"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

-Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Twitter: Better Than Your English Professor



One Stanford University study seems to indicate that Twittering might just help improve writing skills.




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6 comments:

  1. Sarah2 Kelly8:40 PM, September 03, 2009

    Twitter especially, being that you can't go over 140 characters, would not improve writing skills because it seems to encourage the use of lazy abbreviations. While talking on the internet people tend not to care about acceptable grammar and spelling. I think twitter would have a negative effect on a person's ability to compose thoughtful writing.

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  2. Charlie10:09 PM, September 03, 2009

    It seems to me like your only complaint is that spelling takes a hit when people use twitter of facebook to post their thoughts. Instead of having a negative effect, I think it teaches students to express their ideas in a tight, compact structure. Many students these days tend to string together long, run-on sentences that cripple the effectiveness of their paper. No, the posts filled with lols and ...s are not very productive. But I think that the 140 character limit forces the person to be as efficient and economical with their sentence building and word choice as possible, which in turn makes them a better writer.

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  3. Swift6:12 PM, September 04, 2009

    I would say that the art of good writing is not necessarily about grammar or spelling, which certainly go out the window in terms of the internet, but that it is about expressing ideas in a clear way that other people can understand. I would entirely believe this study, and agree with Charlie that a character limit probably forces people to think about what they are saying more, which would most likely improve their ability to communicate. Any kind of practice, in most any medium, is good practice.

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  4. Apollosbane7:39 PM, September 04, 2009

    Yes, you put your ideas down in compact areas, but you completely ignore grammar and spelling laws. I know for a fact that MANY people use sentence fragments in writing (i.e. wall posts, aim). I myself am guilty of this. I feel that if people write abundance of fragments and dramatically incorrect sentences, they will be in a habit of writing them and write essays dreadfully similar to a facebook inbox letter

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  5. Swift11:35 AM, September 05, 2009

    Perhaps. However, I think that sentence fragments especially, can be used to great effect in writing, if used skillfully. I also would say that, probably, and admittedly without evidence, most people can write in a couple of voices, and can understand that they need to write a certain way for an essay, a certain way for creative writing, and a different way for email. I doubt that there are very many people who write essays like they write emails, and I wonder if their essays would be any better if they had never used Twitter. My guess is not.

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  6. Alyssa Tomkowicz8:59 PM, September 05, 2009

    First off I want to say that the labels for this post made me giggle. Second, I believe that your online writing and school writing should be separate. On Facebook I do like to use proper spelling and grammar on posts I know everyone will see but in the chat I admit I fall victim to the fragments and improper grammar. I agree completely with Apollosbane because I myself on occasion have to stop myself from writing as if I were on Facebook. The shortened space does help with being more concise, (can you tell by the length of this post that I have no Twitter?)but the risks don't outweigh the benefits as far as this topic is concerned. That doesn't mean we should all stop using social networking sites, it just means we need to be more aware of the separation between the online world and the real world.

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