# The scholarly conversation: what it means and how to join it

**What does "the scholarly conversation" mean, and how does citing let me join it?** The scholarly conversation is the long exchange in which researchers publish, answer and build on each other's work. Kenneth Burke pictured it as a heated discussion you join late, and the ACRL calls it Scholarship as Conversation. You join it by reading who has spoken, then citing them as you agree, extend or dispute, so readers hear your voice among theirs.

Published 2026-10-02 by EdCitation. https://edcitation.com/newsletter/joining-the-scholarly-conversation

The scholarly conversation is the exchange that runs through published research: one study makes a claim, the next tests or extends it, a review weighs them both, and someone points out what all of them missed. You join it by reading who has spoken, then citing them as you add a point of your own. EdCitation publishes this guide, and its examples are ours, marked as ours.

Every source below was read on 2 October 2026. Hearing the conversation is a search problem first: EdCitation's free [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) shows who is talking about a question across about 300 million published works, and [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) builds each entry from the publisher's record. What you say back is yours: EdCitation never writes any part of anyone's work, so your voice stays your own.

## What does "the scholarly conversation" mean?

In plain terms, its meaning is the published, ongoing debate on a question, carried on in articles, books and reviews that answer one another over years. Nobody hears all of it, and nobody gets the last word.

The image comes from Kenneth Burke. In *The Philosophy of Literary Form*, Burke asks the reader to imagine arriving late at a parlor where a heated discussion began before anyone present got there. You listen until you have the drift, "then you put in your oar", and you leave with the argument still going, because "the discussion is interminable" (Burke, 1941, pp. 110–111). Writing teachers call it the Burkean parlor.

### What the passage was first about

Burke was not writing about essays. In the 1941 text the parlor answers a question about where drama gets its materials, and Burke credits the "unending conversation" to the vision behind George Herbert Mead's work. Graff et al. (2021) later closed their introduction with it, reading "putting in your oar" as stating an argument in conversation with others.

### Where the parlor image falls short

The parlor sounds open to all. The ACRL frame says otherwise: established power and authority structures can limit who takes part and privilege certain voices (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2026). Ghai et al. (2023) reviewed 34 articles on social media and adolescent depression and found that more than 70% studied Global North samples, although most adolescents live in the Global South. Joining a conversation includes noticing who has not been heard.

## What is "Scholarship as Conversation" in the ACRL Framework?

"Scholarship as Conversation" is one of six frames in the ACRL's Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: communities of scholars carry on a sustained discourse, and new insight arrives over time from varied perspectives, often without one uncontested answer. The Framework was adopted in January 2016, and its page records revisions approved on 2 September 2026 (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2016, 2026).

The frame calls attribution "an obligation of participation" that moves the conversation forward and strengthens the writer's voice. Citing, in this view, is how you take part, not a fee paid to avoid plagiarism. Our [guide for librarians](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/for-librarians-teaching-source-checking-and-citation) covers the revision's other frames; this one changed as follows.

| What the frame covers | 2016 text | 2026 text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Crediting others | "cite the contributing work of others" | Acknowledge others' work, the use of AI tools, and new and emerging technologies |
| The duty to attribute | Attribution to relevant previous research | Evaluating credibility too, and attribution to previous research "or other sources" |
| Machines in the conversation | Not mentioned | Human researchers and knowledge synthesis tools offer "different levels of discursive value" |
| Whose sources to value | Not mentioned | Original thought and critical research are human; value human-created sources over artificially generated ones |
| Who is learning | "Experts" and "novice learners" | "Learners" and "emerging learners" |

### What the revision means for your paper

The word "cite" has left the frame's practices; attribution has not. And a chatbot's summary of a field is not a voice in the conversation the way a researcher's paper is. Cite the papers themselves, and [declare any AI use](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-declare-ai-use-in-an-assignment) as your course asks.

## What does "they say / I say" mean?

"They say / I say" is the template at the centre of Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein's textbook: present your idea as a response to someone else's, in the form "they say ___; I say ___". The authors argue that academic writing is argumentative, and that arguing well means entering a conversation rather than asserting a view in a vacuum (Graff et al., 2021).

Their "template of templates" runs the whole route in one paragraph: name the debate, map the sides, quote a main voice and explain it, state your view, concede what you must, give an example, answer an objection, and say why it matters. Borrowing such formulas is not plagiarism, they tell students, since phrases like "on the one hand" are common property; taking the substance that fills the blanks without citing its authors is.

We read only the introduction, which Norton publishes as a sample of the fifth edition. Norton's page for the seventh edition, due for autumn 2027, lists a new chapter, "Who's Talking Here?: Reading for the Conversation" (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026).

## Why do we cite sources in academic writing?

We cite sources so the reader can hear the other voices in the room: who said what, when, and where to check it. In the conversation view, a citation is your "they say" made checkable.

Gaipa (2004) puts the student's side of it: authority is "less a characteristic than a relationship" between a writer and other authors, so a student gains it by showing how an argument relates to and extends published work. In our view, a paper with no citations is not more original, only harder to answer. The other half of the reason, that a reference promises the source exists and says what you say it says, is in [A reference is a promise](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/a-reference-is-a-promise).

