ipl-logo

Dwight Macdonald Reading And Thought Summary

881 Words4 Pages

In “Reading and Thought” by Dwight Macdonald, Macdonald raises the idea of reading deeply and how our society has changed its reading style. He points out that our modern society constantly reads irrelevant information in articles, newspapers, or magazines in our daily lives. A term called “functional curiosity” is a person’s interest in being amused, entertained or wanting to know what’s happening around the world. According to Henry Luce, the creator of Time magazine, “Functional Curiosity grows as the number of educated peoples grows.” Macdonald argues that being “functionally curious” is not functional because it does not help the individual function. These articles, magazines or newspapers do not help the reader become wealthier, politically known, or a better person. The author believes that reading irrelevantly …show more content…

Reading purposely can help the reader develop connections to the articles because they are taking their time to read and develop these feelings that can relate to their personal lives. I disagree with Macdonald because I believe that there are benefits to not taking the time to read and reading ‘irrelevant’ articles. It can help ones’ personal life because they are able to find more media that can help their personal life and it can also help improve them to be a well-rounded person. Our modern society has evolved a lot since the 16th century, it has become a fast-paced environment from technology and the Industrial Revolution. Many people do not have the time to sit down and read a four-page article, and the result of this has changed how our media presents their media. Articles are very quick and straight to the point, although they are very short, many readers skim through it because they may be multitasking. Readers can be scrolling through their social media while eating breakfast, on their way to work or another activity that doesn’t require their full attention. Even though the reader is trying to read

Show More
Related
361 Words | 2 Pages

In “Why Literature Matters”, the Dana Gioia emphasizes the importance of literature. Using logos and pathos, he justifies his claim on how the waning interest in literature is affecting America’s society in many negative ways. In the sixth paragraph, he uses logos to appeal to the working class by referring to a poll in 2001 taken by the National Association of Manufacturers. The poll was taken on their members about the skill deficiencies among their workers.

Read More
437 Words | 2 Pages

Dana Gioia creates a passage encouraging, influencing, and informing the reader of the recent literacy rate decline. He begins by verbalizing the problem, then moving to how it connects to business, then finally the decline affecting politics. Gioia uses evidence such as facts and quotes to support this idea and drive the thoughts into the reader’s head. These strategies, build his argument and assists with persuading the reader on how this decline will have a negative effect on society.

Read More
144 Words | 1 Pages

Carr expresses that once deep readers, now favor capsules and skimming over great lengths. This change doesn’t result in a culture that reads less in fact intake is greater, but less reflective and detailed.

Read More
771 Words | 4 Pages

You don't stay for nothing” (51). The value of literature cannot be measured because of the freedom it gives to people that appreciate it

Read More
1199 Words | 5 Pages

People are getting used to reading online and now expect to have everything introduced as a short analysis. In the excerpt essay, according to Nicholas Carr, using the internet for reading and researching may affect

Read More
504 Words | 3 Pages

By labeling the diminished percentage of those who read as “worrisome” and “troubling” Gioia is able to convey the negativity of the lack of literacy. Upon reading the article, and mulling over how Gioia feels about America’s current reading levels, a reader is inclined to acknowledge that illiteracy is detrimental to American society and something that needs

Read More
200 Words | 1 Pages

People can bend truth, but numbers do not lie. With facts like “38 percent of employers complained that local schools inadequately taught reading comprehension”, people cannot deny the problem. Facts like these hold up the arguement by proving there are negative effects of reading. To cement her arguement, Dana Gioia talks about the social effects of not reading.

Read More
839 Words | 4 Pages

George Orwell’s “desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after” can also be seen through Ian Leslie’s strategies in his book, Curious. In the book, Leslie demonstrates excellent use of rhetorical strategies to convince his reader of his thesis that knowledge is the force which powers beneficial curiosity. Leslie even goes as far as to say that curiosity without any previous knowledge can be dangerous. Throughout the book, Ian Leslie attempts to push the world in the direction of his thoughts, and convince them that knowledge truly is the key to positive curiosity.

Read More
948 Words | 4 Pages

They also gain an understanding of that period in time, how people were treated during that period in time and what went on during that period of time. When reading a novel it is more enjoyable to read than reading a factual report or article. It has been proven that if you find something enjoyable you learn and understand the topic better and in more detail compared to if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing. From my own experiences I can relate to the evidence.

Read More
2213 Words | 9 Pages

Journal Entry #1: Why Read? In the essay, “Why Read?” the author illustrates the meaning of reading and the benefits reading brings through the roles readers may play. To begin, the first task of readers discussed in this piece is to preserve literature’s content.

Read More
540 Words | 3 Pages

Hidden Intellectualism In Hidden Intellectualism, Gerald Graff introduces the reader to his article with the comment that street smart students are being labelled nonintellectual by colleges and schools professors since they do poorly in academic work and their interest is centered into sports, magazines, and video games; nonetheless, these nonintellectual students seem more intellectual than those called themselves intellectual. As a first argument, the author claims that being interested in sport and novel reading more than school work readings could be another form of being intellectual. As a personal example, Graff writes “Until I entered college, I hated books and cared only for sports” (265).

Read More
696 Words | 3 Pages

According to this statement the readers can conclude that the main reason for reading concentration disturbance is the internet. In terms of the scientific research, the article provides the research by the British Library and U.K educational consortium which states “They found that people using the sites exhibited ‘a form of skimming activity,’ hopping from one source to another rarely returning to any source they’d already visitied” (Carr, 2008). From this statement we can understand that there are numbers of attractive information piled on one page, people have a hard time choosing which one to read, resulting them to skim and jump to one another. From these couple examples, it can be concluded that the author of this essay is strongly attempting to convince the readers in his idea of internet disturbing people’s concentration. However, the essay itself is extremely biased, because of the fact that there is no information about benefits of using the internet and reading online.

Read More
269 Words | 2 Pages

In this article “ Why literature matters” by Dana Gioia explains that American art has changed. It points out the fact that literary knowledge is declining. Some of the changes that were pointed out is that most people no longer read. His main purpose is to encourage people to begin to read again and that will help them improve their intellectual level. In the article Gioia expresses reasoning and includes evidence of the importance of reading.

Read More
1206 Words | 5 Pages

Carr (2008) declared, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of the words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (n.p.). Reading online has caused many people to develop the sense they need to read quickly and efficiently rather than slowly and completely. People have developed the skill of skimming through information without reading thoroughly and without understanding the information fully. Carr

Read More
720 Words | 3 Pages

Everyone knows that reading is important, but have you ever asked yourself why is that so? Reading is one of the most beneficial and practical activities that a human being can do. Unfortunately it is a disappointment that people these days read less. As we know, books were the main source of entertainment centuries ago, but with the widespread of technological advances such as the cinema, television, internet, among others, many people left their books on the bookshelf. The purpose of this speech is to present the benefits and the importance of reading.

Read More

More about Dwight Macdonald Reading And Thought Summary

Open Document