Draft 1

In today’s society communicating through what Sheelah M. Sweeny calls ICT’s or information and communication technologies is the norm.  What Sheelah is referring to when she says ICT’s are ways of communication such as texting, e-mailing, Tweeting, or using IM.  You can go just about anywhere today and see someone on their phone or laptop using one of these networks.  But are these networks corrupting our communicating and writing skill when it comes to academics?  Should using the networks even be considered writing?  I want to explore these ideas, specifically texting.  I would like to pose the question “what is the difference in composing a text and composing an academic writing?”

I think it is safe to say that any of these forms of communication can be considered writing.  Why?  Because you are composing your thoughts in to sentences and even paragraphs. Even though you may not be writing about history or philosophy for school you are writing.  Many people don’t consider texting writing; I know I didn’t until I was exploring the thought with my professor one day.  I didn’t realize how much I actually write on a day to day basis considering I hate writing.  But I constantly have my phone with me and I’m just about always texting someone, as most people today are.  But is texting and writing for school really that different?  Yes and no, there are some differences and some similarities.  I came to this conclusion through research I did research through the internet, library, and I also conducted some of my own primary research through a think a loud protocol.

For primary research I did about a forty-five minute think aloud protocol of myself texting a friend to see what I did and how I responded and such.  Trying to say out loud what I was thinking was hard at first, I would forget to say what I was thinking and at times I was talking to the computer instead of thinking out loud, but eventually I got the hang of it.  I found that most of the time I will think a few minutes before I compose a text message.  I would also read over what I typed and as I typed what I was going to text.  I was pretty straight forward about what I was going to say back most of the times, but several times I had to think several minutes before I could decide what to say back.  I know that I also do this when I am writing for school.  After I type a good little bit, I’ll go back and read it out loud before I add another sentence.  And after I add the sentence I’ll read it again to make sure it makes sense.  I consider that editing or revising.  I edit a text message the same way I do a paper for one of my classes.  So through my primary research I mostly found that my individual processes to approaching composing a text or a paper are similar.

Through secondary research I found mostly ways that they are different.  The most popular difference I found had to do with grammar.  When people are trying to communicate quickly through one of the ICT’s you don’t think about whether you’re grammar is correct or not.  Many people will shorten their message any way they can.  Some common examples are “u” for “you,” “lol” for “laugh out loud,” and “4” for “for.”  I myself cannot stand when people type like that it drives me crazy; I prefer to take the time to type everything out.  But if you’re on the go and trying to send a message fast I can see why you would do this.  On the other hand, some of the younger generation do it just because they can and also because in reality they don’t know how to correctly spell the word they’re trying to type.  So they just do the best they can.  The problem with this is that the texting language people use can begin to spill over into their academic writing.

Many teachers despise that students texting language spills over into their work.  But some are embracing it and even allowing students to use their laptops and mobile devices in class.  I’ll use my own English class for example.  We take and use our laptops in class every day.  We do almost all of our work on our blogs or in a type of chat website and our teacher doesn’t mind us using text talk.  I think this helps me stay interested in what we are doing and learning about.  But it is a college level course so we are expected to know the difference in being able to write a paper and freely being able to text and type however we feel like it.  Also during this research I also found some teachers have found ways to incorporate cell phones and texting in to the learning in their classrooms.  Colleen Gillard talks a little about research she has done with this in her blog.  She describes a few ways teachers have found to incorporate using your smart phone in class.  One teacher had her student’s text in their thoughts on Romeo and Juliet to a sort of message forum she displayed on a projector in front of the room.  There is another tool where students can respond via text message to multiple choice and free response questions also.  At ECU we used something similar in orientation.  We were asked survey type questions and asked to text in our answers and the findings would show up on the projector screen in the auditorium.  I think this is a great idea to keep students engaged in learning, I know it would keep me a little more interested in class.

Another difference in composing a text message and composing a paper for academics is that when you’re texting someone it’s very casual, and usually you text someone for a certain reason.  When you are trying to right a paper for class its stressful and your words don’t just flow out; at least mine don’t.  You are also writing for a specific purpose that you usually don’t get to decide when writing a paper.  A paper is something you have to write if it’s assigned.  You can send a text whenever you feel free to.  Text messages involve only a little bit of though if any at all, whereas when you are composing a paper you have to think for a while about what you are going to write about and how you’re are going to approach writing about it.  Most likely you are also going to have to do research for the paper you are writing.  You don’t have to do research for a text message.  I guess this would be the biggest difference in composing a text and composing an article or paper for school.  There is a whole lot of a less thought put into text messages.

In conclusion I’m not sure if I think that writing a text and writing a paper are more alike or different.  For myself the processes are similar, texting is just on a smaller scale.  I thought that after this research I would feel like they are similar, but when I think about the effort being put into each of them, it takes a lot less to text.  I do however feel like texting is writing and sooner or later, whether we like it or not, we will start using smart phones more in the classroom.  Eventually using mobile devices for learning will be the norm.