Is Text Messaging/chatrooms Slang Ruining Academic Writing

Thought I would bring this topic up after doing research for my paper and of course seeing several articles like this one

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070425/tc_nm/...dzTORI63asjtBAF

and their was an article that some girl won a text messaging contest and it mention she sent 8000 a month

http://www.wayodd.com/teen-girl-wins-25000...contest/v/7054/ (article is close enough)

With the research I found out, some reports mention that students are not even aware that they use chatroom slang and text message shorts cuts. One story mention a girl filled out a job application and she didn't even notice she did it. From all this reading from these two articles and the stuff I found out I would say world wide that text messaging and chatrooms slang are ruining students effectiveness in academic writing. This is due to the fact that since students are so use to using short cuts when sending someone a message or talking in a chatroom it starts becoming harder and harder for them to properly write a research paper, essay, job application with out all their errors in spelling and even punctuation problems. Now this may not be the case for all and their was an argument that teachers are using blog for students to do their writing or become better, which is all good and dandy but when it comes to using acronyms an actual academic writing student won't realize it till after the teacher lets them know what was wrong with the paper.

My stance is that if students can't tell the difference between text/chat lingo and academic writing they should fail, this of course is after the fact they have been told this several times. But if it a serious problem then of course teachers and parents have to step in and cut out the middle man with concern to their writing in the academic world.

Now of course lets talk about the money issue now some phone services have free text messaging on a certain amount of messages while others are in the .99 range, lets do a little math here now if she were to pay 99 centa message her phone bill would be like almost $8,000 dollars, which is just insane for a 13 year old to spend. Of course it is obvious those are free because her parents would go insane knowing it cost them that much. But my question is why all those text messages when can easily dial the phone you have and talk to them like that? To me I think thats straight laziness right their no matter what angel you look at it. I only can imagine as she gets older she will have problems with her wrists and hands (carpal tunnel anyone?).

So what does everyone else think especially you text messaging freaks out there?

 

 

 

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In my opinion chat room slang is not ruining academic writing. People know the difference between writing professionally and writing in a casual form. When the time calls to write professionally one should write professionally and use no slang.

It all comes down to the person. Personally, I do not write "internet slang" much in any of my conversations on MSN, E-mail, on cell phones, etc.

Shorthand writing has been around for a long time, the only reason people are making a big deal of it is because there are many people who do not like technology. People have been writing in "internet slang" or shorthand for years in manuscripts and personal letters.

People are lazy and will write how they want to and they should accept getting 50's on papers and rejected from a job because they cannot tell the difference between a professional setting and a casual setting.

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Well yeah that is true shorthand has been around a long time but how many reports make the mistake to make it a full sentence when they are trying to quickly writing what someone says down? Of course most people that shorthand know to make what they say complete based off a small note they made somewhere.

But it's not just the people who hate technology, but in reality a majority of them are teachers whose students are doing this every time . I should have made that point a bit clearer in my first post, but like I mention before not everyone makes that mistake. I would say those who do this on a daily basis like 12 hours a day are the ones who are having the problem with academic writing and or writing in general. Whats funny though, from time to time when I am reading news on yahoo or in the paper I catch a few spelling mistakes.

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Writing a report isn't like taking notes, I'm sure in taking notes when you are trying to quickly write what someone says down people use shorthand, I do and don't know anyone that doesn't. Notes are made for personal use, not to turn into the teacher.

And if the teachers are having such a huge problem, why don't they just fail the students? Isn't it English class? I'm sure they have the right, nay, the obligation as a teacher to fail a student who cannot write properly in English while in a professional setting. Isn't the solution to this problem simple? Fail the students and the outcome is students will not write this way any more - right?

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Not too much for me personally, but I know a lot of people female "air-heads" in my classes that don't know how to spell anymore because they use "short-hand", such as "becoz" or "were" instead of "where". It's kind of scary to see all this happening, and you know those are the kids that are texting during class and on Myspace as soon as they get home too.

So, I would agree it's affecting some of us, but not all of us.

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It is true that some people's ways of writing are heavily influenced by modern technology. Nowadays, it is not too rare to see smileys on a research paper or even on an exam paper!



Hmmn, this is a bit... ambivalent. I don't really think it's about laziness but more on the illusion of savings. After all, it takes more effort (and time) to key in anything of fairly considerable length than just actually talking to your target. Furthermore, text messaging lacks the context cues such as inflection, speed, pitch or even silences, thus is more prone to misinterpretation. So why do people insist on texting?

For one, for really short messages, like a quick notice or an imperial one-word command, it is just as fast as calling. However, one of the things it has going for it is the price. It is much, much cheaper to send one message that to relay that message in a phone call. Unfortunately, this, too, is text messaging's own pitfall.

See, while people do, most of the time, save a lot of money, not time, by sending text messages, misinterpretations, misunderstandings and misconceptions can cost just as much, or even more than a phone call. For example, two people with different vocabularies may interpret things differently. Requests for clarifications or asking "what do you mean..." provide the overhead in terms of price.

So, as we can see, text messaging is useful only to a certain degree. For things that are much more complex, like instruction sets, questions with lengthy answers or puns, it probably is much better to make a phone call. That is, of course, aside from this thing called carpal tunnel syndrome. (Ah, who am I kidding; my mouse seems intent on giving it to me)



Who u callng txt msg-ing frk?

 

 

 

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Have to say maybe not, some classes in various schools are even teaching it now, but is not using it on a daily basis and is generally not recommended. Whether it's a good thing or not remains to be seen. I'd probably hate to see universities and so forth handing in papers based on SMS or even 1337 SP34K.

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In my opinion people who say text messaging/chat room slang destroys peoples academic abilities and gives people the impression that slang is acceptable is wrong.

I think this generation is smart enough regardless of how much slang and abbreviation is used to differentiate between using slang and proper English. Sure a lot of people use it in their daily lives mainly teenagers when talking to one other but most people not just teenagers who use it know that it's not an acceptable form of English.

Firstly they don't teach slang in schools, slang is not educational unless the school is run by snoop dog then I'm sure that the school won't be teaching slang to the kids whoever mentioned it above in their post. As far as I am concerned this is just another excuse for the government to blame failed public education on. Although public education here in Australia isn't all that bad it's horrible in other country's.

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I don't think so. I mean it's hardly making people forget how to spell, and as long as they aren't show offs and write their exams in text speak then it's alright. All it is is shortening a word. As long as it's not a word that they don't know how to spell in proper English then it's ok, and that's unlikely as 99% of people who text on mobiles (i.e. above 11) can spell to an acceptable degree.

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What ruins academic writing is the use of everyday slang, the kind of slang that can often get into the dictionaries and such. I am sort of concerned that our language will evolve into something like newspeak.

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