Dorsainvil 1

Rebecca Dorsainvil

Professor L. Pogue

ENC 1101

16 June 2021

1.8 Evaluating a commentary

The theme of this article is that the internet is the primary source of information and

affects the ability of people to read books and other long pieces of writing. Although this

method of learning provides efficient knowledge, it squashes the experience of the learning

process. The first problem of Carr is that he is not able to concentrate on reading. He gives an

account of how internet text is required to make the experience of browsing profitable and fast.

He explains how the internet is benefiting some people by giving them money and degrading

their attention spans and critical thinking skills. Carr concludes his remarks by saying that the

internet has become an essential information source.

The second paragraph of the article contains an anecdote that strongly supports the theme

of the author. In this anecdote, he explains how he feels, "something has been tinkering with

[his] brain." He describes how he used to spend many hours strolling through long prose

stretches, "spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose," yet now he "get[s] fidgety" and

"feel[s] as if [he is] always dragging [his] wayward brain back to the text."(Carr 424). This

anecdote is helpful because it demonstrates how the internet has become an efficient source of

information and replaced the old book reading method.

The weakest anecdote supporting the author's theme is portrayed when carr appeals to

credibility by demonstrating how he benefited from the internet as a writer and how he finds
 Dorsainvil 2

himself "foraging in the web's info-thickets" for regeneration needs (Carr 425). This is a weak

anecdote because he demonstrates himself as an average use of the internet, a source of

information which he is praising.

 Dorsainvil 3

Work cited

Carr Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” They Say/I Say, with Readings. 4 ed., edited by

Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst, W. W. Norton &

Company, 2018, pp. 424-439.