Is Text Messaging/chatrooms Slang Ruining Academic Writing

[mojoman 0]

hey who deleted my post? i was only joking Anyway, i personally think internet slang is ok, as long as it stays on the internet. I don't think it should effect the english language as long as it stays as it is, a jokey form of talking. It can be annoying at times, but at other times quite funny.(check my sig out lol ) 1 4r3 t3h pwn4g3, b1tch3s!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111one!!!!!!!!!!11111111111

[PlugComputers 0]

The language used on the internet is not hurting academic writing. A few of my teachers have complained about students using words like "u" and "b/c" in their formal essays, I mean yes, this is due to the amount of texting/instant messaging that goes on, but can you blame it on the fact that students use it? No. You have to blame writing like that on the student. If a writer isn't intelligent enough to proofread a paper/essay, then they deserve to get marked down for using internet/text slang. You should be able to differentiate between the 2 "languages".

[csp4.0 1]

I agree with the person above me but only just. Writing in slang will slowly ruin your grammar until BAMM! you forget how to spell martyr or some other word. Well if someone uses it alot, they tend to like using it. For example, if you were talking to a person who knows how to speak spanish, and you just learned spanish, would to talk to that guy in english or spanish? its that simple

[mummy2courtney 0]

i think this one is a hard one as you dont know who is doing well at school etc,ie i sat my gcse's and got a B and then i resat them last tuesday and got A* but I speak text a lot of the time, for me its mainly being lazy.And its quite common for me to have a phone bill of at least ?500 and thats only on text but you have to remember here i am 20, but i do thing that its wrong for 'youngsters' to be on thier phone for that long, all it proves really is that i dont have a life. hahahaThis topic should also in clude l33t speak, now that is one that i detest whats the point in making a comment such as (this wont be brilliant as i dont use it but ill try)h3ll0 h0w ar3 U? I just dont see the point in it, fair enough text and net speak you can justify as bing acceptable in the form of it being for lazy people but why add 0's and 3's to your text but keep it the same length, surely it was a waste of time?

[galexcd 0]

I do a lot of talking on AIM, and recently I've found myself writing u instead of you etc when writing stuff for school. Sadly I admit that i set Microsoft Word to replace most of these for me so I don't have to go back and do it. This is probably bad because If i ever write something outside of ms word i still do it alot.

[Watermonkey 0]

Actually, the truth of the matter is the only one I know who's ruining academic writing is St. Michael himself! I mean, go look at the second word in his initial post on this thread! (hint: "Thought" ends with a "T") Edit: I should not have said that since he promptly went and corrected the error, but just read most anything he writes and you'll see what I'm talking about. You can't correct it all, Mike! :unsure:Ok, seriously, you should be able to go into "chat mode" or "text mode" and still have a "formal writing mode" you can go to. If you can't jump around, your teacher should be extra diligent in catching all the improper language you've used in school and grade you accordingly. I don't get how so many illiterate people are managing to produce high school diplomas these days! I think there are only one or two generations of literate people left, then they'll be the minority. We're working our way back toward the dark ages at a frightening velocity!

Edited May 12, 2007 by Watermonkey (see edit history)

[demonatashadow 0]

I vote yes. I find that sometimes when I am text messaging a friend that I use slang language without even knowing it. When I one wrote a paper for my teacher, I wrote, u intead of you. I figured that out after reading it and also found out that I put it, ur intead of your, gr8 instead of great, cause instead of because, brb instead of be right back and so much other stuff. I wound up having to re-write the whole paper, so I do think that it damages academic stuff. Mostly in text messaging, yes I admit I do this to, we want to send messages to friends quickly and it takes way to long to send a full message with no slang, so if you text message to much it will affect you're normal writing. I don't know if there is a solution to this, text messaging is a big thing in our society today and if it were to be declind there is an 85% (I got the percentage by taking a survey of how many of my friends and random people use text messaging) chance that there will be a riot.

[Saint_Michael 3]

The language used on the internet is not hurting academic writing. A few of my teachers have complained about students using words like "u" and "b/c" in their formal essays, I mean yes, this is due to the amount of texting/instant messaging that goes on, but can you blame it on the fact that students use it? No. You have to blame writing like that on the student. If a writer isn't intelligent enough to proofread a paper/essay, then they deserve to get marked down for using internet/text slang. You should be able to differentiate between the 2 "languages".

