Comparing Gerald Graff And Cathy Birkenstein's They Say, I Say

Writing is a skill that seems to be easy, but there are several mistakes a writer can make in a paper. In Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s, They Say, I Say, The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, helpful tools are given to enhance people’s writings. There are variety of options that every writer should explore and later apply to improve their writing. Let’s explore these stylistic tools and how to use them to write a good paper.

Some writers have trouble transitioning to a new idea or combining sentences when writing. Transitional words and phrases are tools that can resolve this problem. Transition is very important because they can smoothly join ideas into one sentence and even join two paragraphs in terms of changing topics. These

Transitions can be placed near the front or in the middle, with the purpose of connecting one idea to another or moving onto another topic. For example, “The dog has blue eyes and can bathe itself” uses the transition word “and” to add more details to the topic of the sentence. Using words such as “in addition, moreover, and, also, or furthermore” can help us clarify our thoughts and add more details. When I use, “for example,” it sets me up to present readers with a sample that can better enhance the reader's’ knowledge (Graff, 109). With transitions, it is good to use them to switch from one point to another, but sometimes we make the mistake of putting transitions wherever and whenever we want. I even make the same mistakes. When I want to start a new point, I would always write “in addition” in every sentence and put the word “and” almost everywhere. I realized that using “and” too much to combine two sentences or ideas lead to run-on sentences. I learned that I should use different transitions and not just two to make my papers less boring and confusing.

Furthermore, learning which transition to use is also essential to getting our message across to the readers. If we do not use the appropriate one, they may not understand the actual meaning. Overall, using the same transition too much or misunderstanding which word to use can have many negative effects in terms of reader understanding. We have to be mindful of which ones to use it and when to use it. In the end, transition words can make our papers more coherent and