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ACADEMIC
WRITING,
REAL WORLD
TOPICS
BV AcadWritCE-04.indb 1 2016-06-14 4:44 PM

ACADEMIC WRITING,
REAL WORLD TOPICS
CONCISE EDITION
Michael Rectenwald and Lisa Carl
broadview press

BROADVIEW PRESS – www.broadviewpress.com
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Founded in 1985, Broadview Press remains a wholly independent publishing house.

Broadview’s focus is on academic publishing; our titles are accessible to university and college
students as well as scholars and general readers. With over 600 titles in print, Broadview has
become a leading international publisher in the humanities, with world-wide distribution.
Broadview is committed to environmentally responsible publishing and fair business practices.

© 2016 Michael Rectenwald and Lisa Carl
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, kept in an information storage
and retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as expressly permitted by the
applicable copyright laws or through written permission from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Rectenwald, Michael, author

Academic writing, real world topics / Michael Rectenwald and Lisa Carl.
— Concise edition.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-55481-330-8 (paperback)
1. Academic writing—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Carl, Lisa, author II. Title.
LB2369.R43 2016 808.02 C2016-902929-8
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Edited by Martin R. Boyne

Book Design by Em Dash Design
PRINTED IN CANADA

CONTENTS
A Preface for Instructors...................................................................................... 13
PART I
ACADEMIC WRITING: A GUIDE
Introduction. . ..................................................................................................... 21
The Basics....................................................................................................... 21
Formal Writing—What’s That?..................................................................... 22
Real World Topics.............................................................................................. 23

The Readings.. ................................................................................................. 23
Reading as a Writer........................................................................................ 23
Digital and Visual Literacy. . ........................................................................... 24
Focus: Annotating a Text............................................................................... 25
Academic Writing: Contributing to a Conversation.................................. 26

Contributing to an Academic Conversation. . ................................................ 26
Humanities: Philosophy........................................................................ 26
Social Sciences: Political Science.. .......................................................... 27
Physical Sciences: Climatology.............................................................. 28
Research: Finding Reliable Sources............................................................... 28
Focus: Conducting Online Research.............................................................. 30
Research Methods ......................................................................................... 29
Humanities: Literary Theory................................................................. 29
Social Sciences: Economics.................................................................... 31
Physical Sciences: Neurology and Psychiatry.. ...................................... 31
Here’s Where You Come In: Entering the Conversation. . ............................. 32
Writing with a Purpose.................................................................................... 33

The Topic.. ....................................................................................................... 33

6 CONTENTS
Issues...................................................................................................... 34
Practice Session. . .................................................................................... 34
Expressions of Purpose and Topic.. ....................................................... 34
Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies.. ............................................ 34
Social Sciences: Political Science. . ..................................................... 35
Physical Sciences: Physics, Philosophy of Science.............................. 36
Narrowing Your Topic............................................................................ 36
The Thesis Statement..................................................................................... 37
Framing a Working Thesis..................................................................... 38
The Claim.. .............................................................................................. 39
Reasons.................................................................................................. 39
Sample Thesis Statements..................................................................... 40
Humanities: Philosophy. . ................................................................. 40
Social Sciences: Sociology................................................................. 40
Physical Sciences: Neurology and Psychiatry.................................... 41
Qualifying Your Thesis........................................................................... 41
The Thesis as a Unifying Thread............................................................ 42
Refining Your Thesis.............................................................................. 42
Audience......................................................................................................... 43
Critical Theorists Imagine Their Readers.............................................. 44
Wolfgang Iser: The Ideal Reader. . ..................................................... 44
Stanley Fish: The Informed Reader.................................................. 44
Erwin Wolff: The Intended Reader................................................... 44
Constructing Your Own Ideal Reader.. .................................................. 45
Writing Style: Adapt It to Your Ideal Reader........................................ 45
Addressing Audience.. ............................................................................ 46
Social Sciences: International Relations........................................... 47
Physical Sciences: Philosophy of Science........................................... 47
Narrative Perspective..................................................................................... 48
Third Person: Perceived Objectivity...................................................... 48
First and Second Person: Personal Stake in Narrative......................... 49
Note: Why Is “I” the First Person?.. ....................................................... 49
Table 1: Narrative Perspective............................................................... 50
Evidence.. ........................................................................................................ 50
Presentation of Evidence....................................................................... 50
Social Sciences: Psychology.............................................................. 51
Physical Sciences: Environmental Science.. ....................................... 52
Appeals........................................................................................................... 53

CONTENTS 7
Ethos...................................................................................................... 53
Pathos..................................................................................................... 54
Logos...................................................................................................... 54
Examples of Faulty Causation Arguments. . .......................................... 55
Table 2: Logical Fallacies........................................................................ 56
Beginning to Write. . ....................................................................................... 57
Focus: Free Writing. . .............................................................................. 57
Parts of the Essay.............................................................................................. 58

The Introduction............................................................................................ 58
Sample Introductions............................................................................ 58
Humanities: History. . ...................................................................... 58
Physical Sciences: Climatology......................................................... 60
Mapping.. ........................................................................................................ 60
Examples of Mapping............................................................................ 61
Social Sciences: Human-Computer Interaction................................. 61
Physical Sciences: Computer Science................................................ 62
Essay Body...................................................................................................... 62
Connecting the Parts............................................................................. 63
Samples of Student Writing............................................................. 64
The Conclusion............................................................................................... 68
Focus: Conclusion Dos and Don’ts........................................................ 69
Sample Conclusions............................................................................... 68
Social Sciences: Human-Computer Interaction................................. 69
Physical Sciences: Mathematics, Computer Science.......................... 70
Major Types of Academic Essay...................................................................... 71

Summary........................................................................................................ 71
Focus: Tips for a Good Summary.......................................................... 72
Sample Summaries.. ............................................................................... 73
Humanities: Literary Theory........................................................... 73
Physical Sciences: Medicine. . ............................................................ 74
Synthesis........................................................................................................ 75
The Synthesis Grid................................................................................. 75
Table 3: Synthesis Grid: The Aims of Education.. .................................. 76
Sample of Student Writing.................................................................... 77
Analysis and Contribution............................................................................. 78

8 CONTENTS
Argument....................................................................................................... 79
Focus: Argument versus Opinion. . ........................................................ 80
Examples of Argument.......................................................................... 81
Humanities: Art History.. ................................................................ 81
Social Sciences: Economics............................................................... 81
Physical Sciences: Environmental Studies........................................ 82
Structure and Visual Design: Putting It All Together............................... 83

Principles of Structure................................................................................... 83
Design Basics: How Your Paper Should Look................................................ 83
Humanities.. ........................................................................................... 84
Social Sciences. . ...................................................................................... 85
Physical Sciences.................................................................................... 85
Source Citation and Documentation............................................................. 86
MLA Style.............................................................................................. 86
Templates and Examples, MLA Works Cited................................... 87
CMS Style.............................................................................................. 88
CMS in Brief................................................................................... 88
CMS Author-Date Style.................................................................. 89
Templates and Examples, CMS References...................................... 89
APA Style............................................................................................... 90
In-Text Citation, Parenthetical Notation......................................... 91
Templates and Examples, APA References....................................... 91
CSE Style............................................................................................... 92
In-Text, Name-Year......................................................................... 92
In-Text, Citation-Sequence.............................................................. 92
Templates and Examples, CSE References....................................... 92

CONTENTS 9
PART II
REAL WORLD TOPICS
Chapter 1. Living in a Digital Culture........................................................... 97
Introduction................................................................................................... 97
Contexts of Discussion.......................................................................... 97
Areas of Research and Conjecture......................................................... 98
Issues and Stakeholders.. ..................................................................... 100
As You Read. . ........................................................................................ 103
Suggested Additional Resources.. ........................................................ 103
a. Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008)

Journalism ................................................................................... 108
b. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, “Meet Your iBrain: How
Technology Changes the Way We Think” (2008)
Neurology and Computer Science . . .................................. 118
c. Mark Blythe and Paul Cairns, “Critical Methods and User
Generated Content: The iPhone on YouTube” (2009)
Computer Science and Critical Theory ........................ 126
d. Ariela Garvett, “Tweets and Transitions: How the Arab Spring
Reaffirms the Internet’s Democratizing Potential” (2011)
Student Contribution Essay ......................................... 148
Questions for Synthesis . . .................................................................... 154

Questions for Contribution. . ............................................................... 154
Chapter 2. Learning in a Digital Age. . ......................................................... 155

Introduction................................................................................................. 155
Contexts of Discussion........................................................................ 155
Areas of Research and Conjecture....................................................... 156
As You Read. . ........................................................................................ 160
a. Timothy D. Snyder, “Why Laptops in Class Are Distracting

America’s Future Workforce” (2010) History ............................ 164
b. Thomas L. Friedman, “Come the Revolution” (2012)
Journalism ................................................................................... 168
c. Cathy N. Davidson, “Collaborative Learning for the Digital
Age” (2011) Interdisciplinary Studies .......................... 172

10 CONTENTS
d. Eva Kassens-Noor, “Twitter as a Teaching Practice to

Enhance Active and Informal Learning in Higher Education:
The Case of Sustainable Tweets” (2012) Education ................ 181
e. John F. Freie and Susan M. Behuniak, “Paulo Freire and
ICT s: Liberatory Education Theory in a Digital Age” (2007)
Political Science ...................................................................... 200

Chapter 3. Living in a Global Culture.......................................................... 221

Introduction................................................................................................. 221
As You Read. . ........................................................................................ 226
a. Bryant Simon, “Global Brands Contend with Appreciation

for the Local” (2010) American Studies ............................... 229
b. George Ritzer, “An Introduction to McDonaldization”
(2008) Sociology . . ....................................................................... 234
c. Benjamin Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld” (2004)
Political Science.. .................................................................. 254
d. Tyler Cowen, “Trade between Cultures” (2004)
Economics.. .................................................................................... 263
e. Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Cosmopolitan Contamination”
(2006) Philosophy and African Studies ....................... 279
f. Yechan Do, “The Benefits or Detriments of Globalization”
(2012) Student Synthesis Essay ....................................... 289

Chapter 4. Assessing Armed Global Conflict............................................. 295

Introduction................................................................................................. 295
As You Read. . ........................................................................................ 306

CONTENTS 11
a. Amy Lifland, “Cyberwar: The Future of Conflict” (2012)

Cyber Security . . .......................................................................... 309
b. Thomas G. Bowie, Jr., “Memory and Meaning: The Need
for Narrative: Reflections on the Symposium ‘Twentieth
Century Warfare and American Memory’” (2009)
Literary Studies . . ...................................................................... 313
c. Steven Pinker, “Why the World Is More Peaceful” (2012)
Psychology ................................................................................... 324
d. Safdar Ahmed, “‘Father of No One’s Son’: Abu Ghraib and
Torture in the Art of Ayad Alkadhi” (2011)
Arabic and Islamic Studies ................................................ 335

Glossary.............................................................................................................. 349
Permissions Acknowledgments......................................................................... 369
Index................................................................................................................... 373

FOR
A PREFACE
INSTRUCTORS
Like many textbooks perhaps, this one began in frustration. As members of a
committee charged with developing across-the-curriculum writing instruction, we
eventually began a search for textbooks. We wanted to introduce first-year writers
to instructions and examples based on a broad range of academic and scholarly
writing. We also wanted to present academic writing as relevant, exciting, and
important. The most likely candidates, we assumed, would be writing across the
curriculum (WAC ) and writing in the disciplines (WID ) textbooks.
We soon found that the books in these categories consisted of lengthy instruc-
tion in academic research and writing, along with collections of readings culled
almost exclusively from mainstream newspapers and magazines, trade publica-
tions, and general-audience nonfiction books. In other words, the existing WAC
and WID books contained little if any actual academic writing. Further, most of
the topics seemed shop-worn (especially for instructors), and many of the essays
seemed dated; none seemed to adequately represent what we took to be the most
exciting and important issues of our time. Meanwhile, those few non-WAC /WID
textbooks that did represent scholarly prose were confined to the humanities and
social sciences. Science and technology fields were virtually absent. And such text-
books were lopsided in more than disciplinary ways: few seemed to explore the
incredible diversity of perspectives that we regularly encountered in the academy.
Our students were compelled to take first-year writing—a course suppos-
edly designed to prepare them for writing in future courses, regardless of their
chosen major. They thus needed access to a wide array of writing drawn from the
entire disciplinary spectrum. They also required immediate access to the different
ways of thinking available to them as members of the academic community. But
we held another requirement for a book: writers, we knew from experience, are
far more likely to be engaged when they are asked to participate in lively conver-
sations about contemporary and complex topics. Nothing stifles writing and
discussion more than the sense of working in isolation, or writing about largely
settled, dead-end issues. We wanted a text that collected essays clustered around
timely, compelling, and intriguing topics.
Having no luck finding such a book, we decided to write it ourselves. 13

14 A PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS
ACADEMIC WRITING,
REAL WORLD TOPICS
We endeavored to create a book that provided completely up-to-date rhetorical
instruction in conversation with cutting-edge readings divided into several chap-
ters, each chapter focusing on a topic area relevant to student writers both inside
and outside the academy. Academic Writing, Real World Topics features contempo-
rary readings on major issues of real import to contemporary students: living in
a digital culture, learning in a digital age, living in a global culture, and assessing
armed global conflict. Students will see how contemporary writers like them-
selves respond to issues relevant to their lives while maintaining scholarly rigor
and incorporating the ideas of others, past and present.
Guide to Academic Writing

Part I of Academic Writing, Real World Topics is a Guide to academic writing. This
part of the book covers rhetorical strategies and approaches to academic writing
within and across the major divisions of the academy: the humanities, the social
sciences, and the sciences and technology fields.
Rhetoric That Speaks to Content

In keeping with our belief—based on research and experience—that instruction
should be treated in the contexts of reading and writing, we employ extensive
cross-referencing between the rhetoric and the reader. For each writing strategy
or essay element that we explain in the rhetoric, we provide examples from essays
in the reader, or from one of many resources included in each chapter’s Suggested
Additional Resources. For example, the section on essay conclusions gives three
examples of conclusions, each taken from the Real World Topics section and
written by a scholar in each of the discipline areas (humanities, social sciences,
and physical sciences). Page numbers after each example allow readers to flip to
the full essay. The Real World Topics section also refers to the Guide to academic
writing in chapter introductions, essay questions, and questions for synthesis
and contribution. Rhetorical modes and examples are indexed in the back of the
book for quick cross-reference.
Thus, the rhetoric shows student writers how to employ scholarly writing prac-
tices as demonstrated by the readings, while the readings invite students to engage
with scholarly content in connection with the rhetoric.

A PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS 15
Interdisciplinary Connections
Accompanying its focus on disciplinary distinctions is another important guiding
rationale for this book: the making of interdisciplinary connections. Many WAC
textbooks (and surely most WID textbooks) divide their readings into disciplinary
or broader academic categories. Such an arrangement recommends an insularity
that defeats one of the principles guiding writing in and across the disciplines:
that the various approaches to knowledge and the world are interconnected and
that disciplines as seemingly disparate as biology and history share many features.
Furthermore, such disciplines often speak to each other in their writings on the
same or closely related topics.
Disciplinary Distinctions
Academic Writing, Real World Topics aims to reveal these connections and shared
features, but it also clarifies disciplinary distinctions. In fact, when different disci-
plinary approaches are juxtaposed, their distinctive features become more apparent.
Throughout this book, we highlight the distinguishing features of writing in the
various areas of the academy, demonstrating through examples and instruction
the crucial role that the writing context and the composition of the reading audi-
ence plays in the composition of academic prose.
Focus on Scholarly Writing

Academic Writing, Real World Topics focuses primarily on academic, scholarly writ-
ing. It includes timely, often introductory, yet scholarly essays that speak to one
another within and across disciplinary boundaries. Most of the essays address topics
with scholarly rigor, sourcing, and disciplinary/interdisciplinary commitment.
However, in order to demonstrate the distinctions between academic and other
writing, we have included a few essays written by academics for general audiences
or in trade magazines, as well as the writing of non-academics originally published
in mainstream or specialized venues. These inclusions are designed to help students
move from more general discourse toward academic reading, research, and writing.
Full-Length Essays
With a few exceptions, Academic Writing, Real World Topics uses essays or chapters in
their entirety. Full-length essays allow students to see how all the parts of a piece of
writing work together. Essay lengths vary from two to twenty-five pages.

Chapter Introductions Put Readings in Context

Each chapter is preceded by an introduction of eight to fifteen pages, which contex-
tualizes the readings as part of broad discourses. The introductions are general
and synoptic rather than exhaustive and synthetic. That is, we aim at orienting
students to the topics, rather than doing the work of interpretation, summary,
synthesis, and contribution for them.
Chapter introductions to this book’s topics may be introducing the intrica-
cies of an issue to both students and teacher. Armed with these introductions and
guiding questions, instructors can confidently apply their own expertise in writ-
ing to salient issues in a variety of academic fields.
Instruction in Digital Media Literacy

As teachers of such courses as “writing for digital media,” “multi-modal author-
ship,” “writing for television and film,” and “writing and the network,” we insisted
on a book that responds adequately to the explosion of digital media both inside
and outside the academy. Two chapters of the reader are devoted to aspects of
the digital media—its impact on the world at large and its impact on education.
We also address digital media literacy in the Guide to academic writing. Rather
than attempting to suppress or ignore social media and other Web 2.0 technologies
as many other writing textbooks are doing, instructional apparatuses throughout
the reader call for the use of these technologies as tools for research, communi-
cations, interpretation, and composition.
Writing Instruction Designed for the Spectrum of Students

First-year writing is compulsory at virtually every university and college in the
United States. Students come to the course often not entirely enthusiastically,
but with a common need: to prepare themselves for writing in future courses in
every discipline. They need—and instructors need to provide—access to a wide
array of writing drawn from the entire disciplinary spectrum. In addition, students
and their instructors require immediate access to the variety of ways of thinking
available to them as members of the academic community.
This book provides students with that access, and instructors with that resource.
Designed for the spectrum of student writers, from reluctant to gung-ho, from
the well prepared to the less prepared, it demystifies as much as possible the read-
ing and writing processes of academic writers.

A PREFACE FOR INSTRUCTORS 17
Classroom Success
We have classroom-tested the Guide to academic writing, as well as all of the
chapters in Real World Topics, and have found that each works extremely well to
encourage and foster student discussion and writing.
Other Features of This Text

Combined author/subject headnotes before each reading.
Each reading is prefaced with a short, one- to two-page introduction,
including a short biography of the author.
Sample student essays. Students often ask us for samples of how
a “real student” would write an assigned essay. In order to help allay
student anxieties about how they, as non-experts, could approach a
topic, we provide two essays written by college students, which respond
to prompts we suggest at the end of each chapter. These annotated
essays are one example of how Academic Writing, Real World Topics links
rhetorical instruction to content.
Annotated readings. We include fully annotated academic essays
throughout. Annotations point to various features of the text,
important passages, rhetorical moves, cues for careful reading, and
notes on possible interpretations.
“As You Read” guides to each chapter and reading. Chapter
introductions and author/subject headnotes end with a guide to
orient students to the readings. These guides help focus student
attention on particular issues in the texts. They also provide handy
class discussion-starters for instructors. “As You Read” guides to the
chapter introductions encourage readers to locate connections or points
of contact among readings, while “As You Read” guides to the essays
encourage students to connect readings to their own experience.
“What It Says” questions after each reading. Each essay is followed
by at least four reading comprehension questions, which may be used for
out-of-class reflection or writing, or for in-class discussion or writing.
“How It Says It” questions after each reading. Each essay is also
followed by at least three prompts designed to help students identify,
understand, and practice the rhetorical moves employed by the authors.
Instructors may use these prompts for classroom discussion or as
preliminary writing assignments to move readers beyond content
comprehension and toward planning discipline-specific and/or
interdisciplinary writing about a given topic.

“Write about It” questions after each reading. Each essay is

followed by at least two “Write about It” questions that prompt
students to grapple with and offer inventive, sustained responses to the
arguments presented.
Writing prompts that facilitate synthesis and contribution at the
end of each chapter. Each chapter ends with at least four questions
and suggestions for writing. The prompts point to and encourage the
characteristic moves made by writers as they converse with others and
construct their own arguments. The “Questions for Synthesis” are
designed to move students toward the synthesis and analysis of texts
and topics. Then, based on thoughtful analysis of a group of sources, the
“Questions for Contribution” are designed to guide students into
making their own contributions to the topic area, often in more formal
essays that draw on further research.
“Suggested Additional Resources” bibliography at the end of each
chapter introduction. In order to facilitate additional research into the
topics treated, we also include a Suggested Additional Resources list at the
end of each chapter introduction. This material, which includes articles,
books, blog posts, websites, films, and short videos, is essential for
demonstrating that the essays we include are introductory and that the
essays in each chapter merely open up a vast and varied area of inquiry.
Index and Glossary. At the end of the book we include a subject/name
index, as well as a glossary containing definitions of key terms used in
the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences and technology
fields. The glossary also includes brief definitions of the disciplines and
some of the approaches they take.
CONTACT US
We hope your experience teaching with Academic Writing, Real World Topics is as
rewarding for you and your students as it has been for us and ours. We welcome your
comments, questions, critiques, suggestions, and stories of classroom experiences
related to this book. Please write to: [email protected].

ACADEMIC
PART I
WRITING:
A GUIDE

INTRODUCTION
The Basics
As a first-year college student, you may or may not have declared a major. But you
have decided to enter academia for at least two years. You will be asked to read,
interpret, summarize, and contribute to academic discourses. This guide will
introduce you to the rhetorical strategies (the strategies you use to get your
point across and persuade your audience) common to all academic disciplines, as
well as to those specific to each of the major divisions in the academy:
the humanities,
the social sciences, and
science and technology.
Two ideas to keep in mind:
Each discipline has its own conventions. Each major academic

grouping has its own writing conventions: styles, methods, and
approaches. Sometimes these conventions are specific to broad academic
areas; sometimes they are discipline-specific.
BUT ...
Good writing is good writing. You can apply most of what you learn
here to everything you write, in any field. Writers in every field use
similar means to organize material, address the reader, consider the
texts of others, and cite sources.
21

22 ACADEMIC WRITING, REAL WORLD TOPICS
This book gets you started with academic writing. But the skills you learn here
you can use throughout life:
In undergraduate courses, to write psychology research papers,

science lab reports, literary analyses, and history papers, for example.
In job applications, for application letters and résumés.
On the job, for grant proposals, reports, memos, directions for
employees, a new business plan, or a justification for a salary increase.
Off the job, for writing e-mails, texts, and tweets to friends, blogs,
letters to the editor, or contemplations on life.
In graduate courses in any field, if you choose to continue.
Formal Writing—What’s That?

The writing maneuvers described below represent conscious choices that writ-
ers make every time they write formal academic or scholarly papers. The word
“formal” brings up images of stiff, haughty people trying to impress each other
with obscure words and hard-to-follow arguments. That is not what we mean.
A “formal” paper:
acknowledges what others have written on the subject already, and

gives it serious consideration;
is written clearly, allowing others to understand and respond;
follows a structure or set of conventions that scholars within each
discipline follow. For example, before submitting it for a grade, for
review, or for publication, writers of formal papers usually
–– annotate and summarize relevant texts,
–– synthesize the views of others,
–– carefully plan their approach to the topic, and
–– draft, revise, and edit their work.
“Formal writing,” therefore, is not an academic exercise completed just to fulfill

an assignment. It’s writing that effectively and persuasively enters an important
conversation in order to make a significant contribution.

PART I: ACADEMIC WRITING: A GUIDE 23
REAL WORLD TOPICS

Part II of this book, Real World Topics, is a compilation of real academic writ-
ing. In Part II , you will see how real writers put the strategies you learned about
in Part I into action.
The Readings
Reading is one of the best ways to learn how to write; theoretical discussions are
less helpful without the context of real-world writing. So as you read this guide, you
will be pointed to specific examples from Part II , as well as to pieces of academic
writing published elsewhere. We hope the examples will help you understand how
a particular writing maneuver operates in real academic writing.
The writing we draw from for Real World Topics includes the kind of writing
we imagine you practicing—writing that engages complex, controversial, and
exciting topics. Our aim is to introduce you to a variety of academic writing—in
the context of lively and relevant conversations, rather than dull, dead areas of
research. The articles in this book are written by scholars discussing critical issues
that affect, inform, or interest academics and other scholars, as well as the world
at large. The readings draw on various disciplines and represent the major group-
ings of the university: the arts, humanities, social sciences (including economics
and business), physical sciences, and technology. These essays are meant to intro-
duce you not only to academic writing, but also to scholarly thought itself.
We hope the readings found here will serve as invitations to their respective
fields and to the world of thought and action that they represent. We also hope
that the topics we introduce—living in a digital culture, learning in a digital age,
living in a global culture, and assessing armed global conflict—will interest you
as a citizen of the world, now and beyond your academic career.
The topics we have included are designed to provoke spirited responses. Initially,
you will read to familiarize yourself with the topics at hand. But we hope you will
soon be drawn into the conversation. Ultimately, you will read the articles with a
view to writing essays of your own: you will be reading as a writer.
Reading as a Writer
What does it mean to read as a writer? It means that you are reading not only
to consume the texts of others, but also to respond to them. It also means that
even as you read carefully to understand what the writer is saying, you will

simultaneously read to understand how the writer is saying it and why he or she
is putting it that way.
After each of the readings in Part II ,
The first set of prompts for discussion and writing ask you to consider
“What It Says”—the content of an argument.
The second set of prompts asks you to consider “How It Says It”—the
kinds of maneuvers the writers use to make their cases.
We often need to see how an argument is constructed in order to understand it.

But knowing how something is put together is especially important when you are
setting out to put a similar thing together yourself. Thus, when you read, look for
the writer’s characteristic maneuvers. This may take two readings or more to
figure out, particularly when a text is dense. But you will find that you get better
at identifying the parts of an essay—and the moves made by writers within those
parts—as you practice reading and interpreting them, especially when you prac-
tice constructing arguments in response to those you’ve read.
The third section of prompts gets you started with this task, asking you
to “Write about It”—to incorporate your own ideas and to respond
thoughtfully and creatively to the discussion. The questions for synthesis
and contribution at the end of each chapter help you to put the texts
into conversation with each other and to contribute to a conversation
yourself.
Digital and Visual Literacy

Whether or not you are a digital native (see Chapters 1 and 2 in Part II ), you
are living in a world saturated with digital media. In fact, if you are anything like
the authors of this book, Web 2.0 technologies may very well account for a good
deal of your leisure activities. The digital world has profoundly altered the ways
in which all of us receive and read “texts.” In this book, we use the word “texts”
broadly—to refer to messages that may include words, still images, moving images,
music, sound effects, visual effects, and other graphics. All of these elements, we
believe, require both skills to compose and skills to interpret.
Yet in most secondary educational environments and in much of higher educa-
tion as well, digital and visual literacy, or the kind of “reading” required in the
digital world, is often ignored, or even denigrated as lacking legitimacy or worth.
In the United States in particular, where standardized testing prevails in primary
and secondary education, digital and visual literacy is even more prone to being

ANNOTATING A TEXT
FOCUS
In general, highlighter pens are of limited use. Your brain often doesn’t process the
information, so you’ll have to come back to it later and put it into your own words to
make sure you’ve got a handle on it.
A more effective method is to annotate or gloss a text. Annotating or glossing can
take several forms, all of which you can use on one article:
Note important terms and central Make a short note in the margin
ideas. that summarizes quotations that
Note the topic, thesis, and are striking or interesting. You might
evidence. See the sections below for want to come back and quote or
discussions of these terms. Again, it paraphrase these when you begin
will be more effective to rewrite these writing your own essay.
parts of the text in your own words List your own responses to the text as
rather than merely underlining or you read. Especially if the article is long
highlighting them. and complex, you might have a hard
Ask questions about the text. time remembering your responses
There may be something you don’t once you go to write your own essay.
understand that you’ll need to look Including your responses to the text in
up in another source or read further the margins will help you to keep track
to clarify. of your own reactions to the reading.
Note how one idea connects, or might Once you’ve read the essay, write
connect, to another text or another a short note of your impressions
idea in the same text. Linking what of it. Compare the article to others
you already know to new information you’ve read. Note ideas you still don’t
is the best way to learn and remember understand. Note possible “holes”
the new information. Once a concept in the argument, or interesting ways
is clear in your own head, you’ll find it you could expand upon or rebut the
much easier to respond to. argument.
overlooked. Many students receive little or no training in the skills of analyzing

or re-evaluating digital texts.
In this book, we hope to partially redress this situation by
1. valuing digital communications;

2. including readings that deal with the importance of digital
communications in the world and in education;
3. asking you to communicate using Web 2.0 technologies;
4. asking you to interpret digital media as part of reading and responding
to the compositions of others.
We hope that the value and importance we place on digital media not only
will make you feel more comfortable as you enter into academic discourse, but
also, and more importantly, will aid you in its composition and interpretation.

ACADEMIC WRITING: CONTRIBUTING TO

A CONVERSATION
Imagine walking into a dorm or living room full of people engaged in a lively debate.
You catch bits of the discussion. Something about the conversation engages you,
but you’re not exactly sure what the topic is or what others have said. Now imag-
ine that instead of listening for a while and getting a summary from one or more
of the discussants, you jump right in and offer your position on the matter. The
others stop the discussion just long enough to stare at you, confused.
Why? Perhaps your point has already been offered and has been refuted and
dismissed. Perhaps what you’ve offered is not exactly on point. Or worse, you
may have no idea what the conversation is about and have just said something
entirely irrelevant.
While academic discourses are generally written, they are ongoing conversa-
tions between people. In fact, in many ways, they resemble conversations you may
have through e-mail, on Facebook, instant messaging, Tumblr, or some other blog:
participants write in response to others and in anticipation of future responses.
Many academic writers have gotten to know what others think about a topic by
reading their writing. Others, often students, are new to the conversation and
simply have to catch up to get involved.
Every time you approach a discourse that is new to you, that’s the position
you’re in—you need to catch up. In academic conversations, this is done mostly
through reading, but it also takes place in conferences or other face-to-face meet-
ings among scholars.
The point is, academics do not write in a vacuum. They are contributing
to ongoing discussions.
Read the examples below, by authors who
1. recognize that they are contributing to an ongoing conversation, and

2. make clear what they intend to contribute.
Contributing to an Academic Conversation

Humanities: Philosophy
In the passage below, Francis Fukuyama acknowledges a movement known as trans-
humanism and the aims and claims of this movement. Entering the conversation,
he signals his disapproval by using the phrase “a strange liberation movement.”