I would say text messaging can take partial blame on how it is affecting students writing skills, because people send text messages quickly and you know how some people are they just want to get the assignment so they would quickly. Now I would some what speculate and say that when that student is trying to burn through those writing assignments and or got to turn it in the next day after waiting a week or so to actually start. Yeah you can call it laziness to there part but if in a rush they won't even know that they are doing it because they got like 5 minutes before class starts or something. Of course the one thing I did learn is that you can proof read your own paper because you sometimes can never tell you made any mistakes. That due to the fact that you have to write like your speaking to others, but when youre actually writing it doesnt feel like your doing it. Again its about practice and of course English and journalism majors are perfecting this everyday, but people like me who dont do writing on a daily basis, sometimes we loose those skills and are constantly fixing something.

i think this one is a hard one as you dont know who is doing well at school etc,ie i sat my gcse's and got a B and then i resat them last tuesday and got A* but I speak text a lot of the time, for me its mainly being lazy.

And its quite common for me to have a phone bill of at least Ł500 and thats only on text but you have to remember here i am 20, but i do thing that its wrong for 'youngsters' to be on thier phone for that long, all it proves really is that i dont have a life. hahaha

This topic should also in clude l33t speak, now that is one that i detest whats the point in making a comment such as (this wont be brilliant as i dont use it but ill try)

h3ll0 h0w ar3 U?

I just dont see the point in it, fair enough text and net speak you can justify as bing acceptable in the form of it being for lazy people but why add 0's and 3's to your text but keep it the same length, surely it was a waste of time?

You could say text messaging is a cousin of leet speak since leet speak uses some acronym's with-in it's structure, but the thing with leet speak it is obvious that the words are wrong so correcting them shouldn't be that hard to do to figure out or actually forget how they are spelled correctly. However, I don't think the hardest of the hardcore leet speakers don't have that kind of problem when it comes to correct spelling, but it was never fully covered from the articles I read. So it would be hard to say if along with text messaging that it could be a problem for those who get loss between the fold of english writing.

I do a lot of talking on AIM, and recently I've found myself writing u instead of you etc when writing stuff for school. Sadly I admit that i set Microsoft Word to replace most of these for me so I don't have to go back and do it. This is probably bad because If i ever write something outside of ms word i still do it alot.

Actually, the truth of the matter is the only one I know who's ruining academic writing is St. Michael himself! I mean, go look at the second word in his initial post on this thread! (hint: "Thought" ends with a "T") Edit: I should not have said that since he promptly went and corrected the error, but just read most anything he writes and you'll see what I'm talking about. You can't correct it all, Mike!
Ok, seriously, you should be able to go into "chat mode" or "text mode" and still have a "formal writing mode" you can go to. If you can't jump around, your teacher should be extra diligent in catching all the improper language you've used in school and grade you accordingly. I don't get how so many illiterate people are managing to produce high school diplomas these days! I think there are only one or two generations of literate people left, then they'll be the minority. We're working our way back toward the dark ages at a frightening velocity!

Watermonkey I just don't know what you are talking about , incidentally my lack of writing skills stems to the fact I never really wrote that much after my high school days. So you can say I am very rusty when it comes to writing, of course now I am getting like tons of practice when going into detail such as I am writing this sentence fragment of some sorts. Anyways, that's more or less what this topic is about; if a person can't tell the difference when they are writing a paper of some sorts school how will they be able to tell the difference when they are working in multi-million dollar companies?

I vote yes. I find that sometimes when I am text messaging a friend that I use slang language without even knowing it. When I one wrote a paper for my teacher, I wrote, u intead of you. I figured that out after reading it and also found out that I put it, ur intead of your, gr8 instead of great, cause instead of because, brb instead of be right back and so much other stuff. I wound up having to re-write the whole paper, so I do think that it damages academic stuff. Mostly in text messaging, yes I admit I do this to, we want to send messages to friends quickly and it takes way to long to send a full message with no slang, so if you text message to much it will affect you're normal writing. I don't know if there is a solution to this, text messaging is a big thing in our society today and if it were to be declind there is an 85% (I got the percentage by taking a survey of how many of my friends and random people use text messaging) chance that there will be a riot.

