15 Examples of Rhetorical Tools

1. Personification
"Dave, my mind is going," HAL says, forlornly. "I can feel it. I can feel it."
-This is a quote Carr uses from 2001: A Space Odyssey where the computer HAL has human-like feelings and responses. It's effective because it shows how depending on technology too much may lead to it being more human than us.

2. Personification
even the adult mind "is very plastic."
-This shows the mind having the characteristic of being "plastic" and changeable (even on the move). This isn't effective because it comes from a quote that's a little too technical for the common person, and a bit hard to totally understand.

3. Figurative language
The internet...[is] becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.
-This lists many different common everyday items we use, helping to illustrate how much we can do with technology. It's effective because it shows just how wide-sweeping computers and technology are becoming, and how much some people depend on them.

4. Diction
gewgaws
-Example of idiosyncratic diction because it's jargin from the computer world, and it's effective because even though I've never heard it before I understood it from the context, so it shows that the author knows the atmosphere's slang (and is therefore well educated on the subject).

5. Imagery
the crazy quilt of Internet media
-Example of imagery because the word "quilt" helps show how encompassing technology is becoming and how much it touches and effects in our life, so it's and effective use of imagery.

6. Taylor created a set of precise instructions - and "algorithm," we might say today
-Example of allusion because it's referring to a past experiment, but also uses analogy because it uses the commonly known word "algorithm" to explain this example from the past. I'd say effective because it shows the author's knowledge of the topic well-enough to explain it in modern-day terms and comparisons.

7. its legions of programmers are intent on finding the "one best method"
-Diction showing that the technological world is starting to overcome humanity, and the word "legions" helps give it a spooky, overpowering feel, so it's effective.

8. Google's headquarters...the Internet's high church
-Figurative language being used to explain just how important and critical some people view technology. Perhaps a little ineffective because it's perhaps a bit too extreme (comparing Google projects to religion).

9. What Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind.
-Metaphor showing the comparison between 'then' and 'now'. Effective because it shows quite accurately that both projects (though quite different) are similar.

10. In Google's view, information is a kind of commodity, a utilitarian resource that can be mined and processed with industrial efficiency.
-Personification because it's describing knowledge as something that can be found and collected as easily as we may collect and mine an earthly mineral. Effective because it shows how revolutionary Google is thinking (which shows how this could be the beginning of machines becoming too smart).

11. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed.
-Analogy trying to compare ambiguity as a computer bug/problem. Ineffective because ambiguity is too big a word, and would be more effective if substituted with a word that more people know.

12. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.
-Metaphor showing how the human mind can be seen simply as a computer, something that can be improved simply by adding something too it as easily as updating a computer. Effective because obviously our minds are a bit more complex than computers, and we don't want machines to become so much smarter than us that our minds become obsolete.

13. Socrates bemoaned the development of writing.
-Allusion referring to how people used to complain about the written word way back when. Effective because it addresses a counter-argument (of how someone always opposes progress, so computers are not only good but revolutionary), but also ineffective because he addresses this, but doesn't really solve it either.

14. we risk turning into "'pancake people'" - spread wide and thin as we connect with the vast network of information
-Imagery comparing people to pancakes, easily shaped and spread however information (technology) wants. Effective because it's very vivid and shows us helpless we are when we depend too much on network information.

15. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they're following the steps of an algorithm.
-Imagery showing from a futuristic movie how much more human-like machines become than people, and how much more machine-like humans become due to technology that develops too quickly and that we depend on too much. Very effective because this is how Carr started his paper (and how he ends it). And because this comes from a 'futuristic' movie, we can't help but wonder if it's a prophecy of doom for us if we don't slow down and change (if the movie got other things right, then why wouldn't it get this right too?).