5 Questions

1.  The opposing viewpoint of my article is that eBooks are bad and real books are better.
2.  The ethos of her article is her personal experience of being crippled. It could be more effective/ relatable if more of the population was in her situation.
3.  The logos of her article is that people who are older, disabled, or can't see as well can use these.  While this is logical, not many people can relate.
4.  The pathos of her article is that she uses sympathy to make the audience feel bad for her and put them in her shoes.  I think this is an effective way to use pathos.
5.  Although Schoop has a strong argument, I think Carr's is more effective because her argument only targets individuals that are disabled, older, immobile, or have bad eyesight.

Debate Partner Article Analysis

                  The tone is this article is very factual and a little bland.  For example, the author says “The Mellon Foundation has prepared studies showing that between 1970 and 2000 the typical US academic research library will lose nearly all its purchasing power [Cummings 1992].”  He uses facts and statistics from studies to prove his point. This method can be effective in some ways, but he isn’t communicating to the audience directly very much.  He also shows graphs about Library Economics, which further shows his straightforward tone.  The author also throws this fact into the article: “Only 10% of what the university spends on its library is paying for the original production of information, in summary. If we imagine that a new distribution system could be introduced which sent electronic information directly to the desks of students and scholars, 90% of the money in the system is available to pay for it.”  He has a very factual and neat style of writing.  He breaks up the sections of his article by numbers, for example the section numbered one is labeled introduction, the section numbered two is labeled advantages of digital libraries, and so on.  These breaks in his writing make it easy for the audience to follow and separate one of his ideas from another.  I think this type of organization and style is good because it helps break up a lengthy article.  I also like the insertion of graphs and pictures because it provides the reader a visual to understand the facts and statistics being stated.  He also addresses the issue of who will run the online libraries by saying, “it is likely that provision of current material will move back towards the publishers.”  The author had a very strong argument for online libraries.  He essentially covered every area of question from who will run it, how much it will cost, how beneficial they are, and more.  However, he did not address the opposing argument of the article very much, or noticeably.  He had strong facts and points about his opinion, but he never brought in the opinion of people who are for libraries.  This could potentially weaken his argument because it is his complete biased opinion for online libraries instead of points from the opposing argument.  Throughout the entire article, the author stays consistent in his tone and his style.  The entire article is broken up by numbered sections along with pictures and graphs, and his tone remains factual and perhaps “boring”.  Despite this, he makes an extremely strong argument for the use of online books as opposed to real libraries.

Author's Tone and Style Analysis

                  The author, Fiona Shoop, has a somewhat pitiful tone in her article.  The first sentence of the entire article says “I’m disabled.”  This immediately grabs the reader’s attention and causes the audience to have sympathy for her.  She continues this sort of tone until about the third paragraph where I believe her tone changes.  She goes from a kind of sad tone, to a more inspirational and happy tone.  Shoop talks about how she is an author, publisher, editor, and book reviewer, and how her disablement of her left hand has made her job a more difficult task.  She says that while she may love hard copies of book, the eBook allows her to still actually read instead of nothing.  I think this tone is more uplifting and continues to keep the audience’s attention because she changes tones.  She talks about how grateful she is to the eBook and how much it helped her, as well as how much it could help others.  This is where I think the main point of her article comes into play.  Shoop argues that eBooks make it possible for the disabled, older population, and perhaps people in hospitals to read.  She uses paragraph breaks where she would like to end a point and begin a new one.  Also, she inserts many facts into parenthesis to add examples or extra information.  For instance, she says “It’s actually changed how I produce eBooks, limiting how many links we normally have because it’s awkward for people with hand issues (arthritis or loos of fingers for example) to click back and forth.”  She inserts this information as part of her style of writing.  Shoop’s goal, in my opinion, is to strengthen her argument with this extra tidbit or information.  It gives the reader a visual example of what she means when she says “people with hand issues…”   Towards the end of her article, Shoop inserts one paragraph that briefly talks about the negatives on eBooks.  This changes her tone yet again to show that she sees both sides of the debate.  She talks about this issues as almost small annoyances instead of real problems.  For example, she says “My main problem with eBooks are bad conversions, especially the dreaded hyphen, which is either missing, so two words are joined….”  While this is a negative thing about eBooks, she specifically inserts an argument that isn’t very strong, to make her point look more valid.  This tactic is very effective I believe because the audience reads this, and thinks that there may not be as many bad things about eBooks that people may think.  A combination of Shoop’s tone and style helps to convey her point, even if the audience is not older, disabled, or homebound.  Her strongest points are when she uses sympathy to draw the audience in, they a more uplifting tone to show how she overcame this “heartbreaking” disability in her life.  The style she uses helps her argument because she shows both sides (although her opposing argument was weak) to show how much stronger her point was.  With all of these factors, Shoop constructs a convincing article.