## How do you put your voice among other voices?

Two tools of the sentence do it: signal phrases say who is speaking, and synthesis sets several sources against one point of yours.

### Signal phrases: who is speaking now

Harvard's guide to using sources, read in an archived copy, defines a signal phrase as a clause marking the shift from your point of view to your source's (Harvard College Writing Program, n.d.). The verb carries a stance: "argues" says the source makes a claim, "notes" reports more neutrally. Fields differ: humanities writers usually name the author in the sentence, social scientists more sparingly, the choice APA frames as [narrative or parenthetical citation](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/apa-7-in-text-citations).

### Synthesis: several voices on one point

Synthesis groups sources by the point they bear on, so your claim leads; [How to integrate sources](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-integrate-sources-synthesis-not-summary) gives the method. A paragraph of ours, from two real papers:

> Reviews of social media and adolescent mental health do not agree on what their own evidence shows. An umbrella review of 25 reviews found that most called the associations "weak" or "inconsistent", while a few called the same associations "substantial" and "deleterious" (Valkenburg et al., 2022). The disagreement may matter less than whose adolescents were studied: of 34 articles published from 2018 to 2020, more than 70% sampled the Global North, and the link with depression was significant there but null in the Global South (Ghai et al., 2023). Before the field can settle how large the effect is, in our view, it has to ask for whom.

Our claim leads, a disagreement is mapped, a newer voice reframes it, and the last sentence is the "I say". The University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center (n.d.) gives this mapping job to the literature review, which in a dissertation is a [chapter of its own](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/dissertation-literature-review-chapter).

## Which moves can you make in a scholarly conversation?

You can map the debate, point to a gap, extend, dispute, reconcile or bring in something new. Gaipa (2004) names eight strategies, four of which Princeton's Writing Seminars name (Princeton Writing Program, n.d.); USC Libraries (2026) sets out John Swales's Create a Research Space model. The examples are ours.

| Move | What it does | Example (ours) | Source of the move |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Map the debate | Names the issue and the sides before you speak | "Reviews disagree on whether social media harms adolescents' mental health." | Graff et al. (2021) |
| Establish a territory | Shows the topic matters and what is known | "Reviews of this question have multiplied since 2019." | USC Libraries (2026) |
| Establish a niche | Points to a gap, a counter-claim or a question | Valkenburg et al. (2022) did it in one line: an integration of the evidence was "still lacking" | USC Libraries (2026) |
| Occupy the niche | Says what your work does about the gap | "This essay asks whether the reviews' samples explain their disagreement." | USC Libraries (2026) |
| Piggyback | Extends work a source left unfinished | "Ghai et al. counted samples in primary studies; the same count can be made of the reviews." | Gaipa (2004) |
| Pick a fight | Disputes a named source directly | "Calling the association deleterious outruns what most reviews found." | Gaipa (2004) |
| Play peacemaker | Resolves a dispute between sources | "Both readings may hold if the effect differs by population." | Gaipa (2004) |
| Crossbreed | Brings new evidence or theory into the debate | "Data from the Global South test a link drawn from Global North samples." | Gaipa (2004) |
| Plant a naysayer | Answers the strongest objection | See [counterargument and rebuttal](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-write-a-counterargument-and-rebuttal-in-an-essay) | Graff et al. (2021) |
| Find who is talking | Lists the voices before you join | Search the question, then sort by Most cited | EdCitation's [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) |

## How do you find out who is talking about your question?

Search the question, read the reviews first, then look for the newest replies:

1. **Write the question in one sentence.** Ours: does social media use harm adolescents' mental health?
2. **Search it in [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/)** and read the first page; reviews map the voices.
3. **Sort by Most cited** for the most-answered voices, and check each is on your question.
4. **Read the reviews' abstracts** and note who says what, and who disagrees.
5. **Look lower for the newest work** that answers them.
6. **Build each entry from its record** in [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite), then check the list in [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references).
7. **Write your "I say"** in your own words.

### What our two searches returned

On 2 October 2026 we searched "social media use and adolescent depression" in Find sources. By best match it reported 215,889 results, led by "Social media use and depression in adolescents: a scoping review" (2020) and "A systematic review: the influence of social media on depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adolescents" (2019). The 2023 paper by Ghai and colleagues came fifth; the umbrella review came 18th.

Sorted by Most cited, the same search put first "A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication" (2013, cited 2,653 times), a review about health communication, not adolescent depression. The umbrella review rose to tenth, while Ghai's paper fell to 38th, with 59 citations. Most cited finds the loudest voices; the newest reply is quieter ([do citation counts matter?](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/do-citation-counts-matter-how-to-judge-a-paper)).

