"They say, I say" reading response

“They Say, I Say” is a pretty short reading assignment that suggests ways to and ways not to quote sources in a research paper. The idea is to help people with research papers, or really any kind of paper for that matter. The subject of the reading assignment is very technical and relatively boring however helpful it may be. The author, I'm assuming, invents a very structured way to go about quoting sources called a “quotation sandwich”, a three part setup where one uses an introduction to the quote, the quote itself and an explanation of the quote that was just used. The author uses an anonymous persons writing first showing the wrong way and then showing a much better revised way using the “quotation sandwich” method. This method reminds me of the very basic structure of any paper that anyone may write which consists of an introduction of a main idea, the idea itself and a conclusion of the idea that was talked about. It's like a mini paper within a paper. Anyway, the author even goes about giving templates to use when one is using the “quotation sandwich”. To some people that may seem unnecessary but I found it to be advantageous.

I am an extremely visual person, I need to see examples of how things should be done and in some cases how things should not be done. This paper was invaluable to me because it seems the author gets the notion that some people are indeed very visual and need see what is being explained and does an appropriate job of putting this idea into practice. The very first thing the author does is show an example of how not to quote a source, which I found to be awfully helpful. The author goes on to give examples of how to begin and end a “quotation sandwich”. These examples are something the class and I guess, anyone who is writing any kind of paper would, I'm sure, find helpful because it's a structured, logical way to quote something or someone. In all I think this will help me very much with the next two papers I'm going to be writing because if Mrs. Vance gave us this reading assignment than these ideas are obviously what she's looking for in a paper.