Soon after the passage quoted below, he refers to transhumanists as “some sort
of odd cult,” but he soon tells the reader why they should be taken seriously.
For the last several decades, a strange liberation movement has grown
within the developed world. Its crusaders aim much higher than civil rights
campaigners, feminists, or gay-rights advocates. They want nothing less than to
liberate the human race from its biological constraints. As “transhumanists” see
it, humans must wrest their biological destiny from evolution’s blind process of
random variation and adaptation and move to the next stage as a species.
Source: Francis Fukuyama, “Transhumanism,”Foreign Policy 1 Sept. 2004: n.p.,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2004/09/01/transhumanism.
Social Sciences: Political Science

In the passage below, Eva Kassens-Noor introduces her study on the use of Twitter
in higher education by noting the importance that other scholars have placed on
such Web 2.0 applications. She makes clear the premium that students place on
such technologies, and their growing importance for the workplace, and notes
educators in higher education who have taken up the challenge of both using and
studying Web 2.0 technologies. She then briefly mentions the findings of several
studies on Twitter in order to mark out the territory for her own contribution.
Hannay and Fretwell (2011) predict that Web 2.0 applications will soon be
taken up by universities and suggest these technologies will have implications
for the academic workplace; students will demand that faculty members
communicate digitally, via instant messaging, Twitter and other technologies.
Similarly, companies will expect their recruits, our graduates, to be versed in
social media technologies (Wankel, 2009). It is unsurprising, then, that we, as
educators, are being encouraged to use Twitter to enable interactivity, excite
learners, and foster greater student participation.
Responding to this challenge, educators in higher education have started
to experiment with Twitter in the hope students seize the opportunity to
interact more frequently, engage more thoughtfully, and foster learning inside
and beyond the classroom (Grosseck and Holotescu, 2008; Junco et al., 2011;
Perez, 2009; Schroeder et al., 2010). Establishing five social media literacies,
namely attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and
critical consumption, Rheingold (2010) emphasizes the need for Twitter to
be a valuable communication tool, in contrast to Twitter’s potential pitfall of
being a mere distraction (Wankel, 2009). Ultimately, Twitter can be a powerful
collaboration tool (Corbeil and Corbeil, 2011; Rheingold, 2010). Summarizing,
Reuben (2008) emphasizes the tremendous potential Twitter could play in
education, but acknowledges that no one has found the right niche just yet.
Source: Eva Kassens-Noor, “Twitter as a Teaching Practice to Enhance Active and Informal
Learning in Higher Education: The Case of Sustainable Tweets” (see Chapter 2, pp. 181–98).

Physical Sciences: Climatology

In response to Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi’s article “A Path to
Sustainable Energy by 2030” (Scientific American 301.5 [November 2009]), Tom
Moriarty, a senior scientist at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable
Energy Laboratory, wrote the following in his blog, Climate Sanity:
The cover story of the November issue of Scientific American, “A Path to

Sustainable Energy by 2030,” by Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi,
promises a path to a “sustainable future” for the whole world in just 20
years. They define “sustainable” as a world where all energy sources are
derived from water, wind and solar. Nuclear need not apply. The article
had a few words about the cost, but much was left out. Jacobson and
Delucchi conclude that their grand plan will cost about $100 trillion. I found
this ridiculously large sum to be too low. My rough calculations yield a cost
of $200 trillion. This post is an attempt to fill in a few blanks.
Source: T. Moriarty, “Scientific American’s ‘A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030’: The Cost”
(https://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/scientific-americans-a-path-to-sustainable
-energy-by-2030-the-cost-2/).
Research: Finding Reliable Sources

Thanks to the explosion of information technologies over the past few decades,
chances are you will be able to do a good deal of textual research without even
leaving your chair: on the Internet. Your challenge on the Internet will be to cull
reliable from unreliable sources. Luckily, many articles and books are now available
electronically, making your job much easier. In addition, many databases are prob-
ably available in electronic form at the library website at your college or university.
The following are some useful databases:
ERIC : journals, magazines, other periodicals

JSTOR : journals, magazines, other periodicals
MLA Bibliography: journals, magazines, other periodicals
ProQuest: journals, magazines, other periodicals
Questia: electronic texts (requires an individual subscription at a
monthly fee; available in some libraries)
WorldCat: comprehensive database of published works
Google Scholar: published books and peer-reviewed journal articles.
The goal of online database research is to produce sufficient resources to give you
an overview of your topic area, but not so numerous that you have to wade through
thousands of articles only tangentially related to your topic.

Further research sources include:
your school’s library, for books and journals that are not yet digitized;
empirical observations made in a lab through studies or experiments;
and
interviews you’ve conducted with experts in the field or with others who
can provide you with evidence or testimonials related to your topic.
Once you have pulled together published research, plus whatever experiments or
surveys you have conducted yourself, you are ready to carefully read, annotate,
summarize, and synthesize your information. More on that later.
First, here’s an overview of how to organize, respond to, and document your
research material, based on the academic discipline in which you’re conducting
research. A few basics:
Research needs, methods, and formats vary by type of writing

project, division of the academy, and discipline.
Research is also documented differently, depending on the
discipline for which the research is conducted.
–– The physical sciences, and to a somewhat lesser degree the social
sciences, tend to rely on new experiments or studies that produce
data. In the physical sciences, researchers explain the parameters
of their study (known as the research protocol) and describe
their research process in a “Methods and Materials” section of their
reports, as discussed on page 85.
–– Humanities scholars analyze creative work or respond to the theories
and analyses of other humanities scholars with a new theory or
analysis.
–– Social scientists might analyze data collected by other social
scientists and provide an alternative conclusion, or they might
conduct their own studies, involving fieldwork and/or synthesizing
and analyzing written records.
Research Methods
Humanities: Literary Theory
In the passage below, N. Katherine Hayles reveals a process common to research
and writing in the humanities: reading and analyzing the research and opinions
of others on the subject at hand.

In her discussion of the Turing test, invented by computer scientist Alan

Turing to determine whether computers can think, Hayles graciously introduces
Andrew Hodges’s biography of Turing. She notes Hodges’s characterization of
Turing as a nerdy computer scientist, out of touch with “sex, society, politics.”
Later in her essay, Hayles will express her disagreement with Hodges’s interpre-
tation of the Turing test.
In his thoughtful and perceptive intellectual biography of Turing,

Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing’s predilection was always to deal
with the world as if it were a formal puzzle. To a remarkable extent,
Hodges says, Turing was blind to the distinction between saying and
doing. Turing fundamentally did not understand that “questions
involving sex, society, politics or secrets would demonstrate how what
it was possible for people to say might be limited not by puzzle-solving
intelligence but by the restrictions on what might be done” (pp. 423-24).
In a fine insight, Hodges suggests that “the discrete state machine,
communicating by teleprinter alone, was like an ideal for [Turing’s] own
life, in which he would be left alone in a room of his own, to deal with
the outside world solely by rational argument. It was the embodiment
of a perfect J.S. Mill liberal, concentrating upon the free will and free
speech of the individual” (p. 425).
Source: N. Katherine Hayles, “Prologue,” How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in
Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). xi-xiv.
CONDUCTING ONLINE RESEARCH

FOCUS
To use databases most effectively, it helps to have in mind a specific area of inquiry
or a question you hope to solve within your topic. With this idea in mind, you can type
a search phrase or keywords into the search box in your database. Listed below are
some steps for getting started researching your topic.
Start with the most specific phrase Did this search produce a reasonably
you can think of. long list of articles? If so, scroll
Limit your search to peer-reviewed through the titles and click on the
journals published within the last few ones that look most relevant.
years. This will give you a quick idea Read the abstract for each article. This
of what the current conversations are short synopsis will tell you whether
on your topic. the article is relevant to your research.
One example: type “21st century Did your search terms yield no or very
US hate crime law” in your search few results? You’ll need to broaden
box, and limit your search to full- your search. For example, this time
text articles in peer-reviewed journals you might try “US hate crime law.”
published between January 2014 and Don’t give up: You might have to come
December 2015. up with several search phrases before
you have a workable list of articles.

Social Sciences: Economics

Social-science research may be based on personal observation or on a synthesis
of previous claims and studies. To make a reasonable claim, social scientists must
have a large sample of subjects on which they base their conclusions or claims.
This sample may be the result of either a field study or a synthesis of the previ-
ous research, resulting in a new claim.
In the passage below, economist Anne Sibert introduces research regarding
gender attitudes toward risk in order to support her argument that the financial
crisis of 2008 was partly due to testosterone-driven, risky behavior in a male-
dominated banking culture.
There is a substantial economics literature on the effect of gender on

attitudes toward risk and most of it appears to support the idea that
men are less risk averse than women in their financial decision making.
There is also a sizable literature documenting that men tend to be
more overconfident than women. Barber and Odean (2001) find that
men are substantially more overconfident than women in financial
markets. In general, overconfidence is not found to be related to ability
(see Lundeberg et al. (1994)) and that success is more likely to increase
overconfidence in men than in women (see, for example, Beyer (1990)).
Thus, if confidence helps produce successful outcomes, there is more
likely to be a strong feedback loop in confidence in men than in women.
Source: Anne Sibert, “Why Did the Bankers Behave So Badly?,” Vox 18 May 2009,
http://www.voxeu.org/article/why-did-bankers-behave-so-badly.
Physical Sciences: Neurology and Psychiatry

In the following excerpt, psychiatrist Gary Smith and writer Mimi Vorgan intro-
duce the method of their study, which aims to show that digital technology
changes the neural patterns of the brains in those who use them. They began by
finding “naïve” subjects, or people who have rarely if ever used a computer, and
a control group of computer-savvy subjects in the same age range. They go on to
tell how they used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI ) to detect brain activities
while the two groups read documents and gazed at static pictures, as compared
with searching the Internet. The establishment of a control situation (reading and
looking at still photos) allowed them to detect initial differences in brain activ-
ity between the naïve and savvy computer users while the users searched the
Internet. Subsequent Internet use by the formerly naïve subjects demonstrates,
they argue, that repeated digital technology use rapidly alters brain patterns. Note
that the article, published in Scientific American Mind, is written for a general,
scholarly readership.

One of us (Small) enlisted the help of Susan Bookheimer and Teena Moody,
U.C.L.A. experts in neuropsychology and neuroimaging. We planned
to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brain’s
activity during a common Internet computer task: searching Google for
accurate information. We first needed to find people who were relatively
inexperienced and naive to the computer.
After initial difficulty finding people who had not yet used PC s, we were
able to recruit three volunteers in their mid-50s and 60s who were new
to the technology yet willing to give it a try. To compare the brain activity
of these three naive volunteers, we also recruited three computer-savvy
volunteers of comparable age, gender and socioeconomic background. For
our experiment, we chose searching on Google for specific and accurate
information on a variety of topics, ranging from the health benefits of
eating chocolate to planning a trip to the Galápagos.
Next, we had to figure out a way to perform MRIs on the volunteers while
they used the Internet. Because the study subjects had to be inside a long,
narrow tube of an MRI machine during the experiment, there would be no space
for a computer, keyboard or mouse. To re-create the Google-search experience
inside the scanner, we had the volunteers wear a pair of special goggles that
presented images of website pages. The system allowed the volunteers to
navigate the simulated computer screen and make choices to advance their
search by pressing one finger on a small keypad, conveniently placed.
Source: Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, “Meet Your iBrain: How Technology Changes the Way We
Think” (see Chapter 1, pp. 118–24).
Here’s Where You Come In: Entering the Conversation

Let’s say you’ve done your homework. You’ve
read a good deal about your topic;

read and annotated a number of sources; and
studied the arguments others have made in the area.
It’s time to make a move. It’s time to enter the conversation.

You have most likely been writing papers this way for some time, and perhaps
have become unconscious of your process. But an essay intended for scholars in
a field requires more conscious decisions at each step because its subject matter
will be relatively complex.
Before you even start to write, you will make numerous decisions about your
paper’s purpose, topic, and thesis or argument, even if you do so without recog-
nizing it. You have probably noticed that often you discover what you’re trying to

say as you write, not before you write. That’s the frustration and the joy of writing:
it is a heuristic process, an open-ended method of learning with no hard-and-fast
formulae, no steps or process guaranteed to produce brilliance. But thoughtful
consideration of your purpose, topic, and thesis will help focus your initial draft.
WRITING WITH A PURPOSE

Academic discourse attempts to create some kind of change in the reader, and
sometimes even in the field itself. Despite its often stodgy or ivory-tower conno-
tations, academic writing frequently proposes changes in the world at large.
Your purpose as an academic writer is to add something to the conversation that
changes the reader’s mind about an issue;

teaches the reader something; or
allows the reader to see an issue from another perspective.
As we’ve said, to do so you will first need to have a good grasp on what other
participants in the conversation have already said. But if all you have done is
rehash old arguments, your writing is a series of summaries; it has no purpose
as a contribution.
Once you have decided on your purpose, you must decide how to get that
purpose across. That’s where rhetorical strategies come in. And the strategies
you use depend on
your topic;
your thesis;
your audience;
the nature of your evidence; and
other considerations.
The Topic
The word “topic” is derived from the Greek word topos (pl. topoi), which means
“place.” Thus a topic can be thought of as an area of discussion.
Your topic is the general subject area of your paper—what your paper
is about.
A topic differs from an argument in two important ways:
knowledgeable people may take any number of positions within a topic

or area;

it’s objective: it is not a stance, but rather a subject upon which your
argument and the arguments of others will focus.
In other words, when you decide on a topic, you have yet to take a side; you have
simply announced the subject area you will address.
Issues
A topic that is fraught with controversy is often called an
PRACTICE issue. The issue might be the depiction of violence against
SESSION women in horror films, sustainable energy, or the proper
interpretation of a poem. In any case, something is at stake,
Think of an eating
choice that will have and people or organizations have something to gain or lose
such an impact on in the resolution of the controversy.
others that it becomes
While all issues are topics, not all topics are issues.
an issue. Explain why
this topic is an issue. One’s preference for Brussels sprouts over cauliflower
may be a topic of conversation, but it is generally not an
issue. But eating choices can become issues when they impact the lives of others.
For example, vegans believe that eating animal products is unethical.
Expressions of Purpose and Topic

Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies
In the excerpt below, Cathy N. Davidson, Distinguished Professor and director of

