Nicholas Carr was born in 1959 and first gained widespread recognition with his 2003 Harvard Business Review article “IT doesn’t Matter.” He has continued to write about technology, culture, and economics for the Guardian, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, the New Republic, the Financial Times, and Technology Review. He is the author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008) and Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (2004). Carr’s most recent book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, was nominated for a 2011 Pulitzer Prize. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” originally appeared in the Atlantic in 2008. Carr expanded the article into a book-length exploration of the topic—The Shallows—publishedthree years later. As in much of his work, Carr examines the impact of technological innovation, specifically in computing, on the way we live now, asking readers to step out of the fast-running stream of computing progress—from the expansion of information technology to cloud computing to our ever-increasing time spent online—and think about what we’re doing and what effects it has. As you read this essay, note the way Carr slows us down and helps us look around. NICHOLAS CARR Is Google Making Us Stupid? “Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bownam 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 malfunctioning 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 lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative of 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 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 reading 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 spending 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 libr.

1. Nicholas Carr was born in 1959 and first gained widespread
recognition with his 2003 Harvard Business Review article “IT
doesn’t Matter.” He has continued to write about technology,
culture, and economics for the Guardian, the Atlantic, the New
York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, the New Republic,
the Financial Times, and Technology Review. He is the author
of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
(2008) and Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the
Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (2004). Carr’s most recent
book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,
was nominated for a 2011 Pulitzer Prize.
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” originally appeared in the
Atlantic in 2008. Carr expanded the article into a book-length
exploration of the topic—The Shallows—publishedthree years
later. As in much of his work, Carr examines the impact of
technological innovation, specifically in computing, on the way
we live now, asking readers to step out of the fast-running
stream of computing progress—from the expansion of
information technology to cloud computing to our ever-
increasing time spent online—and think about what we’re doing
and what effects it has. As you read this essay, note the way
Carr slows us down and helps us look around.
NICHOLAS CARR
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
“Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop,
Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable
astronaut Dave Bownam 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
malfunctioning 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

2. 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 lengthy article used to be easy. My mind
would get caught up in the narrative of 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 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 reading 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 spending 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
writing emails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching
videos and listening to pod-casts, or just tripping from link to
link. […] 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 (Carr 91-92).
Works Cited
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” 50 Essays: A
Portable Anthology. Ed. Samuel Cohen. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2014. 91-102. Print.
1. Who wrote this essay?
2. Is he an expert? How do you know?
3. What is the larger context for this essay?

3. 4. How does the author feel about this context? Does the writer
think technology is enhancing society? Why or why not?
5. What is the author’s purpose? How do you know?
6. Who is the author’s intended audience? How do you know?
7. What strategies does the author use to get his message
across?
8. Are these strategies effective? Why or why not?
9. Was the author successful in reaching his goals? Why or why
not?
a. Did he reach his intended audience?
b. Did he achieve his purpose?
c. Did his message get through to his audience?
d. Is he credible? Why or why not?
e. Does he understand the context of the society in which he is
writing?
English 100T, Summer 2015
Rhetorical Analysis Essay Assignment
Length: Five paragraphs; at least two full pages
Purpose: To analyze the rhetorical situation of an essay
Audience: Your instructor and classmates (an academic
audience)
Genre: Academic essay
Directions:
1. Pick one of the following essays from 50 Essays:
a. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by
Sherman Alexie (pages 15-19)
b. “Turkeys in the Kitchen” by Dave Barry (pages 72-75)
c. “Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee
(pages 290-294)
2. Read the essay very carefully. Then write a five-paragraph
essay about the essay you selected.
a. Paragraph One: Introduction
i. Introduce the essay you will be writing about.
1. Include the author’s name and the title of the essay.
2. Give a brief (no more than two sentences) description of what

4. the essay is about
ii. End your introduction with a thesis statement
1. Your thesis should indicate the three elements of the
rhetorical situation you intend to analyze
2. Your thesis should indicate why it is important to consider
these elements (what people can expect to learn by reading your
essay)
3. Example: By examining Carr as an author, exploring the
context in which he wrote, and considering the message he
conveys through his essay, his audience can arrive at a deeper
understanding of how technology influences the intellectual
experiences of people in the United States.
b. Paragraphs Two through Four: Main Body
i. You must write three paragraphs in the Main Body of your
essay. Each paragraph should address one part of the rhetorical
situation (purpose, audience, message, context, or author).
ii. Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that
indicates the rhetorical element you will be discussing.
iii. Each paragraph should include supporting details from the
essay you are analyzing.
1. You must include two short quotations (no more than one
sentence each).
2. Your quotations must be properly cited in MLA format.
iv. Questions to consider in the Main Body of the essay
(depending on the topics of your paragraphs):
1. What is the essay’s context? What does the essay tell us
about the values of the society in which it was created? How do
you know?
2. Who is the author? Why should we trust the author? How do
you know the author is credible? What qualifies the author to
write about the topic? Is the author an expert? How do you
know?
3. What is the author’s purpose? How do you know?
4. Who is the essay’s intended audience? How do you know?
5. Does the author have an agenda? How is the essay
manipulating its viewers? What does the author want readers to

5. learn? How does the author want people to react? How do you
know?
v. Each paragraph should end with a transitional sentence that
foreshadows the next paragraph.
c. Paragraph Five: Conclusion
i. Restate your thesis (using different words)
ii. Summarize your main points
iii. Leave your readers thinking:
iv. Based on your analysis, did the author achieve his or her
rhetorical goals? Why or why not? How could the author have
been more successful in achieving these goals?
3. Do not use either the first person perspective (I, me, my, we,
us, our) or the second person perspective (you, your, yours)
anywhere in this paper. This paper must be written entirely in
the third person perspective.
4. You must include an MLA-style works cited page. Any paper
failing to include a works cited page will receive a ZERO.
5. Writing Center Requirement: You must visit the Writing
Center with a draft of this paper. Failure to visit the Writing
Center will result in a 10-point deduction from your overall
score on the paper.