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Professor Avner
RWS 100
18 September 2017
Public Thinking Essay
Writing has become an everyday part of our lives, whether it’s texting your best friend,
posting on Facebook or Twitter, or even note taking in class. Journalist Clive Thompson, in the
excerpt Public Thinking, (September 12th, 2013) argues that social media is improving the way
we write, think, argue and share ideas. Thompson supports his claim that writing is becoming
more integrated into our lives with his use of statistical evidence, that before the internet, the lack
of connections reduced the rate of technological development using historical evidence, and that
writing something online for a public audience forces you to to adhere to higher standards of
writing using an appeal to authority. The excerpt talks about how writing has evolved along with
technological development and that it not only improves people’s ability to communicate, but in
a way has improved literacy. Thompson’s purpose is to persuade the reader that the use of
technology is advantageous in today’s society. The author writes in a compelling tone to draw the
readers into the topic and capture their attention with the use of facts and rhetorical devices.
Thompson employs statistical evidence to convince his audience that technology is not
negatively influencing the way we write. Thompson reinforces his claim with factual evidence
by stating that, “Each day, we compose 154 billion e-mails, more than 500 million
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tweets on Twitter and over 1 million blog posts and 1.3 million blog comments on WordPress
alone just in the United States” (47). With technological development at its peak these numbers
will grow exponentially. The numerical evidence are examples of writing found on the internet.
This supports Thompson’s claim because if you really think about it, we are adding to this
avalanche of writing with every keystroke. Thompson uses statistics to support his claim because
you cannot undermine the validity of the information, therefore strengthening his claim. These
quantitative statistics really put into perspective that technology has altered the amount of words
we write by making it more prevalent on a day to day basis.
Another type of evidence Thompson uses to support his claim in the excerpt is historical
evidence. People tend to listen more to things that have taken place in the past because a
successful precedent is a solid base for the future. Thompson understands that the internet is an
