Part of “Introduction” in They Say, I Say (that was also covered in the PDF on the Assigned Readings page of Module 1) includes a quote from Kenneth Burke about a parlor: You come late. W

Part of “Introduction” in They Say, I Say (that was also covered in the PDF on the Assigned Readings page of Module 1) includes a quote from Kenneth Burke about a parlor:
You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about..
. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have
caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you..
The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.
What is the point of this passage? How does it relate to the other information from this section of the textbook? How does it relate to academic writing?