In the chapter “Entering the Conversation” I learned quite a bit about writing templates and how I could make my own writing pieces stronger by incorporating some of these ideas. For example, according to paragraph one on page three, “the single most important template that we focus on in this book is the “they say ____; I say ____” formula.” This template is important because in writing pieces like argumentative writing you need to incorporate others ideas and opinions in order to make your argument stronger. Surprisingly, this was actually something that I was taught in high school and I agree with this method because just like paragraph four on page four says “without a “they say,” what you are saying may be clear to your audience, but why you are saying it won’t be.” I think this statement couldn’t be better said because often you will find that people will very much like to only include their own opinion because they are arguing for that side, but in order to make this writing compelling you to need to incorporate the opinions you are going against and bounce off of them to really argue for your side.
Another technique that I believe to be very helpful would be the “template of templates.” For me personally, the part I often struggle with the most when writing a paper is just figuring out where to start and I think that using this template or something similar could really strengthen my writing. Another thing I learned from this template and found interesting was the question of whether or not using this template would be plagiarism and the answer was no. I never really thought about or was aware that using conventional formulas wasn’t plagiarism and that it is only plagarism “If the words to fill in the blanks are borrowed from others without proper acknowledgment.” I think that this was such an important thing to include because although now it may seem obvious, others may not have been aware of this.
