In the Introduction to “They Say/I Say”; The movies That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed to help students with identifying their arguments. Specifically, Graff and Birkenstein argue that the types of writing templates they offer help students explain better about their topic/argument. As the author themselves put it,”Furthermore, these templates do not dictate the content of what you say, which can be as original as you can make it, but only suggest a way of formatting how you say it. In addition once you begin to feel comfortable with the templates in this book, you will be able to improvise creatively on them to fit new situations and purposes and find others in your reading.” Although some people believe that templates can restrict on the range of topics you can say, Graff and Birkenstein insist that “templates offered here are learning tools to get you started, not structures set in stone”. In sum, then, their view is that templates are helpful.
I agree. In my view, the types of templates that the author recommend was helpful in terms of leading the author to not generalize their argument and be specific. For instance, in the book, it said ” In our view, the above template and the others in this book will actually help your writing become more original and creative, not less.” In addition, “Furthermore, these templates do not dictate the content of what you say, which can be as original as you can make it, but only suggest a way of formatting how you say it.” Some might object, of course, on the grounds that templates can possibly be a form of plagiarism. Yet I would argue that templates are in a format that are used by many people and was not created by anyone. Overall, then, I believe that templates are a useful way to start in terms of academic writing –an important point to make given that people often struggle in academic writing.