Analysis of Article- Austin & Heidi

        These articles discuss how the internet is making us smarter, and how it is making us dumber.  In the article titled "How the Internet is Altering Your Mind", the author uses ethos by mentioning Carr and his studies.  Since reading The Shallows, as well as seeing the facts and studies shown in this article, the author is given credibility.  I think it is effective to me personally because I have read The Shallows, and give the book strong credibility.  The author uses logos by talking about different authors such as Carr to explain his point and prove both sides of the argument.  He uses pathos by relating the internet use to every day life.  I do not think this is the strongest way to use pathos.  The author could have instead used his voice and opinion more, so the audience could relate to him. 

         In the article titled "How the Internet is ruining your memory", the author discusses how much harder it is to remember things, now that the internet is so prominent.  He uses ethos by inserting many statistics and facts about how people reported not remembering phone numbers or addresses since they got a cell phone or computer.   I think this is effective because it shows real numbers of people who seem to not be able to remember things.  The author uses pathos by asking the audience the question of what they can remember.  I think this is very effective because he is including the audience and relating his article to their every day lives.  He uses logos by talking about how everything is just a click away.  Since technology and the internet is so widely used today, the audience can relate to what he is saying.

        I think the article titled "How the Internet is ruining your memory" is more effective.  I think it is more effective because the first article has a lot of facts and ideas from other people, but not much voice of the actual author is shown.  Also, I feel the second article did a great job in engaging the audience by asking questions and keeping the interest.  The second article had statistics and numbers of every day people that felt the same as the author, giving him credibility.  I think these elements would be more likely to persuade an audience.

Chapter 8 Argument

                  In chapter 8, Carr talks about Google, how it has progressed, and mainly, how they tried to make online prints of an immense amount of books.  He explains that the Google company got the okay from multiple different libraries, but was later sued for copyright by the individual authors.  The authors argued that Google did not get exclusive permission from them to print their books online, saying that it was causing them to lose massive amounts of money because the books were free online.  Google ended up working out a contract where the authors got paid a portion from them, keeping the authors happy for the moment.  He also argues that online books promote skimming through books or only reading important parts instead of fully absorbing the importance of the actual text. 

                  Carr argues pathos when he says that putting a book online is to “dismember” it.  This shows that Carr does not agree with digitalizing books.  I think that he feels that when books are put online, they loose meaning.  Carr says that online books create more of a distraction for people because they are jumping from link to link rather than staying on the book and reading.  He also says that books on Google usually only have excerpts of books instead of the entire text.  This reinforces the idea of skimming through text and not fully absorbing the book.

                  Carr uses ethos by basing his argument around Google.  I believe this is an example of ethos because Google is a well known and very popularly used search engine.  It is used so widely, so it isn’t a stretch to say anyone reading the book would understand and believe Carr.  Also, Google is very helpful and usually accurate, giving it much credibility.

                  Carr widely appeals to logos when he talks about how online books have had a negative effect.  I think that people can relate and understand when Carr says how much different reading online is than reading an actual book.  Most people probably don’t even realize how distracted they get while reading online as opposed to reading a hard copy, so when Carr brings it up, it is relatable.  Also, he points out how much less information you gain from just reading a snippet of a book.  Google allows you to just read a summary or important parts of a book, without getting the full effect, and you would not even know it.

                  I think Carr brings up a very important point in this chapter.  He shows how different it is to read online than to read in person.  When reading, I don’t realize this huge difference while in the moment but looking back, I can remember a book I read in fifth grade much better than I can remember an article I read online last week.  This is evidence in my personal experience that actually reading a book has a bigger and longer lasting effect than online books.  I am so easily distracted by the web while online, it is hard to take the time to focus on an “ebook” for a long period of time.