Does technology hurt student writing?

YES
Norm Goldstein
Speed kills good writing skills

Among the many real challenges to American education today, add another: writing in the electronic media.

A recent newspaper article quotes elementary school pupils on their strong preference for “punching a keyboard” rather than writing in longhand. “Computers are better,” they say.

There’s no sense in debating the attitude. According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 90 percent of Americans between the ages of 5 and 17 use computers. And, in most cases, you’d have to agree: Computers are better.

The legitimate worry, though, is what this will mean to writing in the future. Not just handwriting, but the style, spelling, punctuation, grammar of all written expression. The effects—ill effects—are already apparent. Just read e-mails for evidence.

Electronic mail, though relatively new, dating back only 25 years or so, already has had a tremendous influence on writing. Much of it, ironically, comes from its greatest benefit: speed.

But the primary advantage of written over vocal communication is the opportunity to think out what you really want to say and organize those thoughts. You have the chance to revise it, to be sure it is accurate, clear and precise. The hasty process of e-mail leaves a large gap for mistakes—and muddled thoughts—to pore out. (Spell checking may be useful, but it shouldn’t replace learning or a dictionary. It didn’t catch, for example, the homonym “pore” in the previous sentence, when “pour” was meant.)

Even a cursory look at e-mails provides a long list of writing trends that only serve to “dumb down” the language. For starters, it’s a more informal style, partly because it is so easily available to so many. (No editor or publisher needed.) There may not be anything wrong with that, but it does raise some questions about how far to go with “conversational” writing. The messages come in short spurts. Fragmented sentences. Phrases.

Some other, more serious, characteristics, not necessarily in order of peeves:

• Spacing (There appears to be an e-mail mantra: Save a keystroke. Words are often written solid; no spaces.)
  
• Lowercase To save that valued keystroke—the extra shift key—lowercase is the general format. (Uppercase, in e-mail protocol, apparently means the writer is shouting.)
  
• Abbreviations That extra keystroke again: If you can save a couple of letters, why use the correct spelling? Thus, lite for light; thru for through. Rite?
  
• Acronyms There have been shorthand systems in the past, of course. But this excessive use of letters to define phrases on e-mail only emphasizes the goal of quick and easy, with little or no interest in making it clear or understandable.
  
• Emoticons These e-mail symbols are the current hieroglyphics, expressing a mood of the writer, who probably is just too lazy (or not interested) to find the right words. These “smileys,” to be read sideways, diminish clarity and understanding—the underpinnings of good communication.
  
• Punctuation Overused and abused, if used at all. Hello!!!!!!!

There is no suggestion here that e-mail, as it is currently used (abused?) means the end of the English language as we know it. The language will survive, probably even adapt some of the innovations, as it always has. But it comes down to an erosion of writing skills, and the standards of good writing need to be defended.

Clear writing is clear writing, no matter the medium.

Norm Goldstein is an Associated Press editor. These views do not necessarily reflect those of AP.

NO
Clinton R. Gardner
It allows better expression of ideas

When I started teaching writing 15 years ago, some of my older colleagues lamented the decline in student writing. “Oh, why can’t they write like they used to!” I would hear them opine. Since I was very green, I listened to them, and suspected every student of being deficient compared to those from the golden age of the ‘50s or ‘60s or ‘70s.

Having taught writing through the explosive growth of online writing technologies, I cannot say that I have witnessed a similar decline in student writing and sincerely doubt that those now-retired colleagues witnessed such a decline either. From my observation, student writers in 2005 display the same problems as their cohorts in 1990 displayed in dealing with “big” issues like the development of ideas, the uses of evidence or the improvement of writing methods, right down to sentence-level concerns such as run-on sentences, fragments or problematic word usage. If anything, I think online writing technologies have improved student writing, because more people are writing and sharing their writing than at any time in the history of humanity.

Granted, my evidence is anecdotal, but many of my colleagues have more substantial evidence and see that such technologies do more to add to opportunity than to harm student writing. For example, here at Salt Lake Community College we use chat systems in our online classes. These spaces function much like other chat rooms, although student writers tend to be a bit more discursive than when “talking” to friends online. They still use language shortcuts that allow them to communicate more easily with their classmates, but we have noted no detrimental effect on their formal writing. Ultimately, the fact that they are online and chatting can have a positive effect because students can more easily share drafts, get feedback and expand through revision. Simply because students are writing in “chat speak” does not correlate to a decline in the ability to write.

Writing is itself a technology. It was invented by humans to allow us to communicate with one another without having to be face-to-face. The impact of writing, of course, was much more expansive than just simple communication. It quickly became a complex method of thinking in itself. Online technologies further expanded and complicated the situation by allowing more people to share their writing (no matter how underdeveloped) with a large audience. As teachers, we know thinking can be a messy thing—especially for inexperienced students. Isn’t it our role to teach students how to use technology to express ideas better and to think more rigorously?