Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Does The Internet Make You Dumb'

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Logos, or the means of persuasion by use of reasoning, is a very effective rhetorical strategy that appeals to the reader’s logic. Not only is logos Aristotle’s favorite form of rhetoric but, it is the most widely used rhetorical form. Logos is composed of both inductive and deductive reasoning and in “Does the internet make you dumb” Nicholas car uses both to prove his thesis that the internet is turning us into “superficial and scatterbrained thinkers
(Carr 218). He believes the internet is a huge distraction and is being overused. In “Does the internet make you dumb” Nicholas car uses Inductive reasoning. According to Evan Heit and Caren Rotello, “Research on inductive reasoning has examined the effects of varying the number of premises
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Deductive reasoning, according to Handley in his article “Fluency And Belief Bias In Deductive Reasoning: New Indices For Old Effects”, is when the writer of the essay provides a “logical argument”(Handley) for the readers. The first premise Carr uses is that we can only learn something when we are one hundred percent focused. Carr writes “Only when we pay deep attention to a new piece of information are we able to associate it meaningfully and systematically ‘with knowledge already established in memory”(Carr 217). Carr uses deductive reasoning leading the reader think about his conclusion that the internet is making us dumber. This is because if people are constantly being distracted they can never truly learn material because they are not dedicating all of their brain space to it. The second Premise that Carr uses is the fact that our brain can rewire itself overtime according to incoming stimuli. Carr cites an experiment where a primate’s neural circuits are changed in response to experience. This premise is deductive reasoning because it leads the reader to come to the conclusion that the brain would rewire itself after long hours using the internet systematically making large portions of the world who use the internet more scattered brained. Lastly, Carr used the premise of the innate bias of the human brain to help lead to his main argument. Carr suggests that the innate

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