In “Too Much Information,” an essay originally published in The American Scholar (June 18, 2013), Professor Paula Marantz Cohen of Drexel University examines what happens to us as a result of living in a society that insists on answering, indeed anticipating, all the questions we might have in our daily lives. Her article is a rhetorical analysis because it demonstrates how modes of communication shape — and then sometimes diminish — our capacity to think. But Cohen also explores why we now demand immediate answers to complex questions — which is why you will find a selection from this piece quoted in the chapter on causal analyses.

Reading the Genre