Rhetorical Analysis Of Smarter Than You Think By Clive Thompson

Comedian Jon Stewart states “The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom”. In the chapter “Public Thinking” from the book Smarter Than You Think, Clive Thompson addresses the topic of modern day technology, and argues that the internet is an effective and useful tool which positively impacts the way people think. Thompson is a contributing writer for The New York Times and Wired Magazine, as well as author of the book Smarter Than You Think with degrees in Political Science and English. He supports this claim by referring to Ory Okolloh, a law student and blogger about Kenyan politics and corruption, and describing her positive experience with the internet. He then refers to the “audience effect” which can clarify the mind and change one’s performance. Next, he supports his claim by addressing how writing changes an individual’s cognitive behavior and the cognitive effort generating text does to one’s memory. Thompson finally introduces the impact of the theory of multiples. In my analysis of Thompson’s text, I will examine, analyze and evaluate his central claims and the evidence he uses to support these claims to prove that the internet has helped us as writers. Thompson’s purpose is to persuade the audience that the internet is a central part of learning in order to improve the quality of

He states that the internet is “the world’s most powerful engine for putting heads together” (Thompson 61) which means that the internet will close the gap between distant inventions and innovators. He also argues that the world’s most influential machine is “the Internet, which encourages public thinking and resolves multiples on a much larger scale and at a pace more dementedly rapid” (Thompson 61). By having the internet as a place to make connections between ideas, inventors, and innovators, it will not only expand their ideas but will also prevent the loss of