Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The future of literature
Advantages and disadvantages of ebooks
Advantages and disadvantages of ebooks
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The future of literature
Arguing For the Literate Future Writer, Anna Quindlen, in her argumentative essay, “Reading Has a Strong Future.” Informs how the introduction of E-Readers is changing the perspective many have towards physical books. Quindlen’s purpose is to convey the idea written books are a thing of the past, is inaccurate and that while they will continue to thrive, E-readers are reaching people in far more communicative ways. Quindlen effectively creates not only an emotional response within her audience by building an argument, drawing statistics to increase her credibility, and involving the audience which consists of American readers. Quindlen begins her article by introducing and building an argument against the idea that “The book is dead (1).” With the introduction of E-readers in society, printed works will cease to become necessary and no longer have a place as a literary tool in the coming future. Quindlen develops her argument against this point by drawing several comparisons to other times in recent history when a new technology sparked heralding rumors of the …show more content…
This creation of credibility within her article is pivotal in her argument since it shows that she is not simply spouting a personal opinion based on jilted self-denial of the encroaching realm of digital media, but rather an opinion stated by fact influenced greatly by her profession and the data Quindlen inserts into her article. Without this data at this point in the article there would have been little more than speculation, and would have caused the audiences minds to create a sense of self-doubt while reading the article and seeing the information they were being given as the ravings of a fanatic rather than someone with a logical viewpoint, and a clearly credentialed view on the topic and the main ideas that are expressed through its
Books today are everywhere. We find them in many households, libraries and schools all around the globe. We find many different types of books; from stories to educational textbooks, we regard them today as sources of knowledge and amusement. But it wasn’t the case before 1455. That year, one of the greatest inventions in human history was revealed to the world; Gutenberg’s printing press. This press allowed printing in massive quantity, spreading books all around Europe and the rest of the world at a fast rate. The printing press had many positive consequences on society. At first, it standardized grammar and spelling, and then introduced the mass production of books. It finally inspired future printing technologies around the world.
In “The Closing of the American Book,” published in the New York Times Magazine, Andrew Solomon argues about how the decline of literary reading is a crisis in national health, politics, and education. Solomon relates the decline of reading with the rise of electronic media. He believes that watching television and sitting in front of a computer or a video screen instead of reading can cause the human brain to turn off, and lead to loneliness and depression. He also argues that with the decrease of reading rates, there will no longer be weapons against “absolutism” and “terrorism,” leading to the United States political failure in these battles. The last point Solomon makes is that there is no purpose behind America being one of the most literate societies in history if people eradicate this literacy, and so he encourages everyone to help the society by increasing reading rates and making it a “mainstay of community.” Solomon tries to show the importance of reading in brain development and he encourages people to read more by emphasizing the crisis and dangers behind the declination of reading.
The article “The Phenomenology of On-Screen Reading: University Students’ Lived Experience of Digitised Text,” written by Ellen Rose covers a multitude of themes in which Ellen Rose interviewed ten participants from the ages of 20-55 and utilized their answers in order to communicate her belief that reading on screen is much different than reading a physical book. Throughout the article she targets her audience on students and uses pathos, ethos, and logos persuasions in order to appeal to her readers and convey that she is credible, trustworthy, and logical. With a close analysis of Ellen Rose’s article “The Phenomenology of On-Screen Reading: University Students’ Lived Experience of Digitised Text” it is safe to say that Rose draws her audience
In addition, textbooks are heavy to carry around and it takes longer to find a page. Likewise with digital textbooks they are compatible with tablets, smartphones, and laptops; it’s much easier to carry around and affordable price. However, some people may argue that digital textbooks can be a distraction for people because they would not bother read anymore. The author and poet Dana Gioia argues that electronics alternatives may be a bad influence that will lead society to not read anymore. Gioia complicates matters further when she writes, “While no single activity is responsible for the decline in reading, the cumulative presence and availability of electronic alternatives increasingly have drawn Americans away from reading” (161). I think Gioia is mistaken because she overlooks on electronics being a bad influence; but doesn’t see the benefits of electronics. To demonstrate, most of my textbooks are digital, which I can easily carry my tablet around where ever I go. Also, I save more money on digital textbooks and are simple to annotated the text. Journalist Ellen Lee interview a student from Liberty University, and he states that he prefers digital textbooks because he can tap his iPad, opens the digital copy and quickly open the page. Nevertheless, he also like digital textbooks because it has a feature that allows to highlight and mark the
Bradbury attacks loss of literature in the society of Fahrenheit 451 to warn our current society about how literature is disappearing and the effects on the people are negative. While Montag is at Faber’s house, Faber explains why books are so important by saying, “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores” (79). Faber is trying to display the importance of books and how without them people lack quality information. In Electronics and the Decline of Books by Eli Noam it is predicted that “books will become secondary tools in academia, usurped by electronic media” and the only reason books will be purchased will be for leisure, but even that will diminish due to electronic readers. Books are significant because they are able to be passed down through generation. While online things are not concrete, you can not physically hold the words. Reading boost creativity and imagination and that could be lost by shifting to qui...
