Journal 17
In these pages in “They Say / I Say”, Planting a Naysayer in Your Text, it explains the idea of incorporating counterarguments into your writing and essentially having a debate with your reader to enhance your own writing. In this you state what people and yourself have said while incorporating what others may say. Not doing this can make the writer look close minded and leave hanging questions out there that the reader may have. The text describes not to personalize the counterarguments to make them all as important but to rather report them as “skeptics”, “readers”, or even the general “many”. By planting a naysayer you have the opportunity to generalize your topic and even your argument to something that concerns a bigger picture and can be used and discussed in different aspects. A naysayer allows there to be dialogue in the work that the reader can latch on to and understand better enhancing your own work as well. A naysayer is great but the overpowering naysayer that the reader may agree more than your own point is counterintuitive. I found this to be very eye opening in the aspects of creating a more dominant work that is able to be perceived well through many angles not just my own and create the dialogue that the reader can follow and be apart of. This section has the ability to turn a paper in a great piece of work.
