[etni] Fw: Informal Style of Electronic Messages Is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds
----- Original Message ----- From: "Margie Cohen" <margiecj@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: Informal Style of Electronic Messages Is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds 

Another interesting article that has been discussed on ETNI; now the NYT
is discussing it too!
Informal Style of Electronic Messages Is Showing Up in Schoolwork, Study Finds 
The New York Times - April 25, 2008
By TAMAR LEWIN
As e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings become nearly ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers, the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their schoolwork, a new study says.
Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments, according to the study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the College Board’s National Commission on Writing. About half said they sometimes omitted proper punctuation and capitalization in schoolwork. A quarter said they had used emoticons like smiley faces. About a third said they had used text shortcuts like “LOL” for “laugh out loud.”
“I think this is not a worrying issue at all,” said Richard Sterling, emeritus executive director of the National Writing Project, which aims to improve the teaching of writing.
When e-mail shorthand — or for that matter, slang — appears in academic assignments, Professor Sterling said, it is an opportunity for teachers to explain that while such usages are acceptable in some contexts, they do not belong in schoolwork. And as the English language evolves, he said, some e-mail conventions, like starting sentences without a capital letter, may well become accepted practice.
“I think in the future, capitalization will disappear,” said Professor Sterling, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. In fact, he said, when his teenage son asked what the presence of the capital letter added to what the period at the end of the sentence signified, he had no answer. 

(To read the whole article, go to -
http://www.etni.org/news/informal_electronic.htm  )



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