Should Everybody Write Analysis

In “Should Everybody Write?” by Dennis Baron —a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois— argues that a lot more people are writing due to technological advancement. Earlier technology such as the pen, typewriter, and the printing press have expanded who gets to write. Today, the computer and the internet allows anyone to be a writer as Baron simply states “thanks to the computer and the internet, anyone can be a writer: all you need is a laptop, a Wi-Fi card, and a place to sit at Starbucks” (840). People can “bypass the usual quality controls set by reviewers, editors and publishers” (841). While nowadays anyone can publish their writing without trouble it wasn’t always that way. Writing was criticized in it 's early

Writing received a lot of criticism, especially from Socrates, a Greek philosopher. According to Socrates writing was mnemonic and not interactive. Socrates claims “the ultimate effect of writing will be to weaken memory, not strengthen it” (842). According to Baron “we remember this because Plato wrote it down” (842). Socrates views are very disputable since he claims that writing will weaken the memory, yet we know about him because his student Plato wrote it down. Writing was a communication technology. Henry David Thoreau, a pencil maker and 19th century author, suggest “not everyone should write, because not everyone has something to say” (842). While Baron claims “Every new communication technology has the capacity to expand the set of who gets to write and talk, who gets to publish and be heard” (842). The expansion of the authors club is just a by-product of technology. A point was made by Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish philosopher, he complained “that the explosion of reading matter made possible by the invention of the steam press in 1810 led to a decline in the quality of what there was to read” (845). Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist, pointed out “that from the