Davidson, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford, 1986.
In a world dominated by technology, reading novels has become dull. Instead of immersing into books, we choose to listen to Justin Bieber’s new songs and to scroll through Instagram posts. We have come to completely neglect the simple pleasures of flipping through pages and getting to finally finish a story. Sherman Alexie and Stephan King’s essays attempt to revive this interest in books that has long been lost. They remind us of the important role that reading plays in our daily lives. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” for instance, demonstrates how being literate saved the narrator from the oppressive nature of society. The author explains that even though he was capable of reading complex books at an astonishingly young
This source considers the issue of converting to digital books, specifically as it pertains to the effect that this change would have on the global environment. Although the research does recognize that there are disadvantages to not having a physical copy of a book and to abandoning certain platforms that do not transfer well to a digital form, overall, these researchers conclude that publishers should move towards digital products not only for the sake of cheaper long-run costs, but also for the good that going paperless can do for the environment. By displaying a series of graphs, as well as including multiple data sets, the text explains how e-books compare with printed texts; then, analysis of these facts is also included to show the reader the authors’ point.
If people were asked to define the importance of the books they would probably state that books are dead or will be dead soon. In “books a dying are? don’t believe it”, Anne Proulx expressed her views books. She suggests “every other week someone says that books are dead or dying”. By analyzing which will focused on a meaning, a form and the style of the essay well reveal that books are not on the way to extinction.
Literature has changed over time. “The “death of print” has been much heralded over the past decade, precipitated by the rising accessibility of devices like tablets and smartphones that have made the electronic medium cheaper and more universal (1).” Literature has evolved
With every new advancement in technology the roles of the writer and the roles of the reader are changed; sometimes it is a small change and other times it can be a drastic transformation. In this modern age it seems the role that the reader or the audience plays is shifting significantly. I don’t think there has ever been a point in history where there was as much interactivity as there is currently. The main reason for this change in the reader’s role is the rapidly growing amount of hypertext being used.
... Gutenberg revolution and its relevance to the current mode of electronic publishing is relevant only if there are certain pre-existing conditions in the society. In conclusion one would like to point out that electronic publishing would only shape the course of history and contribute to the understanding and change of one’s environment if these publications are not mere clones of the available hard copies. The medium’s independent existence as way of providing information is the only way real change can be brought about.
“While it is true that more books are sold today than ever, recent statistics show that only about 15% of books bought today are read. Evidently, they are of more use as furniture—coffee-table books—than as a source of information or aesthetic buzz. The statistics continue; of those that are read, less than 20% are read all the way through. The unfinished book symbolizes the state of attention spans today”. Eric McLuhan opens up his 2010 argument against technology with this quote. He seems to believe that literacy is only fully achieved through limited technology and hard copies of books. He fails to realize there is more to literacy that picking up a book defined as a ‘classic’ and reading it cover to cover. Literacy covers all spans of artistic
However, iIn spite of the current pre-eminence of e-books, it may be argued that they are not likely to replace print books anytime soon or possibly at all. Both formats have their advantages and drawbacks, which makes for one of them difficult to replace the other. Moreover, they serve differents needs and purposes. E-books are famous for their portability. Hundreds of e-books can be stored on a single device. Thus e-books don’t take shelving space and are convenient to take on travel, while even a few paper books are bulky and quite heavy to carry around. Numerous e-books are in open access, while paper books are not routinely available free of charge. E-books may be acquired and accessed immediately online, a feature I enjoy especially and treasure most: many a time I was able to buy and read an e-book at home within minutes of learning of its existence. Needless to say, e-books are considerably easier to cite and quote than print books, since the copy-paste feature spares us the trouble of retyping the quoted text. Another important advantage of digital books is their specialized software, which makes reading much easier: search and reference tools, changeable font size and day/night mode, dictionaries. Last but not least, e-books conserv...
The main form of literature, the book, has had a great impact upon the formation of our society today. Before the 1940’s TV had not come into being yet and there was not much else to do other than read books. Thus books formed my grandparents and to some extent my parents and, although I grew up in the generation of TV, books as literature have indirectly formed me as well.