They Say, I Say

Brandon Eller

ENGL 9:40

The first part of the reading was there to get us to think about how to make readers interested. One cannot just have a paper, or a speech talking about something. There has to be a purpose, a reason why someone would want to write/ speak, and why others would want to read/listen. This is best summed up with the opening antidote about the speaker talking about “Dr. X” and how he just spoke. There was nothing to keep people interested, no explaining why, just talking about “Dr. X” and his work. It is then described that if it was mentioned about how some dispute “Dr. X” and his findings, and talked a little about that, things would have been better for all. The speech would have been stronger, and attention would have been given. The second part of the reading has to do with the “They say, I say” part of an argument. This is indeed important because it gives the audience the views of the speaker, and of those who oppose them, or only partially agree with them.

This reading pertains to the class since we are going to be writing a persuasive paper, and we need to be able to give a reason for writing our papers, and state our views. As in the reading we will need to state what we feel, but we will need to give a specific side, not being able to use the neutral stand point where both sides are right. With this reading we will be able to fairly state what others believe, while putting our own rebuttal to argue their findings, or beliefs and show what we think. Our readers will (hopefully) be sucked in and want to read more, knowing why we write, and be able to see our point of view, even if they don’t agree with it. Just getting our views out there will be enough, and hopefully persuade them to think both sides through at the least.