The Futures Initiative at The City University of New York, signals that her topic
is a new kind of multitasking that distributes tasks among the several members
of a group. Such multitasking, she asserts, “is the ideal mode of the 21st century.”
She further makes clear that her purpose is to critique and propose changes to
“current practices of our educational institutions” based on their mismatch with
the digital, hyperconnected age in which we live.
I want to suggest a different way of seeing, one that’s based on multitasking

our attention—not by seeing it all alone but by distributing various parts of
the task among others dedicated to the same end. For most of us, this is a
new pattern of attention. Multitasking is the ideal mode of the 21st century,
not just because of information overload but also because our digital age was
structured without anything like a central node broadcasting one stream of
information that we pay attention to at a given moment. On the Internet,
everything links to everything, and all of it is available all the time.
Unfortunately, current practices of our educational institutions—
and workplaces—are a mismatch between the age we live in and

the institutions we have built over the last 100-plus years. The 20th
century taught us that completing one task before starting another one
was the route to success. Everything about 20th-century education,
like the 20th-century workplace, has been designed to reinforce our
attention to regular, systematic tasks that we take to completion.
Attention to task is at the heart of industrial labor management, from
the assembly line to the modern office, and of educational philosophy,
from grade school to graduate school.
Source: Cathy N. Davidson, “Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age” (see Chapter 2, pp. 172–90).
Social Sciences: Political Science
In the passage below, political scientists John F. Freie and Susan M. Behuniak
introduce their topic, participatory education in a digital age. They make clear that
their purpose is to test the claims made by educators for the liberatory potential
of information and communication technologies (ICT s) against Paulo Freire’s
liberatory educational politics. They signal their doubt with the use of the word
“yet” to begin the second sentence.
The concern that students be active participants in their learning has

varied roots (e.g., Maria Montessori, John Dewey, Henry Giroux), but it
is Paulo Freire’s opposition to oppressive pedagogies that is frequently
invoked to justify the use of information and communication technologies
(ICT s) in higher education. Yet, these overt or implicit references to
Freire’s groundbreaking theory of liberatory education warrant critical
appraisal because they constitute a curious practice.
This is so for two main reasons. First, even within political science (our
discipline), Freire is regarded as a “radical” both because he challenged
mainstream educational practices and goals, and argued in favor of
democratizing the classroom. Given this, why does the ICT literature so
enthusiastically embrace him? Second, when Freire wrote his critique of
education in the 1970s, he was responding to the practices of the modern
milieu; i.e., a textual world in which information was transmitted through
publications, the study of textbooks, the giving of lectures, and the taking
of notes. But we are clearly in a transformative time; a post-modern world
in which the textual is rapidly being replaced by the digital. How, then, to
understand Freire’s call for liberatory pedagogy in this new age?
These are the questions we address in this article. We begin with a
review of the digital technologies and the claims made by the educators
who use and study them. Next, we revisit Freire’s critique of oppressive
pedagogies, the terminologies he employed, and the educational
philosophy he advocated. With this as background, we apply Freire

to three ICT s to show the extent to which his critique is prescient.

We end by suggesting what Freire offers in formulating a liberatory
educational theory for the digital age.
Source: John F. Freie and Susan M. Behuniak, “Paulo Freire and ICT s: Liberatory Education
Theory in a Digital Age” (see Chapter 2, pp. 200–17).
Physical Sciences: Physics, Philosophy of Science
In the following passage, Matthew B. Crawford’s topic is the place of science in a

liberal education. Below is the fourth paragraph of his essay, “Science Education
and Liberal Education.” As is the case here, an article’s title often is an excellent
distillation of the paper’s topic: sometimes the title hints at the thesis as well.
As a component of liberal education, science is both similar to and

different from the humanities in spirit and effect. The humanities might
be understood simply as a record of the best that has been thought about
the human situation. Acquaintance with this record has the effect of
freeing us from the present, with its necessarily partial view, and opening
us up to the full range of human possibilities. Further, to enter truly into
the great works of the past, or of other cultures, requires an effort to free
oneself from the present and its certainties. A cultivated willingness to
make that effort is perhaps the cardinal intellectual virtue. Science makes
similar demands, with similarly liberal effects. In studying nature closely,
we are confronted with the fallibility of common sense. In fact, heavier
things do not fall faster than lighter ones. More radically, the very idea of
nature stands as a rebuke to convention altogether.
Source: M.B. Crawford, “Science Education and Liberal Education” (see Chapter 2, Suggested
Additional Resources, p. 162).
Narrowing Your Topic

Often writers begin with broad topical areas. They soon find, however, that their
chosen topic is just too broad for a short paper, or even for a whole book. (They
also may find that their topic is not an issue that people care about.)
For example, in response to a five-page paper assignment, a student writer
takes as her topic “the media.” She has a lot to say about the media and also
notices hundreds of sources that address the media in some way or other. She
finds herself overwhelmed.
She then realizes, perhaps with the help of her writing instructor, that her
topic is just too broad for a single paper. Media studies is a vast field that treats
hundreds if not thousands of concerns. Few books would tackle such a massive
and amorphous subject as “the media.”

The writer decides that violence in the media is her real interest. This subtopic is
more plausible than writing about “the media,” but is still too broad. In fact, most
likely a topic like violence in the media would amount to a survey of some exist-
ing literature. How would one measure the effects of media violence in general?
Could the writer set up a study on the necessary scale?
Perhaps, instead, she decides that she’s interested in the depiction of violence
against female characters in horror films.
After an additional conference with her writing instructor, she decides that
she might examine the function of violence against women within the plots of a
few horror films. This is a manageable topic that surely will yield more satisfying
results—in the context of a student paper—than the other two, much broader
topics. Now, instead of having to set up an elaborate experiment, with a large
sample of viewers studied over a period of time, she can focus on an issue within the
films, looking in particular at how violence against women functions in the plots.
Whether your broad area of concern is the media or something else, your writ-
ing experience will be more rewarding when you locate a particular issue or
subtopic within a broader field.
The Thesis Statement

While a topic is the general subject matter or issue you’re writing about—whether
violence against women in horror films, the effects of globalization on cultures,
or global climate change, for example—the thesis is the point you’re trying to
make about a topic area. It is the stance or position you are taking.
It’s important to understand the difference between a thesis statement and
a thesis. The former is a short announcement, if you will, of the point your paper
will demonstrate. It is a relatively short, general statement of your paper’s argu-
ment or position. A thesis, however, refers to the argument that runs through the
entire essay—to all of the supporting information, data, and references to other
scholars’ work. Every paragraph in your paper, every fact, illustration, graphic,
quotation, and question you use should directly relate to your thesis. Anything
that does not relate to your thesis does not belong in your paper.
The general practice across the academic disciplines is to make the thesis
statement early in the paper—at the end of the introduction, usually in the first
paragraph in a shorter paper. However, a thesis statement need not be a single
sentence found in a predictable place. With more complex topics, thesis state-
ments often consist of two or three sentences, placed strategically in the essay.
While the thesis statement usually comes early in the paper, when you write a
paper of your own you may have to do a considerable amount of work before you
discover just what your main argument is. You may have to go back to the introduc-
tion, after writing much of the body of your paper, in order to work your thesis in.

That’s fine. The process of writing is recursive: that is, it involves repeatedly
returning to the beginning after working through the paper several times to revise
and restate your position.
In fact, it is very rare for a writer to end up with the same thesis he or she started
with. Academic writers begin with a preliminary or working thesis—an argument
that makes sense to them after they have assessed their topic, read through the
literature on that topic, asked some questions about the issue, and found some-
thing that has not yet been addressed or a perspective that has not been offered.
Then, once they start writing, reading more, and reconsidering, they will refine
their original thesis, substantially revise it, or completely overturn it and come
up with another perspective on their topic. This is how the writing process works,
and it’s why we often say that writing is in itself a process of discovery.
Framing a Working Thesis

Finding a thesis requires considerable groundwork. First, you need to find an area
of study that is interesting and timely. Often, your professor will have assigned
you a general area of inquiry, but you will need to focus it further. Sometimes
your professor will give you a specific topic to approach. Either way, your paper
will have to establish this as an area of important inquiry.
Next, you will need to read, summarize, and synthesize what other scholars
have said on this subject. Again, your professor may have given you a list of arti-
cles to read—but these may only be a start, and you may need to read further,
especially as you refine your thesis.
You will then have to identify some “problem” in the current scholarship that
your paper will “solve.” Or you could think of it as a “silence” in the academic
conversation.
For example, you may discover that other scholars have
misunderstood the issue,

misinterpreted the data,
failed to consider an issue critical to the topic, or
incompletely considered the implications of current knowledge on the topic.
Although arriving at a preliminary thesis can be arduous, finding something new

to write about is exhilarating.
Remember that you can build up to your thesis in your introduction, where you
establish that your topic is interesting, relevant, and timely;

summarize what other scholars have discovered and written on the topic;
explain your assessment of the “silence” in others’ scholarship on the
topic, as discussed above.

Once you’ve set the stage, your thesis statement will seem like the next logi-
cal step. Of course, there are as many ways of expressing a thesis confidently and
clearly as there are good writers.
Once you have arrived at a working thesis, you have to ask yourself, “How am
I going to get the reader to side with me?” To help answer this question, we need
to break the thesis into its parts.
The Claim
The first part of a thesis is the claim, the stance you are taking or the statement
you are making about a particular topic. This is the paper’s main assertion.
For example, in his essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (Chapter 1, pp. 108–16),
Nicholas Carr writes, “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my
capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in
information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of parti-
cles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like
a guy on a Jet Ski.”
Here, the claim is, “And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my
capacity for concentration and contemplation.”
Reasons
Merely claiming something is not enough, however. A good thesis consists of more
than a statement of your belief. A thesis statement should include an abbreviated
expression of why the reader should accept your claim.
Your reasons may include
empirical evidence/logical reasoning (logos),

an emotional appeal (pathos), and
other kinds of support.
In part, in the essay introduced above, Carr goes on to support his claim with anec-
dotes from his friends whose experience has been similar, but then notes that
“anecdotes don’t prove much.” He follows these up with the findings of a related
research study and the views of several experts in psychology and neurology. He
might have included an abbreviated statement of his reasons or support for his
claim within the thesis statement.
Every essay in Real World Topics contains a thesis—take a look now and see if
you can identify some. (Some may be implicit rather than explicitly stated.) Notice
that there are many ways to state a thesis, even within each academic division.
Below are some examples.

Sample Thesis Statements

In this excerpt from Chapter 7 of his book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of

Strangers, included in Chapter 3 of Real World Topics, the philosopher and African
Studies scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah introduces the question of cultural
homogenization, which many theorists believe is one of the negative outcomes of
globalization. Appiah suggests that rather than strictly causing homogenization,
globalization also actually threatens it—by breaking up long-standing homoge-
neous communities, especially in cities. Appiah later suggests that such “cultural
contamination” long predates contemporary globalization or Americanization.
An advocate of cosmopolitanism, Appiah celebrates cultural hybridity, which
he believes has always been a feature of civilization.
People who complain about the homogeneity produced by globalization

often fail to notice that globalization is, equally, a threat to homogeneity.
You can see this as clearly in Kumasi as anywhere. The capital of Asante
is accessible to you, whoever you are—emotionally, intellectually, and,
of course, physically. It is integrated into the global markets. None of
this makes it Western, or American, or British. It is still Kumasi. What it
isn’t, just because it’s a city, is homogeneous. English, German, Chinese,
Syrian, Lebanese, Burkinabe, Ivorian, Nigerian, Indian: I can find you
families of each description.
Source: Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Cosmopolitan Contamination” (see Chapter 3, pp. 417–25).
Social Sciences: Sociology
In this passage, the sociologist George Ritzer assumes that his readers are suffi-
ciently aware of the ubiquity of McDonald’s restaurants to claim that this kind of
globalization applies to “every other aspect of society.” He establishes his topic’s
significance and timeliness by claiming that “McDonaldization” is “an inexorable
process.” He promises to demonstrate this thesis in the paper to follow, using the
phrase “As you will see.” Ritzer’s use of the second person includes the reader in
the argument, implying that Ritzer is taking the reader along with him as together
they discover the global effects of McDonaldization.
As you will see, McDonaldization affects not only the restaurant business
but also education, work, the criminal justice system, health care, travel,
leisure, dieting, politics, the family, religion, and virtually every other
aspect of society. McDonaldization has shown every sign of being an

inexorable process, sweeping through seemingly impervious institutions

and regions of the world.
Source: George Ritzer, “An Introduction to McDonaldization” (see Chapter 3, pp. 234–53).
Physical Sciences: Neurology and Psychiatry
In the passage below, Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan stake their claim about the effects
of digital technology on the brain. Notice that the thesis is carried over several
sentences and makes several claims: the use of digital technologies is changing
the way we live and communicate; but it is also changing our brains, impacting
how we think, feel, and behave.
The current explosion of digital technology not only is changing the way we
live and communicate but also is rapidly and profoundly altering our brains.
Daily exposure to high technology—computers, smart phones, videogames,
search engines such as Google and Yahoo—stimulates brain cell alteration
and neurotransmitter release, gradually strengthening new neural pathways
in our brains while weakening old ones. Because of the current technological
revolution, our brains are evolving right now—at a speed like never before.
Besides influencing how we think, digital technology is altering how
we feel, how we behave. Seven out of 10 American homes are wired for
high-speed Internet. We rely on the Internet and digital technology for
entertainment, political discussion, and communication with friends
and co-workers. As the brain evolves and shifts its focus toward new
technological skills, it drifts away from fundamental social skills, such as
reading facial expressions during conversation or grasping the emotional
context of a subtle gesture.
Source: Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, “Meet Your iBrain: How Technology Changes the Way We
Think” (see Chapter 1, pp. 118–24).
Qualifying Your Thesis

An overstated thesis—one that claims more than your paper delivers—weakens
the paper considerably. Overstated thesis statements can be vast overgeneral-
izations: “Since the beginning of time, human beings …” Or they may simply be
statements that are too strong for the evidence. The following is probably an over-
statement: “With this study, we have discovered the unmistakable cause of cancer.”
If you find that you’ve overstated your thesis, you do not necessarily have to
junk it and start over. You may simply need to modify it so as to make it more
defensible. Such modifications are called qualifiers. A qualifier is a word or phrase
that limits the generality (but not the viability) of a claim. Following is a list of
common qualifiers:

most sometimes
usually some (followed by a noun)
generally in some cases
in most cases it may be the case that
often
For example, a claim might read:

PRACTICE SESSION “Many rape victims go through a seri-
Think of a topic of interest to you and ous depression immediately after and
find a controversy (issue) within it. Then often for years after the event.” This
write a strong thesis statement (a claim
qualifies the thesis so as to avoid over-
about the topic, with the general reasons
supporting it). If necessary, qualify your statement, but it does not weaken it.
thesis using one of the qualifiers above. In order to be valid, of course, this
claim must be supported by data that
demonstrate the rates and lengths of depression in rape victims.
But a qualified thesis can also be constructed in more subtle ways, for exam-
ple: “With the rare exception of….” The latter qualifier is called a reservation.
A reservation holds the thesis to be true, but only when a condition is met or a
factor is absent.
A claim that includes a qualifier can protect your argument from rebuttal
based on a minor exception or an unforeseen condition that may occur to the
reader but not to the writer.
The Thesis as a Unifying Thread

Every paragraph of an essay should be informed by the thesis and should support
it. The thesis is the unifying thread that runs through the rest of your paper.
The body of an essay (see pp. 62–67) is essentially an extended thesis statement,
drawn out in all of its complexity and detail. For example, after he makes his thesis
statement in his essay “An Introduction to McDonaldization” (see the excerpt
above), George Ritzer takes his reader step-by-step through his thesis, using
such subheadings as “The Long Arm of McDonaldization,” “The Dimensions of
McDonaldization,” “The Case of Ikea,” and “The Advantages of McDonaldization”
to support and illustrate his argument.
Refining Your Thesis

