Hudgins, Robert

Ms. Laura Knudson

UWRT- 1102-028
September 12, 2016

Mini RA #1
What do you think the average college student brings to class with them? A pencil? An
eraser? A notebook? A Laptop? What if bringing a laptop to class might inhibit ones ability to
learn. The Washington Post argues that, For the past 15 years, educators have debated,
exhaustively, the perils of laptops in the lecture hall (The Washington Post, 1). Studies have
shown that bringing a laptop to class and using it to take notes will make it harder for you to
grasp the information. After reading the article titled Why smart kids shouldnt use laptops in
class, I was able to then pick out the authors purpose, thesis, and argumentative points.
When conducting a rhetorical analysis, its good to start out by describing a little bit about
the article and its background. Again, the article is titled Why smart kids shouldnt use laptops
in class. It was written by an author by the name Jeff Guo. Guo has written many articles for the
Washington Post, but out of all the articles I found, I thought this one was the most interesting. I
thought this article was interesting because it had a good amount of data to argue with. This topic
of laptops in the classroom apparently does not have a sufficient amount of evidence to work
with. Guo unfortunately had the information to back up his statements.
After describing a little bit about the article, its good gather information to confirm the
authors purpose, thesis, and argumentative points. After reading the article, it was quite obvious
that the author Guo was trying to inform his audience. Guos thesis is that laptops, phones, and

tablets ultimately should not be used in the classroom at all because it inhibits the learning
process and decreases test scores. He also explains that professors call laptops, tablets, and
phones distraction machines (The Washington Post, 1). He mentions that defenders to this point
say that technology isnt the reason, but boring classes are why there is a decrease in work ethic
and test grades (The Washington Post, 1). All of Guos points came from a big, new experiment
from economists at West Point (The Washington Post, 1). This experiment consisted of a class
to where One-third of the sections could use laptops or tablets to make notes during lecture;
one-third could use tablets, but only to look at class materials; and one-third were prohibited
from using any technology, the results came out being that the 80 percent that used technology
scored worse on the final exam, and the smartest students seemed to be most affected negatively
(The Washington Post, 1). The average score for everyone that had participated in the experiment
was 72, and the people who participated with laptops scored 1.7 points lower (The Washington
Post, 1). This is the study that Guo based his entire article on. He talks about students that have
high ACT scores. Apparently, the students with high ACT scores in the laptop-friendly section
performed horridly being compared the scores coming from the non-technology section (The
Washington Post, 1). The students with low ACT scores compared to the students with high ACT
scores was no shock and were pretty even. Basically anyone that has used technology in this
experiment has been made a victim to distraction machines. Guo was shocked by all these results
and tries to come up with reasons to why this happened. He thinks that some of the smart
students had overestimated their ability to multi task, or some of the higher ranking students had
a lot to gain by paying attention in class (The Washington Post, 1).
Lastly, I felt that the author was thoroughly successful in writing this article. He was able
to state his point and back it up with valid evidence. He also gave his opinions as to why it

turned out as it did and gave thoughtful solutions. He informed us to why multitasking doesnt
work, and that if you see people with laptops in class, they probably are not doing what they are
supposed to do.

Works Cited
Guo, Jeff. "Why Smart Kids Shouldn't Use Laptops in Class." Medium. The Washington
Post, 20 May 2016. Web. 12 Sept. 2016.