### The entry Cite a source built

We gave [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) the umbrella review's DOI. The record came from Crossref, with no retraction or notice, and the APA 7 entry read:

> Valkenburg, P. M., Meier, A., & Beyens, I. (2022). Social media use and its impact on adolescent mental health: An umbrella review of the evidence. *Current Opinion in Psychology*, *44*, 58–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.017

Its in-text citation was "(Valkenburg et al., 2022)". Find sources had listed the paper under 2021: [PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34563980/) shows it went online on 18 August 2021, then appeared in the April 2022 issue. The entry carries the issue's year, 2022: keep the same year in the text and the list.

## How EdCitation helps you join the conversation

For hearing who is talking and citing them exactly, EdCitation is the best tool we know of, because it works from the publisher's record: a reference is looked up, never written. The entry above shows why: the record supplied the issue year, volume and pages.

- [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/), free with no account: about 300 million published works, by topic or by the claim a sentence needs to support, filtered by kind of source, years and open access.
- [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite), free: an entry from a DOI, title, PubMed ID, ISBN or web address, in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE or Vancouver, screened for retraction.
- [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references), free: each entry verified, "check this" or not found, retractions flagged, and "could not check" never shown as not found.
- Pro, $8 a month, adds [References from a file](https://edcitation.com/tools/references-from-a-file), which matches every in-text citation to the list; Max, $24 a month, adds Theoretics QA, which judges the paper against its assignment's own instructions and never rewrites anything ([pricing](https://edcitation.com/pricing)).

EdCitation finds the voices, builds the references and checks them. The argument, and every sentence of it, stays entirely yours.

## Quick questions

### What is the scholarly conversation in simple terms?

It is the running debate in published research on a question, each new paper answering earlier ones. You join it by citing whom you answer and adding your own point.

### What does Scholarship as Conversation mean?

It is a frame of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy: knowledge grows through sustained debate among scholars, often without one settled answer. It calls attribution an obligation of taking part.

### What does "they say / I say" mean?

It is the core template of Graff and Birkenstein's textbook: state what others say, then respond with what you say. Cite the sources behind every "they say".

### How do I find who is talking about my topic?

Search the question in EdCitation's free [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/), read the reviews at the top, then sort by Most cited and look lower for the newest replies.

### Can EdCitation write my side of the conversation?

No. EdCitation finds sources, builds each reference from its record and checks the list; it never writes any part of your work.

## References

- Association of College and Research Libraries. (2016). *Framework for information literacy for higher education* [PDF]. American Library Association. [https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/acrl/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf](https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/acrl/content/issues/infolit/Framework_ILHE.pdf)
- Association of College and Research Libraries. (2026). *Framework for information literacy for higher education*. American Library Association. [https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework](https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework)
- Burke, K. (1941). *The philosophy of literary form: Studies in symbolic action*. Louisiana State University Press. [https://archive.org/details/philosophyoflite00inburk](https://archive.org/details/philosophyoflite00inburk)
- Gaipa, M. (2004). Breaking into the conversation: How students can acquire authority for their writing. *Pedagogy, 4*(3), 419–437. [https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-4-3-419](https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-4-3-419)
- Ghai, S., Fassi, L., Awadh, F., & Orben, A. (2023). Lack of sample diversity in research on adolescent depression and social media use: A scoping review and meta-analysis. *Clinical Psychological Science, 11*(5), 759–772. [https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221114859](https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221114859)
- Graff, G., Birkenstein, C., & Durst, R. (2021). *"They say / I say": The moves that matter in academic writing, with readings* (5th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. [https://nerd.wwnorton.com/ebooks/epub/theysayreadings5/EPUB/content/0.10.0-introduction-readings.xhtml](https://nerd.wwnorton.com/ebooks/epub/theysayreadings5/EPUB/content/0.10.0-introduction-readings.xhtml)
- Harvard College Writing Program. (n.d.). *The nuts & bolts of integrating*. Harvard Guide to Using Sources. [https://web.archive.org/web/20251201214615/https://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/nuts-bolts-integrating-0](https://web.archive.org/web/20251201214615/https://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/nuts-bolts-integrating-0)
- Princeton Writing Program. (n.d.). *Breaking into the scholarly conversation*. Princeton University. [https://web.archive.org/web/20250906160158/https://writing.princeton.edu/faculty/writing-seminar-experience/breaking-scholarly-conversation](https://web.archive.org/web/20250906160158/https://writing.princeton.edu/faculty/writing-seminar-experience/breaking-scholarly-conversation)
- University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center. (n.d.). *Entering the conversation*. [https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/entering-conversation](https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/entering-conversation)
- USC Libraries. (2026, September 29). *The C.A.R.S. model*. Organizing your social sciences research paper. University of Southern California. [https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/CARS](https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/CARS)
- Valkenburg, P. M., Meier, A., & Beyens, I. (2022). Social media use and its impact on adolescent mental health: An umbrella review of the evidence. *Current Opinion in Psychology, 44*, 58–68. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.017](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.017)
- W. W. Norton & Company. (2026). *"They say / I say": The moves that matter in academic writing* [Seventh edition website]. [https://seagull.wwnorton.com/theysayIsay](https://seagull.wwnorton.com/theysayIsay)