Once you have a tentative thesis—a general, relatively short but inclusive state-
ment of your claim and your reasons for it—you should work on focusing it and
expressing it with confidence. A thesis statement should make as strong a case as
possible without overstatement. You may find that your working thesis is over-
stated, or that it is slightly off the mark. At this point, it’s time to review your

sources, and if you have further questions on the topic, or come up against gaps in
your own knowledge, read more sources. Each time you read a new source, recon-
sider your thesis. Does it still work?
If not, modify it in light of what you have just read. Of course you will not be
able to read everything on a given topic, but satisfy yourself that you have examined
the issue from several possible perspectives. It often helps to look up the sources
listed or data cited in primary source material. Do the sources contradict each
other? Could the data be interpreted in a different way? Asking these questions,
and continually refining your thesis, will lead you to your final or definitive thesis.
An important determining factor regarding your thesis is the specific form
that your contribution to current scholarship will take. Each type of assertion
requires a different approach. For example, are you saying that other scholars have
misunderstood the issue? The introduction or body of your essay

will summarize what other scholars have claimed. Your thesis will
directly address the nature of the misunderstanding and explain your
position. The body of your essay will enumerate your reasons for making
this claim.
misinterpreted the data? The introduction or body of your essay will
summarize existing data and how other scholars have interpreted it.
Your thesis will state in specific terms an alternative way of interpreting
the data. The body of your essay will demonstrate in specific terms why
your interpretation is more valid than (or just as valid as) previous
interpretations.
failed to consider an issue critical to the topic? The introduction or body of
your essay will summarize what others have written on the topic. Your
thesis statement will assert that issue X must be considered in relation
to this topic. The body of your essay will support your assertion that
issue X is critical.
incompletely considered the implications of current knowledge on the topic?
The introduction or body of your essay will summarize inferences others
have made about the topic. Your thesis will assert that implication X is
critical to a complete understanding of the topic. The body of your essay
will explain in specific terms why implication X is critical.
Audience
As you work on developing your purpose, topic, and thesis statement, you should
also consider the nature of your audience. Writers sometimes make the mistake
of writing to the page (or the screen) instead of to a human being. In order to get
your point across effectively, you need to envision your intended reader.

Critical Theorists Imagine Their Readers

A diverse group of twentieth-century critical theorists focused on the role of the
reader in the meaning of a text. As you read these brief explanations of their
theories, think about ways in which you might imagine your reader as you write.
Wolfgang Iser: The Ideal Reader
The German literary scholar Wolfgang Iser (1926-2007) is known for his “reader-
response” theory. For Iser, the reader is an active participant in the text. The reader
helps create or complete the text’s meaning, based on his or her cultural and social
experience, knowledge, and beliefs. A text then becomes, not the writer’s unchang-
ing self-expression, but a kind of performance between the writer and the reader.
Iser imagined an “ideal reader” who is not necessarily an expert in the subject
he or she is reading, but is
intelligent,
engaged, and
well-read,
and thus “gets” what the writer is saying because the writer and the reader share
cultural contexts (age, race, socioeconomic status, and level of

education) and
beliefs (political leanings, religious views, relative cynicism or idealism).
Stanley Fish: The Informed Reader
The American critic Stanley Fish (b. 1938) imagines a reader who possesses what
he calls “literary competence.” This reader has all the knowledge she needs to
understand the text, but in reading she adds her own reactions to the text, thus
becoming more self-aware as she reads.
Fish suggests that, in some way, the informed reader already understands the
piece of writing, or at least is well prepared to understand it.
Erwin Wolff: The Intended Reader
The German critic Erwin Wolff (1924-2007) posited that writers create an “intended
reader” to whom they address their writing, shaping the way they tell their story
or construct their argument based on this imagined reader.
By making the reader’s response to the text critical to what and how he or she
writes, the writer, in a sense, “embeds” the reader in the text.

Similarly, a critic may look for meaning in a text by imagining how the writ-
er’s contemporaries might have experienced a text. When and where was the
text written? Who was reading it when it was published? What were the readers’
socioeconomic status, worldview, religious beliefs, moral code, ethnic affiliations,
and gender?
A critic with a complex understanding of a text’s intended reader might better
comprehend the goals of the writer and thus the meaning of the text.
Constructing Your Own Ideal Reader

Your own notion of your reader might or might not fit well with one of those
presented above. However you imagine your reader, think of someone willing to
listen to your argument but not already convinced of it.
Write for someone who
is educated and intelligent,

has a basic knowledge of your topic,
does not have unlimited time or patience, and
can either come up with alternative arguments, or
will wonder why you have not considered any.
Your ideal reader does not need to already accept your thesis. In fact, a
weaker paper will likely result from imagining that you are “preaching to the choir,”
as if your reader already agrees with you.
As you imagine the readers of your paper, also ask these questions:
How and why is this topic important to them?

What are their predispositions or biases?
Writing Style: Adapt It to Your Ideal Reader

Writing style includes the following features:
the attitude or tone you take toward your topic (casual, formal or
somewhere in between; humorous; sarcastic; somber; angry; serious;
neutral);
perspective (first-, second-, or third-person?) (see the section on
narrative perspective, pp. 48–50);
organization (what are the structural traditions in this field, and what
structure will best carry your argument?);
diction or word choice:

–– If your audience is non-expert yet academic, you would use words

common to all academics, and be sure to define any discipline-specific
terms.
–– If you are writing for an intra-disciplinary audience, or readers
with disciplinary concerns, you can use jargon associated with that
field without explanation. Intra-disciplinary essays also tend to allow
writers to delve more deeply and specifically into a subject.
–– Interdisciplinary essays tend to be more general and perhaps make
references to other fields, so as to allow non-experts to tie their own
knowledge to this unfamiliar data or idea.
Addressing Audience
The excerpt below comes from an essay by philosopher John Nolt on global
warming, a topic more commonly addressed by physical scientists. Throughout
his essay, Nolt uses the first and second person, a narrative perspective that can
draw in readers, helping them identify with the subject and see how it might
directly affect their lives. This approach could help Nolt promote his argument:
that every American is personally responsible for global warming. In his conclu-
sion, below, Nolt discusses the implications of his results. In doing so, he implicates
not only the reader (“you,”) but also himself (“me,” “us”), a rhetorical move that
might disarm the reader, making him or her more receptive to Nolt’s message.
We estimated above that the average American is responsible for about

one two-billionth of current and near-term emissions. Yet even if
emissions are reduced to low levels fairly quickly—that is, even under the
most optimistic of scenarios—billions of people may ultimately be harmed
by them. If over the next millennium as few as four billion people (about
4%) are harmed (that is, suffer and/or die) as a result of current and near-
term global emissions, then the average American causes through his/
her greenhouse gas emissions the serious suffering and/or deaths of two
future people.
... But even though [this figure] is rough and even though there is no
such thing as the average American, it gives us, I contend, some sense of
the moral significance of our own complicity in a greenhouse-gas-intensive
economy. For the amount of harm done by the average American is not
very different from the amount of harm done by you or me.
Source: John Nolt, “How Harmful Are the Average American’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions?,”
Ethics, Policy & Environment 14.1 (2011), DOI : 10.1080/21550085.2011.561584

Social Sciences: International Relations
The passage below is from an article originally written for the Harvard International
Review, which publishes articles aimed at “both academic and lay readers who wish
to think seriously about international affairs.” Its writers are Harvard faculty and
students as well as other experts in international affairs.
Amy Lifland, a Harvard undergraduate student when she wrote this essay, seems
to have this audience in mind as she writes. She opens her article by emphasizing
the immediate and widespread nature of the threat of cybercrime. While begin-
ning with its effect on America (her audience is largely American), she quickly
expands the scope of her message to the international stage—and to the military.
In the past six months, hackers have infiltrated the websites and internal
servers of the United States Senate, the CIA , numerous other state and
federal agencies, private corporations, and individuals. The onslaught
seems unstoppable, and the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies
struggle to identify and arrest the hackers responsible for the attacks.
Many hackers are after money, concentrating on identity theft and other
frauds that have allowed them to steal tens of millions of dollars, primarily
from small businesses in the United States. More ominous, however,
is the recent trend of attempted and successful cyber-infiltrations into
government agencies, the military, and the email accounts of government
officials and other individuals with high security clearances, in the United
States as well as other nations.
Source: Amy Lifland, “Cyberwar: The Future of Conflict” (see Chapter 4, pp. 309–11).
Physical Sciences: Philosophy of Science
Matthew B. Crawford’s article “Science Education and Liberal Education” was

published in the journal The New Atlantis, whose editors describe their readers
as including “policymakers who know too little about science” and “scientists
who often fail to think seriously or deeply about the ethical and social implica-
tions of their work.” In this article, Crawford seems to focus on those who make
education policy, and to persuade them that
science education is critical but that poli-
cymakers and teachers will inspire future
PRACTICE SESSION
Imagine the readers of your thesis
scientists only if they appeal to the intrin- statement (from the previous practice
sic rewards of studying science. Crawford’s session). Write a brief description of
tone is conversational, his language simple your readers, explaining the reasons
you might use to convince them that
and direct, and he establishes himself as a your thesis is correct, or at least that
reliable source because he has first-hand it is worthy of serious consideration.
experience as a science teacher. Notice that

he avoids accusation or provocation by choosing the passive voice and by qualifying

his statement with “generally.” Instead of “policymakers always promote science
on the ground that ...,” he writes, “the learning of science is generally promoted on
the ground that....” This rhetorical move is likely to disarm the reader and encour-
age her or him to be receptive to his argument.
Teaching is a curious thing. It seems to be effective only when the student

is made to feel pleasure in learning. That pleasure is inherently private,
yet the learning of science is generally promoted on the ground that it
serves some public good. In the era of Sputnik, that public good was clear
to all: national defense. Now we hear that scientific literacy is important if
America is to maintain its technological edge—not because we are in a race
with the Soviets, but because technological innovation drives economic
growth. But such fretting in a public-policy mode fails to get at the private
experience of individual students. “Why should I study physics?” Imagine
the question as posed by a truculent sixteen-year-old, staring you down
from his desk in the back row. The question is legitimate and compelling,
and cannot be evaded with blather about economic growth.
The answer spoken by educators is necessarily a public thing, and
education surely serves a public good, but that good must be founded on
the private pleasures of the student, not on some abstract desideratum
like technological progress. Appealing to self-interest, a teacher might
be tempted to say, “Look at how much money techno-geeks have made
for themselves in the last decade,” but this is sleight of hand, since the
new billionaires have been primarily in software, and manipulating the
conventions of computer code has little to do with natural science. There
are countless ways to make a fortune that are more reliable and less
demanding than the study of nature.
Source: M.B. Crawford, “Science Education and Liberal Education” (see Chapter 2, Suggested
Additional Resources, p. 162).
Narrative Perspective
As you’re writing an academic paper, you also should ask yourself this question: How
can I best persuade my reader to trust and respect what I am attempting to commu-
nicate? This is where narrative perspective enters your composition process.
Third Person: Perceived Objectivity

Many academic papers are written in the third person. This perspective creates
some rhetorical distance between the writer and his or her argument.

For example, a scientific paper written in the first person might lead readers to
believe that the writer or writers have a personal stake in the results that might
interfere with “scientific objectivity.” Science traditionally relies on a dispassion-
ate statement of fact verified by several observers over the observations or beliefs
of a single person. In this situation, first person sometimes seems out of place.
In theory, the third person may lend an argument an aura of objectivity, of
reasoned, measured thought, unsullied by emotion or personal bias. The third-
person perspective, referred to in literature as the omniscient voice, focuses the
reader’s attention on what is being said, rather than on who is saying it.
Some critics and philosophers of science argue that the apparent objectivity of
the writer that is created with the third person is a myth. No writer, they say, can
be other than subjective (personally invested) or intersubjective (connected to the
beliefs of a larger community). Regardless of your position on this philosophical point,
it is important to observe that the third-person voice works to distance the writer
from his or her argument, making the writing more convincing in some contexts
and in some parts of the paper. In other words, the third-person voice of scientific
objectivity is an effective rhetorical strategy for making certain kinds of arguments.
First and Second Person: Personal Stake in Narrative

The first person and the second person are most commonly used in editorials,
personal essays, fiction, and poetry. These perspectives might create complicity
between the writer and the reader; the writer is speaking to the reader as if the
two are involved in an intimate discussion.
The first person is used in academic writing when the writer acknowledges a
personal stake in the issue. This has been a recent trend in the humanities. Writers
influenced by feminism, gender studies, cultural studies, and postmodern
theory are particularly partial to this kind of writing.
As Anne M. Penrose and Steven B. Katz note in their book Writing in the Sciences,
the first person is increasingly common in scientific writing as well. They explain
this trend by pointing to the fact that the first person is naturally connected with
active voice (e.g., I titrated the solution, We experimented with) rather than passive
voice (e.g., the solution was titrated). Writers using the first person can more
easily report on research methods; active voice is generally more direct and brief.
WHY IS “I” THE FIRST PERSON?

NOTE
The answer is not as profound as you might expect! This usage derives from the order
in which a verb is conjugated. For example, if you were to conjugate the verb “to be,”
You’d write: I am; you are; he, she, or it is. Since you begin with the “I” form of “to
be,” “I” is known as the “first person.”

The first person is most often used to report on the methods and materials used
in scientific research, which is usually presented in a separate section of scientific
articles (see the section on research methods in the academic divisions, above).
On the other hand, since the first person has the effect of focusing the atten-
tion on the writer rather than on the subject at hand, its use may make the writer
seem more personally involved in his or her argument and perhaps less reliable.
The second person, while rarely used in academic writing, can be effective when
used sparingly. Directly addressing the reader in an informal way sometimes has
the effect of pulling the reader into the argument, encouraging him or her to see
the issue as directly affecting his or her life.
On the downside, “you” and “your” are too informal for much academic writing.
Also, if overused, the second person can begin to feel intrusive, and even cloy-
ing, as if the writer is trying to establish an unearned familiarity with the reader.
TABLE 1: NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE

NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE EXAMPLE
First Person Singular: I, me, my, mine I argue, I hold, It is my position that ...
First Person Plural: we, our, ours We argue, We believe ...
Second Person Singular/Plural: you, your, yours You might think, (You) think about it ...
Third Person Singular: he, him, his; she, her, hers; He writes, In her opinion, One concludes ...
it, its; one, one’s
Third Person Plural: they, them, their, theirs They write, According to them ...
Evidence
Evidence can vary in type, depending on the discipline and the purpose of the
paper, from lab or study results, to the research and opinions of experts in the
field, to personal experience. The purpose of evidence, though, is invariable: it
supports your argument or main points.
Presentation of Evidence
In his article “How Harmful Are the Average American’s Greenhouse Gas
Emissions?,” philosopher John Nolt argues that every American creates harmful
greenhouse gases. Philosophers often define concepts that others might take
for granted. Early in the article, for example, Nolt defines “average American”; in
this excerpt he defines “greenhouse gas emissions.” Philosophers also consider the

moral implications of human action. Here, Nolt cites “obvious moral reasons” for
one of his choices. Like many writers in the humanities, he uses the first person
(“I will not take ...” and “we will simply take ...”). His oblique reference to flat-
ulence draws in the reader with humor, seeming to parody scientific language
(“bodily methane emissions”). These approaches can help a writer get the reader
on his side. However, Nolt also backs up his claims with data, indicating that he
is a rational being concerned with accuracy (ethos).
To obtain the greenhouse gas emissions of the average American, then,

we will simply take the total greenhouse gas emissions for the American
nation and divide by the population. But to do that we first need to define
“greenhouse gas emissions.”
Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions are emissions by humans of gases that
contribute significantly to global climate change. These gases are, in
order of importance: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and various
halocarbons. Yet not all anthropogenic emissions of these gases should
count. We ought, in particular, to make an exception for the carbon
dioxide we produce in breathing. The contribution of human respiration
to total anthropogenic emissions—though perhaps larger than one might
expect—is still relatively small: something on the order of 3 or 4%. For
obvious moral reasons, I will not count these emissions. I will likewise
ignore (though there is no delicate way to say this), the fact that CO 2 is
not the only greenhouse gas emitted by the human body. Fortunately,
bodily methane emissions are comparatively miniscule.
Source: John Nolt, “How Harmful Are the Average American’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions?”
(see above, p. 46).
Social Sciences: Psychology
In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, experimen-
tal psychologist Steven Pinker argues that, contrary to what most people believe,
the world has become less violent over the millennia. In the excerpt below, Pinker
supports his claim with a well-organized summary of how, over the ages, human
beings have learned to curb their violent impulses, empathize with others, and
employ reason to solve problems.
Social scientists, as well as humanities scholars, and to a lesser degree phys-
ical scientists, often call on well-known documents to bolster their cases. Here,
Pinker backs up his case with a reference to a “classic book” by the sociologist
Norbert Elias.

