e-Communication and Academia: Can't They Just Get Along?

A Response to  “Informal Style of Electronic Messages Is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds” by Tamar Lewin

   A recent study led by the Pew Internet & American Life Project revealed a growing instance of students allowing their Internet and text messaging slang to leak into schoolwork. This study worked with 700 nationally representative children ages 12 to 17 and their parents. Of this number, two-thirds admitted that their e-communication slang often appeared within written assignments or school. One-fourth of the 700 claimed to have used emoticons in schoolwork, and one-third used test shortcuts such as LOL (Lewin). These numbers show an alarming influx of ungrammatical communication being used within school, influenced by students’ extensive use of e-mail, texts, and social network sites. However, is this acceptable? Should there be a fine line between social language and the language of academia?

            Lewin’s article cites an interesting opinion on the matter, one of Richard Sterling, emeritus executive of the National Writing Project. He believes that this growing phenomenon should be looked at in a positive light, for it allows teachers the opportunity to explain the importance of context in writing (Lewin). They could relate to students when and where such slang is appropriate and useful, and where it is not. Sterling also goes further to predict that the nonstandard phrases and grammatical shortcuts that are being used by many students may very well become acceptable. He believes that starting a sentence with an upper-case letter is unnecessary, and that one day this standard will be dropped (Lewin). After all, isn’t the point of communication to be able to express thoughts as easily and conveniently as possible? Sterling is not worried about the changes that may come in the world of the grammatically correct—after all, the English language has always been evolving.

            The study conducted also touched on a really interesting point—most students do not think of their e-communication-style writing as “real writing” (Lewin). So is the use of Internet slang in schoolwork an instance of habit, disregard for grammatical standards, or pure laziness? Perhaps it is a mixture of all three. When students observe a growing presence of convenience-writing, which they are a part of, filtering into places of high grammatical standards, why would they feel the need to stop? Such forms of communication are widely used and understood, and also take less time to get across. However, I believe that the world of academia should have high standards, and stick to them. Academics are a form of higher-level thinking and thus must therefore incorporate standards of a similar degree regarding writing. Perhaps certain rules can be amended in order to change with the times, but not to the extent that it would butcher the true essence of the English Language--especially when being used professionally. Without strict standards, how would one be evaluated on their writing skills? I believe that e-communication shortcuts and phrases should be reserved for the Internet and cellphones. As Sterling had said, students must learn to be able to evaluate where and when certain writing styles are acceptable, and for now, that means no to emoticons in an English paper.