PWR 1NFA: From Paper to GenAI: The Rhetoric of Knowledge-Making, Innovation, and Cognition

Consider how your usage of search engines has changed drastically with the advent of “AI Overviews.” Have you been less prone to click a website link after a Google search recently? Has your ability to recall the source of your information changed recently? A new Pew study (2025) highlights users’ tendency to no longer click website links when an AI overview is prominently displayed. What does this mean to the millions of online content creators? Are we now effectively “ghosting the internet” (BBC, 2025)? How does this shift in content access also affect the nature of your decision making?

Our daily lives are so intermingled with digital content aiding us in communication and knowledge access in ways previously unforeseen. GenAI is now inextricably linked with how you consume such information, breaking down any previous limitations, and opening up exciting opportunities for enhancing learning.

This course will lead us to question the merits and consequences of such fast-paced progress and how it can influence the nature of thinking, writing and research. We will discuss multiple perspectives that examine the impacts of GenAI on human creativity and the future of ideas. We’ll look at the rhetoric of publishers such as Penguin Books, scholarly journal publishers as well as celebrated authors who highlight issues of intellectual property, but also the changing nature of authorship post-GenAI. We will also explore recent studies looking at the impact of GenAI dependency on cognition, most notably a recent MIT Media Lab study detailing the “accumulation of cognitive debt” when being overly dependent on tools such as a ChatGPT, eventually replacing “the effortful cognitive processes required for independent thinking” and critical thinking (Kosmyna et al., 2025).

For this course, you will engage in an in-depth research project spanning several weeks. Sample research topics you might pursue include: GenAI’s impact on perpetuating misinformation or conversely combatting such misinformation (Word Economic Forum), the changing nature of research when verifying information, examining the rhetoric of AI-focused companies and how GenAI is presented as a collaborative tool enhancing our collective abilities to innovate, or how the processes of brainstorming and drafting may radically change and give room to different research skills. Given the ever-changing nature of this course theme, students are encouraged to suggest their own theme-related topics. 

PWR 1 Assignment Sequence

Rhetorical Analysis

(1200-1500 words; 4-5 pages) For this assignment, you will select a written, visual, or audio text that discusses or exemplifies current issues around GenAI. Using rhetorical analysis, you will become aware of strategies used by authors, companies and learn how to integrate your understanding of rhetoric into your own writing.

Texts in Conversation

(1800-2400 words; 6-8 pages) This assignment reviews and analyzes an existing “conversation” on an issue of interest to you. Looking at a range of scholarly and popular sources, you’ll get to explore several perspectives. Research topics will grow out of collaboration we do in class and will address the question: What can our research tell us about the ways in which GenAI can have effects on how knowledge is accessed, consumed, verified and altered?

Research-Based Argument

(3000-3600 words; 10-12 pages) Your final project builds on your research and invites you to weigh in with your own argument. Here, you help your readers answer questions about the issue, draw conclusions about its implications, and, above all, engage with your position on the matter.