The many developments that make up the human retreat from violence
can be grouped into six major trends. The first, which took place on the
scale of millennia, was the transition from the anarchy of the hunting,
gathering, and horticultural societies in which our species spent most of
its evolutionary history, to the first agricultural civilizations beginning
around five thousand years ago. With that change came a reduction in
the chronic raiding and feuding that characterized life in a state of nature.
According to evidence from forensic archeology and ethnographic vital
statistics, the change helped produce a more or less fivefold decrease in
rates of violent death.
The second transition spanned more than half a millennium and is best
documented in Europe. Between the late Middle Ages and the twentieth
century, European countries saw a tenfold-to-fiftyfold decline in their
rates of homicide. In his classic book The Civilizing Process, the sociologist
Norbert Elias attributed this surprising decline to the consolidation of
a patchwork of feudal territories into large kingdoms with centralized
authority and an infrastructure of commerce.
Source: Steven Pinker, “Why the World Is More Peaceful” (see Chapter 4, pp. 324–33).
Physical Sciences: Environmental Science
In her article “The Diplomats Fiddle while Africa Burns,” environmental scientist
and activist Jessica Wilson argues that 1) “human-induced ‘global warming’ ...
drives climate change,” and 2) the actions taken by the world’s leaders have been
inadequate to alleviate human-caused global warming.
Wilson’s article was originally published as a “Commentary” in the South Africa
Journal of Science. Unlike a traditional scientific article, Wilson’s piece does not
take an “objective” stance or style. In her opening sentence, Wilson’s language
is evocative, her tone derisive. She opens with, “All this cloak-and-dagger poli-
tics in the corridors of power would be bearable if the negotiations were even
close to mirroring what is needed to respond to climate change.” However, as her
readers are most likely scientists—if not necessarily environmental scientists—
she uses standard scientific protocol for persuading her reader: she presents
specific data, culled from the research of legitimate scientists. For example,
she cites three studies (as evidenced by the superscripted numbers). Then she
notes figures that the United Nations Environment Programme “has identified”
as a gap between “pledged” and “needed” reductions in greenhouse gas emis-
sions. (In this excerpt, and in the article published on the companion website,
we have retained South African spellings [e.g., tonne for ton].)
All this cloak-and-dagger politics in the corridors of power would be

bearable if the negotiations were even close to mirroring what is needed to

respond to climate change. With current commitments, we are headed for

a 3.5°C rise in temperature by the end of the 21st century, and a risk that
it could be higher.4,5 The United Nations Environment Programme has
identified a 6 to 12 billion tonne gap between pledged emission reductions
of carbon dioxide equivalent and what is needed to meet the 2°C target.6
Built into the UNFCCC process is an agreement to review the adequacy
of this target, with both African countries and the Association of Small
Island States arguing for it to be 1.5°C. With this tighter target, the
gigatonne gap becomes even larger.
Source: Jessica Wilson, “The Diplomats Fiddle while Africa Burns,” South African Journal of
Science (January-February 2012), DOI : 10.4102/sajs.v108i1/2.1065
Appeals
An appeal is a method a writer uses to persuade his or her reader. Aristotle divided
these appeals into three types: ethos, pathos, and logos.
Ethos
Ethos convinces the reader by persuading her that the writer is credible because
he or she is of sound ethical character, is a sane and reasonable person, and is
worthy of respect. The idea is that a reader who finds a writer credible will find
that writer’s claim credible. Respectful acknowledgement of opposing viewpoints,
along with a reasonable refutation of them, also helps the writer convince the
reader that she is an authority of sound mind whose goal is to find the truth using
fair and just methods. If the writer can persuade the reader that she is all of the
above, the reader is likely to trust the writer, and is therefore more likely to be
convinced of her argument.
In the passage below, Bill Joy, co-founder and chief scientist of Sun
Microsystems, establishes his ethos in the essay “Why the Future Doesn’t Need
Us” by telling a story that puts him at the center of the computer-science revo-
lution. Notice how he casually mentions all of the important software that he
developed as a college graduate student.
When I went to graduate school at UC Berkeley in the mid-1970s, I

started staying up late, often all night, inventing new worlds inside the
machines. Solving problems. Writing the code that argued so strongly to
be written.... After a few years at Berkeley I started to send out some of
the software I had written—an instructional Pascal system, Unix utilities,
and a text editor called vi (which is still, to my surprise, widely used more
than 20 years later)—to others who had similar small PDP -11 and VAX

minicomputers. These adventures in software eventually turned into the

Berkeley version of the Unix operating system, which became a personal
“success disaster”—so many people wanted it that I never finished my
PhD. Instead I got a job working for Darpa putting Berkeley Unix on the
Internet and fixing it to be reliable and to run large research applications
well. This was all great fun and very rewarding. And, frankly, I saw no
robots here, or anywhere near.
Still, by the early 1980s, I was drowning. The Unix releases were very
successful, and my little project of one soon had money and some staff,
but the problem at Berkeley was always office space rather than money—
there wasn’t room for the help the project needed, so when the other
founders of Sun Microsystems showed up I jumped at the chance to join
them. At Sun, the long hours continued into the early days of workstations
and personal computers, and I have enjoyed participating in the creation
of advanced microprocessor technologies and Internet technologies such
as Java and Jini.
Source: Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Wired 8.04 (April 2000): 238-46,
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html.
Pathos
Pathos is an appeal to the reader’s emotions. The idea is that a reader who becomes
emotionally invested in what she is reading is more likely to be persuaded by the
argument.
Appeals to the emotions are not limited to writers in the humanities. A bota-
nist, for example, might describe the unique beauty and grandeur of the giant
redwood trees in the American West as part of an argument that laws should
protect these trees. An epidemiologist might introduce her study on rugby-related
injuries with a narrative about the number of middle-school athletes paralyzed in
the last year while playing rugby. She might even present a case study of a partic-
ularly promising young rugby player who is now permanently wheelchair-bound
as a result of a rugby injury.
The key is to involve the reader on a personal and emotional level without
making him feel as if he is being unfairly manipulated or exploited.
However, an argument that overdoes the emotional appeal has resorted to
bathos—insincere pathos or sentimentality—which could turn the reader against
the argument.
Logos
Logos is an appeal to logic or sound reasoning. Producing believable data and
other factual information goes a long way toward convincing the reader of your

position. Your data should be both broad and deep, and if you state your claim or
thesis clearly, structure your argument logically, and provide appropriate evidence
to back it up, the reader is more likely to side with you.
For example, let’s say you’re trying to argue that the use of headgear would
significantly reduce the incidence of rugby-related injuries. Your data should
1. cover ten years of head-injury data rather than just one; and
2. include several thousand cases, not just a few hundred.
Data that are both broad and deep in this way is known as a representative
sample, which
1. helps convince the reader that the data are substantive, not merely
anecdotal or incidental; and
2. implies that the writer is interested in uncovering the truth, not just in
promoting her own agenda regarding headgear.
On the other hand, some appeals do not work or are not fair because they don’t
make sense for one reason or another. Thus, work to avoid falling into these logi-
cal fallacy traps. Table 2 lists, defines, and describes the problems with the most
common logical fallacies.
Examples of Faulty Causation Arguments

In 1998 the medical journal Lancet published an article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield,
which seemed to show that the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine caused
autism. The Wakefield paper revealed data that showed that children were diag-
nosed with autism around the same time they received their vaccinations. Therefore,
it claimed, the vaccination caused autism.
Physicians and other scientists challenged the study’s findings, claiming that
they could not be reproduced. Wakefield’s interpretation of the data employed
false logic: cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Nevertheless, many parents responded either
by refusing to vaccinate their children or by filing suit against vaccine makers for
causing autism in their children.
In February 2010, the Lancet retracted the paper after it was revealed that
Wakefield had been taking money from an attorney who was trying to win a case
against companies that make vaccines. Wakefield subsequently lost his license to
practice medicine in the United Kingdom.
A second example of a faulty argument can be found in a study reported in the
New York Times (“Talk Deeply, Be Happy,” March 17, 2010), which revealed that
people who spend more time having substantive conversations are happier than
people who spend more time making small talk.

After reading this study, one might be tempted to believe that merely having
more deep discussions will make one happier. But this conclusion may be too
hasty. The report notes that the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Matthias Mehl, a
psychologist at the University of Arizona, recognizes that his small study “doesn’t
prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the kind of conversations one has
and one’s happiness.”
Mehl’s next study involves asking his subjects to consciously “increase the
number of substantive conversations they have each day and cut back on small
talk” and see what is revealed. In this case, Mehl has wisely avoided concluding
that because happier people have substantive conversations, it follows that these
conversations cause happiness.
TABLE 2: LOGICAL FALLACIES
FALLACY DEFINITION PROBLEM
Ad hominem This fallacy, which is Latin for Makes the writer appear to have a
“against the man,” refers to an personal vendetta against someone
argument that attacks the person who disagrees with him. It tends
making the argument, as opposed to destroy the writer’s ethos. The
to the argument he or she is argument will be discredited because
making. the attack is personal, not logical.
Fallacy of An argument that uses a If a reader can think of a case in which

accident generalization that ignores the writer’s statement does not apply,
exceptions or strong the writer is unlikely to persuade the
counterarguments. reader, and the argument will fail.
Slippery slope The argument that one small Discredited because the writer has
step or action inevitably leads to not acknowledged the possibility of a
drastic consequences. middle ground.
Post hoc ergo This false logic contends that An easy fallacy to fall into: if a
propter hoc because one event happened after writer doesn’t understand the subtle
another event, the second event complexities of a situation, he or she
must have been caused by the might assume that chronology is linked
first event. In Latin, the phrase to causality. Therefore, writers should
means “after this, therefore carefully analyze other causes before
because (on account) of this,” and claiming that a prior event caused a
is often shortened to “post hoc.” later event.
It is also known as false cause or
coincidental correlation.
Cum hoc ergo This fallacy, similar to post hoc, Simply because two events or
propter hoc means “correlation does not conditions happen together does not
imply causation.” It is a common mean that one causes the other.
mistake in the physical sciences
but can come up in any field.

Beginning to Write
When you begin a paper, your instinct might be to start at the beginning. As it
turns out, the beginning may be the worst place to start.
As we said when discussing thesis statements, you will often write a great deal
before you know exactly what you want to say. If you write your introduction first,
you may later find that it is way too general—or that you have found a more inter-
esting and useful focus than the one you started with. Also, it’s really hard to write
an introduction with a thesis statement when you’re not sure where you will end
up. So you may find yourself staring at a blank screen or page for way too long.
Here’s an alternative—begin in the middle:
First, read over your source material and your notes.

Then put them aside and just write. This might mean summarizing
your research articles, or laying out the main ideas that your paper will
address.
Write freely, without censoring yourself. You can edit later; the
important thing is to get the words onto the page or screen.
You will probably feel much better about the paper once you have
written a few pages and have a sense of what shape the paper might
take.
FREE WRITING
FOCUS
If you’re having a hard time getting started on this step, try a timed, uncensored
exercise called free writing. Once you have done one or two free writings, you will
at least have something written down that you can shape into something useful for
your paper. Here’s how to go about it:
Decide on a limited time period—say, 15 minutes.
Read over your source material to establish some focus.
Set your timer and start writing.
Focus on a continued stream of writing, ignoring those voices in your head that
may be telling you, “This is dumb. I can’t write.” These and other such phrases are
self-defeating.
If you can’t rid yourself of these thoughts, write them down, then try to re-focus and get
back to the subject at hand. The idea is to try never to allow your pen to stop writing, or
your fingers to stop tapping.
Once your time is up, stop and read over what you have written. You may be
surprised at the useful ideas that have come up.
Underline or highlight the usable parts.
Put your writing away and take a break.
Or, if you’re feeling inspired, set the timer for another 15 minutes and start again,
trying to work from the writing that you have already done.

