1.) One of the reasons that engaging others  views is important In academic writing is because it is a good way to balance your beliefs with another persons and to get a more holistic picture. Peter Elbow suggests that the “believing game” is a direction to maintain that. It’s important builds off of “trying to inhabit the world-view of those whose conversation you are joining-and whom you are even disagreeing with- and try to see there argument from their perspective. You don’t necessarily have to believe in it, but you will come out with more knowledge than before. Another reason why engaging others is important is because it’s important to see our mistakes. In “They say I say”,  they say that “as much as we understand such fears of conflict and have experienced them ourselves, we nevertheless believe it is better to state our disagreements, yet considerate  ways than to deny them” (They say I say). Owning up to our differences is more intuitive than not speaking of them at all. Birkenstein and Graff take note that it can result to conflict, but at least it’s not promoting ignorance.

2.) During my high school academic years, I was persistently told to always have an argument in my essays. There would be no base if I had no argument to test. The essay would be trivial without an argument. Birkenstein and Graff, say that “there are lots of conventional ways to introduce what others say” (They Say I Say), but those ways were often shunned upon in my personal English courses. The essays were meant to be concise and to the point. Not to over elaborate what the others had to say or to draw too deep along my own argument.

3.) Graff and Birkenstein discuss the tactic of the “quotation sandwich”. In high school that is how I learned how to do them. Freshman year, I had English right before lunch and I was always so hungry and my English teacher on most occasions, always brought up the quotation sandwich.  As the author explain it, “the statement introducing it serving as the top slice of bread and the explanation following it becomes he bottom slice” (They Say I Say) was the same learning practices that she taught myself and all her other classes.