Essay on Text Talk in Students’ Formal Writing

In the article, the authors reference the infamous AT&T BFF Jill commercial that aired in 2007, when texting and smart phones were just becoming popular. This commercial represents the idea that texting can have an influence on adolescents Standard English when talking out loud. This commercial also depicts the epidemic of texting lingo replacing Standard English that many people at the time feared. There were multiple receptions of the commercial exemplified in this article. The authors review the comments made about the commercial on not only the comment section of YouTube, but popular news channels such as

Does Texting Affect Writing: A Critical Analysis of the Influence of Text Speak in Student’s Writing

Throughout “Does Texting Affect Writing?” words such as textspeak, communication, writing, writing abilities, students and teenagers are

After reading Texting and Writing, by Michaela Cullington, I do not agree with many of her viewpoints. Cullington argues that texting does not affect a students writing. Textspeak, the abbreviation and shortening of words like used when writing a text message, does affect the way a student writes because they use the abbreviations, and their writings tend to lack punctuation. When a writer uses excessive abbreviations on a regular basis they can get stuck in the writer’s head causing them to use them in all of their writings. Cullington did make good points of her own opinion on texting and writing in her piece, but I disagree with her and believe that texting and

In Michaela Cullington’s article, Does Texting Affect Writing, Cullington talks about the debate of texting affecting students’ writing. Many people concluded that there has been a strong positive or negative affect on students writing. In Cullington's article, she concluded that scientifically there is no evidence for either of the sides of the debate. Many teachers agreed that texting does inflict bad habits on students’ writing. Other teachers insisted that texting helped with students’ imagination and creativity while writing.

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.

Has our “text,” language ruined our actual language? The author of 2b or not 2b is written by David Crystal. Throughout his article Crystal argues about the benefits of texting and how texting is not a new thing. David Crystal uses two rhetorical strategies to prove his argument, one being humor to compare two types of poems that were sent through text message, the other using analogy to compare schooling, and texting, and the last his using analogy to compare abbreviations that are used today, were used in history.

She interviews seven students and two teachers from different high schools and colleges with a list of question about the impact of texting on writing. She also put her effort on analyzing student writing samples for instances of textspeak. In addition, her research suggests that there's no response about texting has a bad influence on formal writing from both students and teachers. Thus, students are able to "recognize the difference between texting friends and writing formally and know what is appropriate in each situation" as well as textspeak is not bleeding into academic or professional writing. I agree with her on this point. Still, there are many younger generations in Middle school who starts texting in short and addicted to it. As short-texting is new to those young teenagers, they are pretty excited to communicate by texting with friends without awareness. And if middle school is where students can practice in construct sentences and organize ideas, will texting impacts them on formal writing and will it cause

In the article “Does Texting Affect Writing” Michaela Cullington argues that texting has no longer affected student writing skills. Cullington grew to become fascinated in the subject after hearing high school European instructors complain that the amount of texting lessened students’ ability to spell, structure sentences, and communicate intuition in writing. Many teachers also complained how students left out punctuation in complex writing. However, in spite of the objections with texting, Cullington discovered that other instructors viewed texting as helpful aids to writing due to the fact that texting offers inspiration, or end up more confident in their writing. Given these scenarios, Cullington determined to lookup the controversy herself.

Texting has fast become the preferred form of communication for young adults; however, students need to be dissuaded from texting during class because of the result in loss of valuable class time, lack of effective communication skills, and consistent use of improper English leading to a negative impact on students’ learning.

In the article “2b or not 2b”, David Crystal begins with discussing how others such as John Humphry argued that texters are “vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors 800 years ago. They are destroying it” (335). This is also the common belief of most people. People often argue about the bad points of technology over our language. However, Crystal believes that texting can improve children’s ability to read and write rather than hinder their literacy as many people claim. He also argues that not all texting are done in abbreviated words. Complex messages and institutional messages are often texted in standard form of

People claim that new developments have caused kids to be so dependent on their devices, that they can't think for themselves. This claim can also be turned around by saying that technology has given kids more opportunities and chances to learn, and in particular, more opportunities to write (Source 7, Clive Thompson). An example of this is a study done at Stanford University, where it was discovered that Stanford students did a stunning 38 percent of their writing outside of the classroom (Source 7, Clive Thompson). With the developments of E-mail, texting, and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, younger people are constantly writing in their every day lives. In the past, people would, for the most part, stop writing once the finishes their education. Now however, people are more comfortable, and more used to, writing. And while the argument that technology has decreased level of the vocabulary and vernacular of young people is true in some cases, the increase in writing shown by young people has led to a greater ability to convey information to other people, and a greater comfort in talking to people they don't know (Source 7, Clive Thompson). As Andrea Lunsford says, "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek Civilization" (Source 7, Clive

Michaela Cullington’s essay “Texting and Writing” explores the possible effect of teen texting on formal writing in school. Cullington lists three different hypotheses scholars pose about the cor- relation between the two: those who criticize texting for its negative impact on writing, those who believe texting is actually a beneficial exercise in writing, and those who see no relationship at all. Cullington begins her analysis with the first theory, quoting concerned teachers, citing the shock- ing statistic that “only 25% of high school seniors are ‘proficient’ writers” (90), and adding testi- mony from two of her former teachers. Cullington then explores the second take on texting and writing by providing contrasting testimony from other teachers who believe that texting is a bless- ing to their students’ writing. Cullington retrieves support for these two opposing views from inter- views and previous studies. To explore the theory that texting is irrelevant to formal writing, how- ever, she performs her own research, gathering results from seven students, two teachers, and an analysis of students’ written work. Despite the testimonial evidence against and in support of tex- ting, Cullington’s own results show that texting has “no effect, positive or negative, on [students’] writing as a result of texting” (95).

Many will argue that children and teens especially will not know when to use “textisms,” and that texting is only a distraction to learning. That they cannot differentiate between the important messages where formality is key, and the times where they are not being judged or critiqued on every spelling and grammar mistake. This is a common misconception, as a 2006 study by two professors at Coventry University in Britain found that teen students seem to switch easily between text messaging and Standard English. This is most likely because that generation was not introduced to texting speak while they were learning the English language taught in pre school and elementary school. Although

With mobile phones where the small screen technology is so constraining, texting and tweeting plays a significant role in how we conduct our daily communication. David Crystal wrote an article titled “Texting”, and believes the younger generation is introducing a new phase of texting where words are usually represented with acronyms (241). Crystal called this abbreviated text exchange a “textspeak” (243). Kris Axtman is also a prominent author who wrote an article, “R U Online? The Evolving Lexicon of Wired Teens” (247). His article focuses on teenagers and their dependency on the online technology. Axtman observes that teenagers develop a whole range of abbreviations while exchanging