Response to respone #1

Response #1 shughes In his recent work, Clive Thompson suggests that the social media revolution that is becoming more and more relevant may not actually be causing students to become less smart in the subject of writing. His article made a point to say that, in the past we focused on formal writing, and formal writing alone. “Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment,” he says, strengthening the point and giving readers the idea, maybe there is some truth to this theory. More times than I can imagine being a child, I remember my parents continually complaining when their son would ask question about tedious homework. “When have I ever written an essay for any of the jobs I have worked for since being out of school?” they would nag. Thompson’s counter argument throughout his article comes out saying, that though kids have been frequenting the internet so much and using shortened words with phrases and shorthand that this type of writing is causing students to become better writers. Our fathers and mothers once wrote formal essay papers in schools where the internet was written about in sci-fi fantasies and then stopped when their school career ended never to pick up an essay pencil again. Like a knife that is never sharpened, it can only cut so deep. While on the other hand, in a world where homework isn’t even being written on paper anymore, students are constantly writing blogs and commenting to their friends. Although Clive Thompson doesn’t come out and say it, I believe that his article starts to lean in only the direction that students are becoming better writers due to the Internet. “The fact that students today almost always write for an audience gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing.” He says. In some cases this may be true, students are staying sharp on writing practice, but only to be debated by people that believe that writing in that manner only makes for better writing for what it applies to. For instance, though I spend every day tossing a football to my friends doesn’t necessarily mean that I am ready to be a quarterback for the NFL. Though he goes on to add that Andrea Lundsford (a professor of writing and rhetoric that conducted a study on Harvard students) after examining her papers has never once noticed short hand in them. He also says that video game walkthroughs help people on their writing prose. My own view is that a do believe that students posting forums on the Internet or walkthroughs may help them, but to write a good essay they still have to practice. Though students may be writing video game walkthroughs if you search online for an average video game walkthrough you will only find about 25-50. In my graduating class there was about 200-250, which isn’t enough for a good majority to be gaining from this type of walkthroughs. I will also add that though Lundsford never found any sort of text speak in her academic papers the question you really have to ask your self is, these are students who deal with writing and grading on a daily basis. These same students are for the most part not stupid enough to put text speak into formal papers. Just because they don’t doesn’t mean that they are better than writing papers than anyone else. On the whole, I think it is still to soon to confirm that new technology can aid students better than just writing essays, despite what Clive Thompson, Andrea Lundsford or anyone else says for that matter.