes a expanded section on responding to multiple sources in a single paragraph, which addresses one of the framework's earlier weaknesses. There's also an accompanying website with additional templates and sample papers that some instructors find useful for assignment design.

The real value isn't in memorizing the sentence frames. It's in internalizing the habit of asking what conversation you're entering before you open your mouth. Once that habit sticks, you won't need the templates anymore, which is exactly what the framework was designed to help you do.