Reading They Say/ I Say, by Gerald Gaff and Cathy Birkenstein, I found the first chapter to be especially interesting: using what "They Say" as a means to explain, support, and prove one's own thesis.
Reading the chapter, I also came across something of particular interest: speaking publicly without explaining why the individual took a particular viewpoint on a topic. For example, the authors state that while they were at a conference, the man who was giving the presentation had a tendency to ramble on about a particular viewpoint, without explaining why he was supporting it. To make a long story short, because the speaker didn't include what others said (They Say) about the particular topic, members of the audience were lost as to why he continued on with his (logically supported) opinions.
To summarize the lesson of this post, page 20 of They Say, I Say states: "...give writing the most important thing of all-namely, a point- a writer needs to indicate clearly not only what his or her thesis is, but also what larger conversation that thesis is responding to."
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