"They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing » (2nd Edition)

Gerald Graff, a Professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and 2008 President of the Modern Language Association of America, has had a major impact on teachers through such books as Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education, and, most recently, Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind.

Cathy Birkenstein is a lecturer in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-director of the Writing in the Disciplines program. She has published essays on writing, most recently in College English, and, with Gerald Graff, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Academe, and College Composition and Communication. She has also given talks and workshops with Gerald at numerous colleges and is currently working on a study of common misunderstandings surrounding academic discourse.

The book that demystifies academic writing, teaching students to frame their arguments in the larger context of what else has been said about their topic-and providing templates to help them make the key rhetorical moves.