Google It – A History of Google by Anna Crowley Redding

The Google It book by Anna Crowley Redding is about the history of Google. It details the history of Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and their history together, with the modern projects Google is working on today. Not only does the book thoroughly detail the History of Google’s development, but it also features several key history and developments of the internet, along with the history of many companies that were somehow influenced by Google during their development, and the innovative ways Larry and Segery had to come up with to combat the many challenges they faced during the launch and development of Google. The central ideas in Google It was how impactful Google was during its release, and how it continued to be impactful afterwards through the launch of its various side projects, along with how Google was impacted by the release of other companies at the time.

The page below shows several quotes from the book that are supposed to support the author’s perspective on various topics mentioned throughout the book. The author’s perspective is what the Author thinks or feels about a certain topic featured throughout their book, such as in Google It the author’s perspective on Google’s Business practices was very positive, supported by the quotes I wrote on the Notebook page. The quotes I wrote on this notebook page mention how innovative and out-of-the-box Google’s business practices were, along with the positive impacts they had on the workforce.  

The Narrative vs. Informative page below that I wrote features the differences between Narrative and informative passages, and how the author switched between the two in the writing of Google It. The narrative and informative phrases in Google It help to inform the reader on the different things that influenced Google’s development, using different styles like narrative or informative could help communicate it more clearly depending on the subject. I mapped this out in the notebook page using a mapping format, dictating when the pages switched to either a narrative or informative phrases to better communicate information. For example, in the Narrative vs, Informative page map I noted down page number 4 and noted visible shifts in style on the page, such as the book describing how life was without easy access to knowledge, and then shifts to facts about Richard P. Feynman.

This page, Cause and Effect, details the chain of causes and effects that started the creation of Google. The page is mapped out like a map, first starting at the causes of the launch, including homework assignments, the disorganization of the internet, and a good amount of interest in coding, leading to the launch of Pagerank, which gradually evolved into backrub, then through various other impacts, lead to Google. There is a different colour line connecting each cause and effect for the organization. The notebook page also entails each of the many impacts that a Backrub and in turn, Google, had. This page also entails the challenges faced afterwards, like money and the ways Larry and Segery had to come up with to solve it.

This page is a combination of both ‘Parts that Connect’ and ‘Tracking Complexity’. ‘Tracking complexity’ is about finding the deeper meaning of different sections in Google It. I kept track of this using some pressure maps, where I would note over-copied quoted sections of Google It. The Parts that connect show how different parts of the book may connect in different ways. An example of this that I noted down was how pages that featured Google’s side projects connected to another page where it mentioned how Google broke the status quo, specializing in many different things rather than one big thing, and next to it I would also write down how these parts connected.

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