There is nothing wrong with send quick text messages especially since most text messages have limits as to how many characters you can have in a single message. The only really solution is train yourself to tell the difference between a 3 letter text message and 20 page research paper of some sorts; writing is a art and it just takes lot of practice to be good at doing it. Sometimes when I am reading news on the net I catch small typos especially with wrong words and of course when I read the paper I see small stuff as well. Another good idea that I have picked and has been somewhat effective is when I had to read other peoples essays in class; I was somehow able to pick up on errors that they missed. So with that in mind make sure you let others read your stuff, like I did with my research paper just a few weeks ago.

[Watermonkey 0]

Short answer to your question to me is they won't be working for any multi-million (or billion) dollar companies, except for janitorial duties...

[JasperIk 0]

I think it depends on the person. I have friends who constantly spell words wrong like awesome, they spell it awsome, and i always tell them it isn't awsome, it is awesome and they never listen to me, i have seen them spell it like that in aim chat and then also on papers, i also have a friend who constantly spells know, no. I want to scream at her everytime she does it, especially because i read the words no and know differently in a sentence, because they mean different things, so i of course get very confused when i read it as no (no thank you) when its supposed to me know (i know.) But i can't really tell if thats due to aim slang, or because she's just plain stupid. I know people who type 2 instead of to/too a lot in writing that isn't on the internet, and of course i see a lot of bois and gurls... but for me personally i understand the difference. For example on message boards i usually don't use aim slang, i spell out all the words and use my best grammar and spelling, even on msn and aim i tend to spell out the whole word, because honestly it doesn't take forever to spell out because instead of becuz, you know? The only time i really go heavy with abbreviations is text messages, because they take awhile to get out, so its just easier and less time consuming to spell thought thot, and wednesday weds, and of course two/too/to 2. I think it does happen that people let their aim/text talk merge into writing where they need to be more professional, but for me it doesn't.

[arnz 0]

There can be a good case that it may depend on person too.. A person that uses the mobile a lot of work reasons eg a businessman or so forth can use short cuts to his associates to make things a bit easier, yet go back to standard language when it comes to using the computer, or in social life or so forth. But there are also the lazy types , which tend to use abbreiviations for the heck of it when it comes to a keyboard. I tend to use just proper language when it comes to essays, assignments, work, filling out forms online and the like.. but when it comes to gaming (eg halflife, world of warcraft, and so forth) I dont mind using the short cuts every now and again (eg terms such as gg - good game, qq - whinging term, and so forth)..

[iGuest 3]

I am am graduate as of last year, and I completely agree that internet and text slang is taking over our grammar and writing skills it was so bad at the school that I went to that they had a special class for kids who wouldn't write a speech without every other word being like bc or ily just the basic, and the excuses were so lame that they would give so that they didn't have to be in the classes like I only use the slang so my parents don't no what I am saying to my friends....but eventually they were back in the normal class and understood why they shouldn't use the slang.

[iGuest 3]

UM .... HELLO???Is Text Messaging/chatrooms Slang Ruining Academic Writing

I really hope you're not serious in suggesting that students should just be failed. That isn't the only solution. As teachers it is our job to figure out what the problem is and solve it. If we were to just fail our students every time there was an issue in their writing no student would learn anything.

-reply by Kate

[iGuest 3]

If you are going to write something in regards to grammar, academic writing, and the English language in general, you should probably make sure your writing is better.  You have run-on sentences, misspelled words, bad grammar, and poor punctuation throughout this post.  Perhaps we should blame ourselves before we blame text messaging.

[iGuest 3]

My son is  11 and my partner and I are seriously alarmed at how he and his friends believe that it is OK to use internet speak in daily language.

THE KIDS ARE TAKING OVER!

Seriously though, their grammar and spelling are suffering and reduced to lazy acronyms and misspellings : "coz" "tomoz" "Please" "thng" outa"

Even abbreviations are now misspelt.

When has it been acceptable to text during class??????

 Their teachers are seriously concerned and so we have banned MSN

Watch this new generation dumb down the English language! Its scary.

 

-reply by Brett