REAL
PART II
WORLD
TOPICS

LIVING IN A DIGITAL
CHAPTER 1
CULTURE
INTRODUCTION
Contexts of Discussion
Over the past four decades, the exponential growth of new media has resulted
in what many call the “digital revolution.” Surely there is something to be said
for this characterization. Never before have so many people been exposed to
so much media data, made possible mostly by the digitalization of information
of all kinds, including alphanumeric text, still and moving images, and sound.1
According to a New York Times article (“Your Brain on Computers,” June 6,
2010), “in 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as
they did in 1960.” And now, everyone is involved. Via computers, cell phones,
iPods, and numerous other digital media delivery and communications devices,
consumers are also producers, adding to the mass of messages relayed instantly
across the globe.
Since the spread of the Internet in the 1990s, most aspects of life have felt the
effects of digital media and communications. Shopping, news, entertainment,
work, education, dating, social networking, and even identity formation have
been touched by digital innovations and the cybersphere, the realm where digi-
tal participants meet. Digitalization is also a major factor in economic, social, and
cultural globalization (see Chapter 3).
Any new media “revolution” is inevitably compared to the most important
media development of the early modern world: the printing press introduced
in fifteenth-century Europe (although a printing press was developed centuries
earlier in China). The printing press has been credited with bringing about great
changes in social, educational, cultural, and political realms. It has been credited
1 In digital media, the production (and reproduction) of texts and other artifacts is no longer a
process of printing marks on paper or pressing analog signals onto vinyl or magnetic tape. Rather,
digital media is based on exact copies of code—reducible to unique series of zeros and ones. 97

with increasing literacy rates, instigating the Protestant Reformation, and spur-
ring on the Enlightenment and the development of democratic nation states.
Similarly, some writers and scholars have suggested that the Internet signals the
democratization of literacy, the spread of knowledge to the disadvantaged, the
decentralization of political power, and a more equitable distribution of wealth.
Others have responded with fear or condemnation, seeing instead the downfall
of important traditions and institutions, or the changing of brain patterns for the
worse. The digital revolution, some claim, promises to bring about such changes
as the demise of the book, the reconfiguration if not the “death” of the author,
and the break-up of corporate media dominance.
Yet, while digital innovations have wrought many changes, some writers argue
that many of the above claims are exaggerations. More recent approaches to digi-
tal media have revised the digital media revolution thesis considerably.
As Henry Jenkins suggests in his essay “‘Worship at the Altar of Convergence,’”
included in the Suggested Additional Resources below, rather than outmoding
earlier forms of media, the new digital media have reused, revamped, and repack-
aged older media, while delivering a host of new content and genres through old
and new delivery systems. According to Jenkins, rather than a single medium over-
taking all others, we have witnessed the “convergence” of media forms and the
divergence of media delivery systems. Further, just as the printing press did not
by itself bring about social, cultural, and political revolutions, the Internet is not
a product of technology alone; it involves the conscious and unconscious choices
of social agents and the intended and unintended consequences of such choices.
The new media landscape has also affected those who study the media and the
behaviors associated with them. This chapter looks at both the personal experi-
ences of those who use digital media and some of the varying approaches to this
exciting and daunting terrain.
Areas of Research and Conjecture

As we have suggested, the new media affect many areas of life, including work,
school, business, and individual behavior. Therefore, numerous fields are involved
in their study.
Computer science is the study of computing, including its hardware and soft-
ware components and their interactions. Computer scientists design computers
and computer programs and study their use and improvement. Computer science
is a technology field, but programming involves computer languages, which depend
on semantics or symbolic meaning-making. Likewise, computer scientists are not
only interested in machines. Many are linguists of sorts, involved in creating and
understanding languages that can be executed and understood by computers and
humans. Computer science shares much with language study, philosophy, logic,

CHAPTER I: LIVING IN A DIGITAL CULTURE 99
and other sciences. This chapter includes a paper by computer scientists Mark
Blythe and Paul Cairns.
Human-computer interaction (HCI ), as the name suggests, is the study of
human beings as they interact with computer technology. The field is an amalgam
of disciplines—including anthropology, computer science, psychology, sociology,
and even English language studies. HCI researchers undertake quantitative stud-
ies of user response to software interfaces. HCI research also includes qualitative
or descriptive studies of users’ responses to less quantifiable aspects of computing
experience, such as the level of enjoyment experienced by computer users. Often
delivered via computer interfaces, new media lend themselves to HCI approaches. In
their essay, Mark Blythe and Paul Cairns take, in part, an HCI approach to their topic.
Cultural studies, literary studies, and critical theory analyze contem-
porary culture in connection with social, economic, and political life. Culture
refers to a people’s way of life, which includes the arts, literature, leisure activ-
ities, mass media, music, popular entertainment, and other forms of shared
experience. Cultural studies has been particularly interested in how consumers
“resist” and/or reassign meaning to the products of mass media. Likewise, as Bolter
argues, the field has been challenged by new media that allow for greater partic-
ipation by consumers as producers on the web and elsewhere. Mark Blythe and
Paul Cairns’s essay demonstrates a critical theory or cultural studies approach.
Blythe and Cairns show how critical theory can supplement HCI to analyze users’
responses to the iPhone on YouTube.
Literary studies and critical theory have responded to digital media by consid-
ering the changes that have been wrought for readers and writers. We discuss the
implications of digital media for readers and authors in the Issues and Stakeholders
section, below. Similarly, historians provide an important perspective on the emer-
gence of digital media and their relationship to and differences from earlier media
developments, especially the printing press. We include works from the field of
history in the Suggested Additional Resources at the end of this introduction.
In the fields of neurology and psychology, neurologists, along with cogni-
tive scientists and psychologists, study the effects of new media on the brain and
behavior. Using brain imaging and behavioral trials, researchers show how digital
media are changing individual psychology and even neural patterns in the brain.
Some critics of digital culture lament the effects of the Internet, the iPhone, and
other devices on “digital natives,” as those who have grown up in the digital era
are often called. These critics see the new media contributing to an electronic
attention deficit disorder of sorts.
In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr
develops this position, using findings of neuroscience to argue that digital media
are making us into shallow thinkers. The germ of Carr’s argument was presented
in his Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” included in this chapter. We
also include “Meet Your iBrain” by Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, which represents
a more optimistic perspective offered by neuroscience and computer science.

Issues and Stakeholders

Convergence versus media revolution: To frame our understanding of new media,
we should consider what the changes represent. Does the appearance of digital
media signal a revolution, or another kind of shift? That is, are we witnessing and
participating in a complete overthrow of existing media conditions, for better or
worse? Does it matter?
The stakes involved in the discussion are not merely academic, for if a media
revolution is underway, some products, practices, and roles should disappear as
new ones emerge. For example, some writers have suggested that the printed
book or even the printed page will become obsolete. Others suggest that televi-
sion will converge with or be replaced by Internet technology. If books are gone,
then authors will no longer exist, at least as we think of them now. Without books,
our means of knowledge storage, dissemination, and access will change. As educa-
tional and entertainment content flows “freely” through cyberspace, ownership
of and payment for forms of intellectual property (the intangible products of
creativity) become increasingly difficult to maintain.
As suggested above, the digital revolution thesis has been largely dismissed
in favor of a more nuanced and complicated position referred to as the conver-
gence theory. According to this theory, older media never disappear. Instead,
the means of delivering media change, and particular media flow through more
than one type of delivery system. Media producers are no longer bound to just
one means of delivering their content. For example, entertainment shows and
news programs that once were exclusive to television are now available in different
forms on the web. CNN has television channels as well as a website that includes
written news and streaming video. No longer exclusively communications devices,
cell phones now deliver movies and other video as well as music.
Convergence also means that media producers merge. For example, gaming-
system makers and movie studios work together to promote each other’s products.
In a similar way, consumers and producers of new media also converge. Individual
videographers produce YouTube videos that become news, while newsreels are
streamed on YouTube by individuals wishing to make a point.
Are we witnessing completely new roles, genres, and media, or are the old ones
being remade for different purposes and positioned in new ways?
Participatory culture versus corporate domination: The earliest forms of media
studies, such as that of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, primarily
attended to the ways in which mass media dominate or attempt to indoctrinate
their audiences. This is because the producers of mass media are generally major
capital ventures, which supposedly represent dominant interests and ideologies.
With the advent of digital media, however, cultural production is no longer limited
to major corporate players.

“Not all participants are created equal,” as Jenkins asserts, but unprecedented
numbers of individuals and groups are able to reach audiences and influence
them, and also to have an impact upon the corporate media themselves. Thus the
questions we must ask are different: What can we make of this new “participa-
tory culture”? Moreover, how are we to study it? Obviously the older paradigm,
wherein media audiences are considered the hapless and passive consumers of
corporate pablum, no longer applies, if indeed it ever did.
Other new questions emerge to intrigue scholars:
What does this newfound power signify for the producers of new media?
What roles can and will they play in the broader social, cultural,
economic, and political spheres?
What will be the relationship between new- and old-style producers?
How will both relate to their audiences?
Are the consequences of participatory cultures only beneficial, or are
some forms of Internet publicity potentially negative?
Creativity and Property: Digitization changes the means by which creative prod-
ucts are made and reproduced. Digital objects, including texts, images, videos, and
sound, are reducible to a series of zeros and ones. Because they can be easily copied
and distributed, these objects are often subject to piracy, such as through the ille-
gal downloading and sampling of music. Intellectual property is the branch of
law established for the protection of creative works and inventions. The digital
realm has challenged the ability of intellectual property law to protect creative
works, including music, videos, photography, books, and computer software.
Some critics suggest that intellectual property law is unsuited for a digital world.
John Parry Barlow, whose essay is included in the Suggested Additional Resources,
argues that intellectual property, or the ownership of intangible works of creativ-
ity, is impossible to maintain. Rather than attempt to patch up the system of legal
protections or to stop copying through encryption, Barlow argues that other ways
of understanding and rewarding creative production must be developed.
Readers and authors: Because they affect the printed book, digital media inno-
vations usher in a whole host of considerations for literary studies. In his book
Hypertext 3.0, included in the Suggested Additional Resources, the literary critic
George Landow considers a number of implications for the practices of reading and
writing brought about by the new media. With the emergence of the web, texts
are connected that were once physically isolated. As the borders that once sepa-
rated texts (and their authors) become more permeable, readers are able to rove
from linked text to linked text at the click of a mouse. Given the kind of access to
texts that digital hypertext affords, readers are thus accorded larger roles in the
creative and interpretive processes.

Readers in fact become co-producers of texts; meaning making is no longer the

exclusive province of authors, if it ever was. According to Landow, digital hyper-
text realizes in practice many of the theoretical claims of post-structuralism,
including the disappearance (or “death”) of the author, the “intertextuality” of
all works (that idea that all texts draw from and connect to previously existing
ones), and the idea that originality is an insupportable concept, a veritable myth.
In the Suggested Additional Resources, we include works that treat the issues of
authorship and the intellectual property of authors and other creative producers.
The digital generation: As first-generation “digital natives,” the digital genera-
tion has a distinct advantage over their parents in terms of new media usage and
fluency. Yet parents often have an interest in monitoring and controlling their
children’s digital media habits. According to media scholars Justine Cassell and
Meg Cramer in an essay included in Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected,
cited in the Suggested Additional Resources, a digital “moral panic” has ensued,
engulfing parents as they try to steer their children’s web surfing. The media (typi-
cally the old media outlets) warn that Internet and other digital usage endangers
children. Many scholars are devoted to addressing the media habits of digital
youth in terms of their self-determination, safety, and other issues. At the same
time, the digital generation vies for control over its own digital media activities.
The digital generation provides an important experimental group for study-
ing the impact of new media on individual psychology and behavior. The New York
Times article mentioned above, for example, mostly laments the effects of digital
media on the digital generation and beyond. Research suggests, however, that in
addition to the problem of “continuous partial attention,” users of digital media
also have benefited from the kinds of attention training that Internet surfing and
searching afford. According to Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, the ability of the digi-
tal generation to make decisions and integrate large amounts of information has
improved demonstrably.
The digital divide versus democratization: Despite claims that digital media inev-
itably result in greater access to information for more people than ever before,
a divide between those with access to digital media and those without persists.
Furthermore, critics maintain, this divide threatens to exacerbate rather than
solve the problem of poverty in developing and developed countries. Rather than
granting access to resources, the digital divide keeps the poor continually behind
the curve. Do the new digital media really enable democratization and spread its
economic benefits, or are media utopians putting too much emphasis on a techno-
logical fix? To illustrate the issue, in a 2010 New York Times op-ed entitled “Toilets
and Cellphones,” Roger Cohen noted that there are more cell phones in India than
there are toilets. The editorial made clear that access to digital technology is no
cure-all for world poverty.

As You Read
The above are just a few of the many issues that scholars have raised about the
advent and development of new media. Similarly, the following readings cannot
represent all of the possible ways in which to study this complex and vast terrain.
Instead, the articles in this chapter argue for particular approaches to the field
and for the variety of issues that they address. This wide-open field affords plenty
of room for up-and-coming writers.
As you read, consider the approaches as well as the issues involved. You are
most likely a digital native yourself. For example,
How well does a particular approach suit the issue under consideration,
as you see it?
How well do the articles characterize the phenomena?
How might they do better?
As you read and absorb the articles in this chapter,
1. Consider a subtopic within digital media that you would like to write
about.
2. Decide on an approach that you can carry out on your own and without
an elaborate research study.
3. Read articles that relate to your topic.
4. Supplement the readings here with the Suggested Additional Resources
section below.
Suggested Additional Resources

Advocacy
Molinari, Aleph. Let’s bridge the digital divide! TED . Filmed Aug. 2011.
TED xSanMigueldeAllende. Web.
Business and Economics

Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. Race against the Machine: How the
Digital Revolution Is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and
Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy. Lexington, MA :
Digital Frontier Press, 2012.
De Kare-Silver, M. E-shock 2020: How the Digital Technology Revolution Is
Changing Business and All Our Lives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Kurihara, Yutaka. Information Technology and Economic Development. Hershey,

PA : Information Science Reference, 2008. Web.
Levine, Robert. Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture
Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back. New York:
Doubleday, 2011.
Sharma, Ravi, Margaret Tan, and Francis Pereira. Understanding the Interactive
Digital Media Marketplace: Frameworks, Platforms, Communities and Issues.
Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, 2012. Print.
Cultural Studies, Literary Theory

Bolter, Jay D. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print.
Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001.
——, and Diane Gromala. Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art,
and the Myth of Transparency. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2003. Web.
Braun, Catherine C. Cultivating Ecologies for Digital Media Work: The Case of
English Studies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP , 2014.
Campanelli, Vito. Web Aesthetics: How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society.
Rotterdam: NA i Publishers, 2010.
Delany, Paul, and George P. Landow. Hypermedia and Literary Studies.
Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 1991.
Earhart, Amy E., and Andrew Jewell. The American Literature Scholar in the
Digital Age. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P and U of Michigan Library, 2011.
Hayles, Katherine. How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis.
Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012.
——. Writing Machines. Mediawork. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2002.
Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of
Globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP , 1992.
Liu, Lydia H. The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious.
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a. Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Nicholas Carr is a journalist who writes about technology, culture, and econom-
ics. He has been a columnist for the Guardian, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the
Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Times of London, the New Republic, the Financial
Times, Die Zeit, and other leading periodicals. He also is a member of Encyclopedia
Britannica’s editorial board of advisors, is on the steering board of the World
Economic Forum’s cloud computing project, and writes the popular blog Rough Type.
Carr has been a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley,
and is a much-sought-after speaker for academic and corporate events. Earlier in
his career, he was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. Carr is also the
author of several books, including The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison
to Google (2008) and Does IT Matter? (2004). His recent book, The Shallows: What
the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, is a 2011 Pulitzer Prize nominee and a New York
Times bestseller. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MA in English
and American literature and language from Harvard University.
In this essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” which originally appeared in the
highbrow popular magazine the Atlantic, Carr introduces his main argument from
The Shallows. He suggests that the preponderance of digital media in our lives is
turning even the most erudite among us into shallow thinkers unable to engage
in deep thought or parse complex book-length arguments.
As You Read: Think about your own reading and other media habits. Do you
read mostly on- or offline? Have you noticed a difference between reading on the
web and reading print? Consider the benefits and potential downsides of digital
media in your life:
Are you able to concentrate on long, abstract articles and books?

If not, to what extent do you think your digital habits are to blame?
Is Google Making Us Stupid?

“Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the supercom-
puter HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and
weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunction-
ing machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control
its artificial “brain.” “Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel
it. I can feel it.”

