Comment and Response to Texting and Writing by Michaela Cullington

In Michaela Cullington’s essay titled, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” the author tests the ongoing question of how today’s youth handles the effects of texting in the education system. Using successful evidence from both sides of the argument as well as participating in her own experiment, Cullington is able to fully demonstrate how texting does not interfere with today’s students and their abilities to write formally in the classroom.

In the reading “Does Texting Affect Writing,?” the author, Michaela Cullington, defines text-messaging as a very popular way in which teenagers and business uses to communicate without the necessity of speaking in a more convenient and rapid way by writing short messages in their mobile devices. However, Cullington states that in order to communicate in a rapid way by text-messaging many people change words to abbreviations. “The language created by these abbreviations is called textspeak” (361). Owning to her well-developed research, Cullington discover that some people consider that the using of abbreviations in text-messaging is affecting the writing skills of students while other believes that is the contrary, that text-messaging helps

Although there is much criticism directed towards millennials and younger generations when it comes to texting, Crystals makes it clear that text-like abbreviations have been used in English for centuries. Acronyms such as LOL, LOML, BRB (laugh out loud, love of my life, be right back) can be dated back to 1618 at the introduction of the term IOU in place of “I owe you”. The history of abbreviations can be dated back to Anglo- Saxon tribes. Humphrys argument poses that texting poses a threat to literacy in our society, Crystal refutes this by giving examples of how word alterations and abbreviations similar to that of texting have been used for centuries by those with an adequate understanding of language for sake of brevity and creativity.

The Two Articles we read was called “2b or not 2b by David Crystal and I h8 txt msgs by John Humphrys”. The Article “2b or not 2b” displays that it was arguing against another article called “I h8 txt msgs”. The Second Article shows that texting is propitious to other people. Many Evidence and Claims displays to us. In my opinion, Abbreviations should be removed because many people could get confused. Also, Research shows that using abbreviations could improve your literacy.

Okay so you've already heard how its okay to use abbreviations but…….. Is it really? Okay so it's actually proven that when kids use abbreviations that it gets stuck in their mind and when they go to type a paper or if they do it all their life then when they get older their gonna use abbreviations in a job interview and maybe not get it ,especially if it's a typing job.

In today’s world of text messaging, through short messaging system many users are using abbreviated and non conventional language which has a negative consequence on literacy. Powell and Dixon (2011) worked on the impact of texting abbreviations called ‘textisms’, misspellings and correctly spelled words on adults spelling. An Example of textism is ‘gn’, correctly spelled is ‘goodnight’ and the misspelling is ‘gudnite’. They examined a group of participants before and after the exposure of the same words, and found that textisms have a negative impact on participants spelling when compared to misspellings.

1) I believe that, yes, text messages are a hindrance to formal writing and can make students less likely to perform optimally in a formal writing assessment due to the amount of abbreviations commonly used. Since texting is usually seen as informal, when texting, people generally speak utilizing slang,initialisms, acronyms, abbreviations and malapropisms. This, in turn, makes them accustomed to this informal way of writing and therefore hurts their ability to write in a formal manner, as it also strips them of their focus when writing.

An individual must pay strict attention to syntax and dictation while maintaining an amicable and concise approach to subject matter in order to write professionally online. Text messages, emails, and instant messages that use unintelligible abbreviations, and emoticons are some examples of unprofessional writing. I have taken tests in the past with misspelled words that summarily changed the entire meaning of the question, which resulted in my answering incorrectly. The answer was corrected after I brought it to my instructors attention but had I not realized I may have received a lesser grade.

The usage of sending text messages is greater than it used to be years ago, when it first became available. We as humans enjoy to create new ways to communicate, even at the cost of losing some information. Text messaging brought out the, “work smarter, not harder” community by creating abbreviations and short-hand versions of words to make talking to others easier. There are even downloadable applications (apps) that could connect two people online to see each other face-to-face. There are two groups of people that are either ‘for’ or ‘against’ the way text messaging and apps have influenced students’ formal writing and way of communication. One group of people believe that texting and applications have a negative effect on formal writing

Some text speaking phrases include, OMG, LOL, BFF, LMAO, BRB and, these invalid word forms are only the hurting the language itself. Text speaking has become so prevalent in society that now the Oxford Dictionary’s newest edition includes several of these phrases. A lot of teen aged kids would have no struggle with defining these abbreviations. However, the older generation such as the baby boomers may be scratching their heads in confusion, this is not the English language that they have known or grown custom to. Point being, we are in the generation of texting and the old ways are no longer relevant. The generation of texting has created new phrases and slang that they can more easily identify themselves with. Now it is seen as awkward to not place these phrases into a text message. If someone placed a phrase like “What you just typed was very funny. At this time I am laughing out loud” (Brockenbrough 149). the reader would view that as awkward. When the largest dictionary within the English language is starting to input text messaging phrases, clearly there is a problem. English is slowly making its way to its demise, in place of it is text speaking.

Have a look at this awesome infographic from Online Schools to see how texting really affects grammar. I personally do not agree with a lot of the `positive points `mentioned about texting here but you might have a different stance.

Text-messaging tools with all its popularity and promise do have its critics, especially in the area of education. To overcome text length limitations of text-messaging, users have developed their own form of shorthand, code or jargon. This raises concerns with many educators including former teacher and now author Jacquie Ream, who feels that this type of communication is destroying the way our kids read, think, and write (Shaughnessy, 2008). She contended that it is too easy, too simple, and this type of communication using acronyms and shorthand does not require critical thinking skills or analysis. According to Ream, text messaging is destroying the written word, and she believes students today need to do more writing, not in the form of instant messages, but well thought out essays (Shaughnessy, 2008). They need to know how to construct a sentence and an essay. Additionally, they need to know how to use punctuation properly. O’Connor (2005) reported that the more students use tools like IM the less they are able to separate formal and informal English. In other observations on student writing, Friess (2003), noted that although students seemed to communicate scholarly thoughts, they did not seem to know it’s “y-o-u,” not “u.” Other concerns expressed are spacing of words, or lack thereof, use of all lowercase letters, abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons. Clear writing is clear writing no matter what the medium

Social media sites such as Twitter only allow a limit of 140 character per tweet. This limits the amount of words you can use in a tweet. This forces the users to get their ideas across in the shortest way possible. For many, this results in the use of text talk. This is a type of shorthand and it creates a whole new language consisting of abbreviations. LOL, BRB, SMH and TTYL are a few examples of the abbreviations from this text talk language, theses terms are used every day amongst teens. These text terms add more to a sentence and in text more then just a simple abbreviation for a word or phrase. Abbreviations as short has three letters can add a whole new tone to what is said over a text massage. LOL (laugh out loud) for example is used to add a joking or playful tone to a messages "almost like a type of punctuation" and in some cases it replaces a punctuation. This abbreviation doesn’t always indicate literal laughter either. This is how text talk and normal abbreviations vary. Text talk is surly changing the way we talk and communicate with people in our every day lives. theses text short hand are becoming a language on its own. Now the question is how does this writing form change the way we communicate with people.

This reminds me of when texting first became popular back when I was in 6th grade. Many older generations hated the way teenagers texted in abbreviations such as “omg, Ttyl, wyd.”

Many students are not familiar with acronyms. For example the word ITALY can mean “I Truly Always Love You”. The word FRANCE means “Friendship Remains And Never Comes End”. These two acronyms are usually written at the end of an informal letter during the time where correspondence is one of the popular hobbies among the teenagers. So this acronym process is used by the