They Say / I Say: Part 1

Exercises:

1. Many people wonder why there are so animal rescues out there, like horse rescues. Most people hate animal abuse; they think that the people who abuse animals are sick and disgusting, and most are, however some are just ignorant and choose to be. For instance people take Thoroughbreds, and try to race them, especially descendants of Secretariat, the famous Triple Crown winner. They think that since they are his descendants, they will run just as good as him, but they aren't him and they don't do as well. They take the leftover horse and put them in a pasture, their thought process is: if the horse doesn't win the race, we won't give them the food they need, they can just survive off of grass like mustangs-but they can't. For hundreds of years, Thoroughbreds have been bred to race and are some of the most domesticated horses out there, they are born and raised in confined spaces with a many people, animals, and objects going by them. They survive off of machine-made, high calorie food that are full of vitamins, steroids, and medicines that their bodies need. When the horses are put into pasture, their bodies literally can't handle only the grass, there are no vitamins and nutrients, they aren't built like mustangs. They start losing weight and lose hundreds of pounds as well as starve. Their teeth start to rot and degrade so even if they wanted to eat, they can't. Rain starts to rot their skin and fur and it comes off in chunks, the water is disgusting and nobody does anything about it, because the horse didn't make them any money. That is where horse rescues come in, they take out those abandoned, starved, half-alive animals and give them new names and new lives, they help them gain weight, and adopt them out to nice homes. They are very important and without them, there would be a lot more animal casualties in the world.

2.        In the Introduction to "They Say/I Say":The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein provide templates designed to allow a writer to better organize their words and thought process into an organized body that anyone can just pick up and read. They argue specifically that their templates allow anyone of any level to raise the standard of their personal writing so that it is greatly appreciated by those around them. As the authors themselves put it "their opinion/ my opinion." Although with a certain outline comes the argument that it is destroying a persons originality and that is of the essays or paragraphs will have the same monotone sound to them. Graff and Birkenstein insist that they are not all the same and even with a uniform design, everyone's creativity comes in and makes them all different.
         I personally agree. In my view, the templates that the two authors recommend help build a very solid foundation for us. For instance, without having any sense of how to write the essay, or paragraph everything would be so different, it would give the reader a headache. As well as causing the writer to have many problems. Some might object, with the single reason that the template tells what you what to say rather than how you say it. My argument is that it is the writer's choice whether or not to use those exact words that were given to him or rephrase it to add to his originality-an important belief to make given that even though everyone has creativity, it is not necessarily their greatest attribute.