I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense
that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the
neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I
can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it
most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article
used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the
argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s
rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or
three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.
I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep read-
ing that used to come naturally has become a struggle.
I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spend-
ing a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great
databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research
that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be
done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and
I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working,
I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets, reading and writ-
ing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to
podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which
they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they
propel you toward them.)
For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for
most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind.
The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of
information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded.
“The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can
be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media
theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive
channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape
the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my
capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in
information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of parti-
cles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like
a guy on a Jet Ski.
I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends
and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having simi-
lar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay
focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun
mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media,
recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major
in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?”

He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much
because the way I read has changed, i.e., I’m just seeking convenience, but because
the way I THINK has changed?”
Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine,
also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have
almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in
print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of
the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment
in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “stac-
cato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many
sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the
ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too
much to absorb. I skim it.”
Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. And we still await the long-term neurolog-
ical and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how
Internet use affects cognition. But a recently published study of online research
habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that we
may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think. As part of
the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting
the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British
Library and one by a UK educational consortium, that provide access to journal
articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people
using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to
another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read
no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce”
out to another site. Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence
that they ever went back and actually read it. The authors of the study report:
It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed
there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power
browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going
for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the
traditional sense.
Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity
of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did
in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a differ-
ent kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even
a new sense of the self. “We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a
developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the
Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. “We are how we read.” Wolf worries
that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and

“immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep
reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long
and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we
tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to
make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without
distraction, remains largely disengaged.
Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It’s not
etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to trans-
late the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media
or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play
an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains. Experiments
demonstrate that readers of ideograms, such as the Chinese, develop a mental
circuitry for reading that is very different from the circuitry found in those of us
whose written language employs an alphabet.
The variations extend across many regions of the brain, including those that
govern such essential cognitive functions as memory and the interpretation of
visual and auditory stimuli. We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our
use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and
other printed works.
Sometime in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter—a Malling-Hansen
Writing Ball, to be precise. His vision was failing, and keeping his eyes focused
on a page had become exhausting and painful, often bringing on crushing head-
aches. He had been forced to curtail his writing, and he feared that he would soon
have to give it up. The typewriter rescued him, at least for a time. Once he had
mastered touch-typing, he was able to write with his eyes closed, using only the
tips of his fingers.
Words could once again flow from his mind to the page.
But the machine had a subtler effect on his work. One of Nietzsche’s friends, a
composer, noticed a change in the style of his writing. His already terse prose had
become even tighter, more telegraphic. “Perhaps you will through this instrument
even take to a new idiom,” the friend wrote in a letter,
noting that, in his own work, his “‘thoughts’ in music and ALSO SEE
language often depend on the quality of pen and paper.” James Fallows, “Living
“You are right,” Nietzsche replied, “our writing equip- with a Computer”
ment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” Under (Atlantic, July 1982)
the sway of the machine, writes the German media scholar “The process works this
Friedrich A. Kittler, Nietzsche’s prose “changed from way. When I sit down to
arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from write a letter or start the
first draft of an article,
rhetoric to telegram style.”
I simply type on the
The human brain is almost infinitely malleable. keyboard and the words
People used to think that our mental meshwork, the appear on the screen....”
dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so

neurons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. But
brain researchers have discovered that that’s not the case. James Olds, a profes-
sor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at
George Mason University, says that even the adult mind “is very plastic.” Nerve
cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. “The brain,” according to
Olds, “has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.”
As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our “intellectual technol-
ogies”—the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we
inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies. The mechanical
clock, which came into common use in the 14th century, provides a compel-
ling example. In Technics and Civilization, the historian and cultural critic Lewis
Mumford described how the clock “disassociated time from human events and
helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable
sequences.” The “abstract framework of divided time” became “the point of refer-
ence for both action and thought.”
The clock’s methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the
scientific man. But it also took something away. As the late MIT computer scien-
tist Joseph Weizenbaum observed in his 1976 book, Computer Power and Human
Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, the conception of the world that emerged
from the widespread use of timekeeping instruments “remains an impoverished
version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that
formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality.” In deciding when
to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started
obeying the clock.
The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is reflected in the
changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. When the mechanical
clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating “like clockwork.”
Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating “like
computers.” But the changes, neuroscience tells us, go much deeper than meta-
phor. Thanks to our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level.
The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition.
In a paper published in 1936, the British mathematician Alan Turing proved that
a digital computer, which at the time existed only as a theoretical machine, could
be programmed to perform the function of any other information-processing
device. And that’s what we’re seeing today. The Internet, an immeasurably power-
ful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies.
It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our
calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV .
When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image.
It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital
gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media
it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as

we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scat-
ter our attention and diffuse our concentration.
The Net’s influence doesn’t end at the edges of a computer screen, either. As
people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional
media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations. Television programs add
text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles,
introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-
snippets. When, in March of this year, The New York Times decided to devote the
second and third pages of every edition to article abstracts, its design director,
Tom Bodkin, explained that the “shortcuts” would give harried readers a quick
“taste” of the day’s news, sparing them the “less efficient” method of actually turn-
ing the pages and reading the articles. Old media have little choice but to play by
the new-media rules.
Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or
exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today.
Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of
how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual ethic remains obscure.
About the same time that Nietzsche started using his typewriter, an earnest
young man named Frederick Winslow Taylor carried a stopwatch into the Midvale
Steel plant in Philadelphia and began a historic series of experiments aimed at
improving the efficiency of the plant’s machinists. With the approval of Midvale’s
owners, he recruited a group of factory hands, set them to work on various metal-
working machines, and recorded and timed their every movement as well as the
operations of the machines. By breaking down every job into a sequence of small,
discrete steps and then testing different ways of performing each one, Taylor
created a set of precise instructions—an “algorithm,” we might say today—for
how each worker should work. Midvale’s employees grumbled about the strict
new regime, claiming that it turned them into little more than automatons, but
the factory’s productivity soared.
More than a hundred years after the invention of the steam engine, the
Industrial Revolution had at last found its philosophy and its philosopher. Taylor’s
tight industrial choreography—his “system,” as he liked to call it—was embraced
by manufacturers throughout the country and, in time, around the world. Seeking
maximum speed, maximum efficiency, and maximum output, factory owners used
time-and-motion studies to organize their work and configure the jobs of their
workers. The goal, as Taylor defined it in his celebrated 1911 treatise, The Principles
of Scientific Management, was to identify and adopt, for every job, the “one best
method” of work and thereby to effect “the gradual substitution of science for rule
of thumb throughout the mechanic arts.” Once his system was applied to all acts
of manual labor, Taylor assured his followers, it would bring about a restructuring
not only of industry but of society, creating a utopia of perfect efficiency. “In the
past the man has been first,” he declared; “in the future the system must be first.”

Taylor’s system is still very much with us; it remains the ethic of industrial
manufacturing. And now, thanks to the growing power that computer engineers
and software coders wield over our intellectual lives, Taylor’s ethic is beginning to
govern the realm of the mind as well. The Internet is a machine designed for the
efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information,
and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best method”—the
perfect algorithm—to carry out every mental movement of what we’ve come to
describe as “knowledge work.”
Google’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California—the Googleplex—is the
Internet’s high church, and the religion practiced inside its walls is Taylorism.
Google, says its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, is “a company that’s founded
around the science of measurement,” and it is striving to “systematize every-
thing” it does. Drawing on the terabytes of behavioral data it collects through
its search engine and other sites, it carries out thousands of experiments a day,
according to the Harvard Business Review, and it uses the results to refine the
algorithms that increasingly control how people find information and extract
meaning from it. What Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for
the work of the mind.
The company has declared that its mission is “to organize the world’s informa-
tion and make it universally accessible and useful.” It seeks to develop “the perfect
search engine,” which it defines as something that “understands exactly what you
mean and gives you back exactly what you want.” In Google’s view, information
is a kind of commodity, a utilitarian resource that can be mined and processed
with industrial efficiency. The more pieces of information we can “access” and
the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers.
Where does it end? Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the gifted young men who
founded Google while pursuing doctoral degrees in computer science at Stanford,
speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intel-
ligence, a HAL -like machine that might be connected directly to our brains. “The
ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter,” Page said
in a speech a few years back. “For us, working on search is a way to work on arti-
ficial intelligence.” In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Brin said, “Certainly if
you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artifi-
cial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” Last year, Page
told a convention of scientists that Google is “really trying to build artificial intel-
ligence and to do it on a large scale.”
Such an ambition is a natural one, even an admirable one, for a pair of math
whizzes with vast quantities of cash at their disposal and a small army of computer
scientists in their employ. A fundamentally scientific enterprise, Google is moti-
vated by a desire to use technology, in Eric Schmidt’s words, “to solve problems
that have never been solved before,” and artificial intelligence is the hardest prob-
lem out there. Why wouldn’t Brin and Page want to be the ones to crack it?

Still, their easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supple-
mented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a
belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete
steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google’s world, the world
we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation.
Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is
just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.
The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines
is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning busi-
ness model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click
and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to
collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the propri-
etors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs
of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better.
The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow,
concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.
Maybe I’m just a worrywart. Just as there’s a tendency to glorify technologi-
cal progress, there’s a countertendency to expect the worst of every new tool or
machine. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates bemoaned the development of writing.
He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for
the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words
of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become
forgetful.” And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information
without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when
they are for the most part quite ignorant.” They would be “filled with the conceit
of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” Socrates wasn’t wrong—the new technology
did often have the effects he feared—but he was shortsighted. He couldn’t fore-
see the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information,
spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).
The arrival of Gutenberg’s printing press, in the 15th century, set off another
round of teeth gnashing. The Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico worried
that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men
“less studious” and weakening their minds. Others argued that cheaply printed
books and broadsheets would undermine religious authority, demean the work of
scholars and scribes, and spread sedition and debauchery. As New York University
professor Clay Shirky notes, “Most of the arguments made against the printing
press were correct, even prescient.” But, again, the doomsayers were unable to
imagine the myriad blessings that the printed word would deliver.
So, yes, you should be skeptical of my skepticism. Perhaps those who dismiss
critics of the Internet as Luddites or nostalgists will be proved correct, and from
our hyperactive, data-stoked minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discov-
ery and universal wisdom. Then again, the Net isn’t the alphabet, and although

it may replace the printing press, it produces something altogether different.

The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable
not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intel-
lectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces
opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act
of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own
inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf
argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.
If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice
something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay,
the playwright Richard Foreman eloquently described what’s at stake:
I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was
the complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated
and articulate personality—a man or woman who carried inside themselves
a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the
West. [But now] I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of
complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the pressure
of information overload and the technology of the “instantly available.”
As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman

concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we
connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a
button.”
I’m haunted by that scene in 2001. What makes it so poignant, and so weird,
is the computer’s emotional response to the disassembly of its mind: its despair
as one circuit after another goes dark, its childlike pleading with the astronaut—
“I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m afraid”—and its final reversion to what can only
be called a state of innocence. HAL ’s outpouring of feeling contrasts with the
emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about
their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel
scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm. In the world of 2001,
people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to
be a machine. That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely
on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelli-
gence that flattens into artificial intelligence.
Source: The Atlantic July-Aug. 2008: n.p. Web. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/

is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/.

WHAT IT SAYS
1. What point is Carr making with his reference to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A
Space Odyssey? Why do you suppose he begins with such a reference?
2. Carr mentions the media theorist Marshall McLuhan. What did McLuhan say
about media? What point is Carr making about the Internet and digital media
by invoking McLuhan’s ideas?
3. Carr mentions that many of his friends report the same problems that he
has encountered since becoming an avid Internet user. What is the point
of bringing up his friends here? Why is it significant that most are “literary
types”?
4. Carr discusses the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and his use of a typewriter
late in life. What effect did the typewriter have on Nietzsche’s writing? What is
Carr’s point in referring to this philosopher and his use of a typewriter?
5. Carr discusses Frederick Winslow Taylor and his role in improving the
efficiency of industry. Carr then draws an analogy between what Taylor did for
manufacturing and what Google is doing for the work of the mind. Explain the
analogy and what Carr is suggesting by making it.
HOW IT SAYS IT
1. Who is Carr’s intended audience? Describe his readers. What cues help
identify his readers and their interests?
2. Consider Carr’s use of anecdotal evidence. How does anecdote work to
advance his argument? Carr acknowledges its limitations. Why? What do you
suppose are the limitations of anecdote?
3. Carr uses analogy to make his argument. How do analogies help Carr make
his case? Why do you suppose he relies on analogy to such an extent?
WRITE ABOUT IT
1. Write an essay in which you consider your own Internet and other digital
media habits and how these affect your abilities to be a good citizen, friend,
and student.
2. Carr discusses the changes wrought on the reading, thinking, and
information-processing habits of digital users today, especially those of his
own generation. Perhaps you do not remember a time when it was different.
Write an essay in which you explore the different ways in which the Internet
and other digital media affect different generations.
3. Find the thesis statement in Carr’s essay and argue against it. In making your
counterargument, draw on the same kinds of support that Carr uses to make
his case: anecdote, scientific studies, and analogy.
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Academic Writing, Real World Topics (Concise Edition)

Book · July 2016

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

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Founded in 1985, Broadview Press remains a wholly independent publishing house.

© 2016 Michael Rectenwald and Lisa Carl

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Rectenwald, Michael, author

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Academic writing—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Carl, Lisa, author II. Title.

LB2369.R43 2016 808.02 C2016-902929-8

Broadview Press handles its own distribution in North America

Edited by Martin R. Boyne

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A Preface for Instructors...................................................................................... 13

Real World Topics.............................................................................................. 23

Academic Writing: Contributing to a Conversation.................................. 26

Writing with a Purpose.................................................................................... 33

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Parts of the Essay.............................................................................................. 58

Major Types of Academic Essay...................................................................... 71

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Structure and Visual Design: Putting It All Together............................... 83

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a. Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (2008)

Questions for Synthesis . . .................................................................... 154

Chapter 2. Learning in a Digital Age. . ......................................................... 155

a. Timothy D. Snyder, “Why Laptops in Class Are Distracting

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d. Eva Kassens-Noor, “Twitter as a Teaching Practice to

Questions for Synthesis . . .................................................................... 219

Chapter 3. Living in a Global Culture.......................................................... 221

a. Bryant Simon, “Global Brands Contend with Appreciation

Questions for Synthesis . . .................................................................... 294

Chapter 4. Assessing Armed Global Conflict............................................. 295

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a. Amy Lifland, “Cyberwar: The Future of Conflict” (2012)

Questions for Synthesis . . .................................................................... 348

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Guide to Academic Writing

Rhetoric That Speaks to Content

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Focus on Scholarly Writing

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Chapter Introductions Put Readings in Context

Instruction in Digital Media Literacy

Writing Instruction Designed for the Spectrum of Students

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Other Features of This Text

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 “Write about It” questions after each reading. Each essay is

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Two ideas to keep in mind:

 Each discipline has its own conventions. Each major academic

“Write about It” questions after each reading. Each essay is

Each discipline has its own conventions. Each major academic

In undergraduate courses, to write psychology research papers,

acknowledges what others have written on the subject already, and

ERIC : journals, magazines, other periodicals

Research needs, methods, and formats vary by type of writing

read a good deal about your topic;

changes the reader’s mind about an issue;

knowledgeable people may take any number of positions within a topic

misunderstood the issue,

establish that your topic is interesting, relevant, and timely;

empirical evidence/logical reasoning (logos),