Sample Summary Plans for Carr and Cascio

Overall Controlling Idea:

In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that our increasing reliance on the internet and other digital technology is actually—and worrisomely—altering our ability to read, to think, and perhaps to be fully human.

Main Supporting Points:

  • Carr notes that his own personal experience and the personal experience of others deeply involved with language suggest a flattening of reading and cognitive ability brought on by internet reading.
  • The author introduces the research of cognitive scientists to support the notion that the material context of our reading and thinking does indeed modify the ways we read and think; likewise, he provides historical examples to illustrate the kinds of shifts new techniques and technologies can cause in our ability to grasp experience and make meaning.
  • The ideal of perfect, machine-like efficiency upon which the internet and many of the systems of contemporary cultureare based seems on a course to transform individuals into less reflective, less responsive, and less “human” beings.

Overall Controlling Idea:

Jamais Cascio argues in “Get Smart” that by tapping into the power of digital technology and pharmacology, humans can now direct their own evolution by enhancing their individual cognitive abilities and thus improving the prospects for the whole human species.

Main Supporting Points:

  • The author asserts that our current digital technologies give us a glimpseof the ways such technologies in the future may not only vastly improve our abilities to sort and organize increased amounts of information and to model and predict complex natural and human phenomena, but may also radically enhance even the most everyday forms of thought and discussion.
  • Similarly, Cascio points to drugs like modafinil as models of how before long pharmacological agents might significantly, and routinely, improve our abilities to concentrate and stay alert.

General Model of a Thesis Statement for a Summary/Response/Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Like the One You’re Being Asked to Write for This Assignment

Please note: you needn’t cram all the elements of a thesis like this into a single sentence as I do below, but by the end of your introductory paragraph, both the controlling idea for each summarized article and the majoridea you wish to center your response on should be clear to your reader.

In “Article A” writer X argues that thus and so is the case while in “Article B” writer Y asserts that such and such is actually the way it is; in the end, however, Y not only oversimplifies elements of his argument but fails to take opposing views into account, OR overall, both X and Y consider objections skeptical readers might have, but Y does a more effective job of responding to those objections, OR while X offers more effective evidence for her views, she seldom takes the questions her readers might have into account, OReven thoughboth essays offer some valid ideas, Y bases his argument on too many unqualified generalizations to be credible,OR. . . .

(Over, please, for a sample introductory paragraph that incorporates all this material. You’ll note that it’s the last two sentences of this introductory paragraph that state the essay’s thesis.)

Sample Introductory Paragraph for a Summary/Response/Rhetorical Evaluation Essay Like Our Essay Assignment One

It’s likely that Colorado residents, by now, are getting pretty tired of “Rocky Mountain High” jokes, but, in fact, the winds of change are blowing through Colorado—and Washington state, too—and the aroma carried on those winds has a distinctly skunky tang to it. Colorado and Washington, after all, are the first two states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Moreover, roughly half the states in the nation now provide some legal framework for allowing medical marijuana use. It would seem the times really are a changin’. However, these changes are hardly being welcomed in all quarters; rather, moves to legalize, or at least decriminalize, the “killer weed” are being met with plenty of concern and a good deal of push-back. While some commentators—such as Eric Schlosser in his New York Times op-ed “Make Peace with Pot”—argue that America’s decades old approach to marijuana use—hardline legal prohibition—is ineffective, costly, cruel, and unjustified, others—Michele Leonhart in her Washington Post piece “Not So Fast on Legalization” among them—claim that while the worst scare stories from the Reefer Madness era may not be accurate, there are still good public health and criminal justice reasons to keep marijuana illegal. It’s fair to say that both Schlosser and Leonhart offer plenty of food for thought, but Leonhart does a more thorough job of responding to likely readerobjections.