Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Your New Computer

I decided to read the article "Your New Computer" written by Bill Bryson. This article was very confusing in the beginning, and absolutely made no sense whatsoever. Bryson doesn't even have a main point in the whole article. I am assuming that by the reading you are to infer about what he is talking about, which is how confusing getting a new computer may be for you depending on your knowledge of technology. In the article he uses many terms that make no sense, and a lot of things that seem like the only person that knows how to work the computer is the actual manufacturer itself. The article is set up like a Owner's Manual on how to set up your new computer. There is a "setting up" section, "saving a file" section, and "troubleshooting" section that all make no sense in the task that you are trying to complete. For example, in the troubleshooting section the problem is there are no keys on the keyboard, and the answer is "turn the keyboard right side up". Bryson does an excellent job in describing his point without even having to say it straight up.

2 comments:

  1. I thought that this article was absolutely hilarious. I agree with him on a certain level, but honestly I believe that most things, such as getting a new computer are not as complicated as he is making it sound. It may be due to when this book was written, but when I set up my computer it was probably one of the easiest things I've ever done. On the other hand; however, I just got a new printer and could not figure out how to set it up with my computer. While setting it up the owners manual felt like it was in a different language it was so confusing. The article was very funny though with all of the different jokes he made at the end. I thought it was a very interesting article, but I don't think setting up most things is as complicated as he makes it sound.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice work summarizing with specific information. You've also learned something about writing: sometimes authors don't put an explicit main claim in their work...it's inferred.

    ReplyDelete