Kids Improve Writing Online 325
aelfric35 writes "Ben Franklin advised his son not to allow schooling to interfere with his education. Even though many have disparaged the effects of IM on schoolchildrens' prose, some kids are actually becoming better writers by participating in online communities. Henry Jenkins writes in MIT's Technology Review about how some kids are gaining writing and editorial experience far beyond what their schools can offer by participating in Harry Potter fan fiction forums (sorry about the alliteration)."
not for me (Score:4, Funny)
Re:not for me (Score:2)
Go expand your vocabulary [reference.com].
Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a tiny minority who are improving themselves despite the apalling effects of the absence of grammar and spelling education, but pointing at those and saying "oh, look, the system works!" is just plain stupid.
Daniel
Re:Oh please... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh. Improved writing skills my eye. The above's right - look at any online message board, and witness the abhorrent spelling 'n grammar. Even basic sentence structure eludes most IM-ers, which makes sense. The goal is speed, with accuracy being a distant second. I find it rather unlikely that downplaying the importance of accuracy somehow *improves* accuracy...
Y3aH It'S Tru3 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Y3aH It'S Tru3 (Score:2, Funny)
(|_455 0' 2|1
Re:Y3aH It'S Tru3 (Score:5, Funny)
counterstrike grammatical academy
class of 2001
C 0 |_| |\| 7 3 |2 5 7 |2 1 | 3
c o u n t e r s t r i k e
6 |2 4
g r a m m a t i c a l
4 ( 4 |)3
a c a d e m y
( |_ 4 5 5 0' 2 | 1
c l a s s of (o') 2 00 1
Note the K in counterstrike is only a | . I would guess it was intented to be a |
It took me around 10 seconds to read that. I'm not sure if I should be proud or hang myself.
This lesson in leet speak brought to you by the letter 3.
Re:Y3aH It'S Tru3 (Score:4, Funny)
Pride is not an honourable alternative.
Hang yourself - just don't make a mess of it. People will have to clean up afterwards.
Re: Y3aH It'S Tru3 (Score:3, Funny)
You misspelled 'y344', looser.
Re: Y3aH It'S Tru3 (Score:5, Funny)
And this on Slashdot. With this article.
Oh, the irony
In resonse to your sig (Score:3, Interesting)
Writing better? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Writing better? (Score:5, Informative)
And I am most definitely a part of that backlash. When I see "loose" being used in place of "lose", my blood starts boiling.
Of course, none of this excuses my notoriously poor typing skills. Typo-s aplenty!
Re: Writing better? (Score:5, Funny)
> When I see "loose" being used in place of "lose", my blood starts boiling.
Me to.
Re: Writing better? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Writing better? (Score:2, Funny)
Re: Writing better? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
Is that like being 'more pregnant'? My wife will be glad to hear.
Re:Writing better? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dlugar
Re:Writing better? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of learning Latin (Score:4, Interesting)
I came to the conclusion that by learning Latin I actually learned a lot about my own language (which is Dutch, by the way).
In fact, exercises almost exclusively consisted of translating from Latin and not the other way around.
An interesting aspect of Latin is that the grammatical structure relies more on declinations (word endings); and word order in Latin sentences does generally not correspond to that of the translation in e.g. English or Dutch. Translating a Latin sentence involves looking up unfamiliar words, and figuring out the grammatical functions and relations of the words in the sentence. After the analysis comes the synthesis: writing a grammatically correct sentence in Dutch (or English, etc.) that accurately represents the meaning of the Latin sentence. I am sure that the skills thus learned are also helpful when it comes to expressing original thoughts.
Re:The point of learning Latin (Score:5, Interesting)
as dead as dead can be.
It killed the ancient Romans,
and now it's killing me."
Nonetheless, I honestly believe that learning Latin at school has genuinely contributed to my coding. It's a wonderfully rigorous and structured language, but one which uses that rigour and structure to describe the real world. The strength of Latin is its unforgiving structure, while the strength of English is its flexibility.
Apart from anything else Latin lessons gave me a clear understanding of terms such as 'syntax' and 'parse', of proper sentence construction and the importance of precision in language.
I also feel there may, in some sense, be an added benefit, which manifests in a variety of ways, some obvious and some far more subtle, to be gained from the study of a language, even a language which is no longer current, vernacular or in any sense idiomatic, from which not only are a great many of the present day languages of Europe clear derivatives, but which was also the nearest thing to a universal language for many centuries, in which it would be, were that language to be more widely used today, considered entirely reasonable to construct sentences of great structural complexity, far beyond that displayed in current English, containing a range of subsidiary clauses, embedded phrases, hypothetical diversions and clearly structured formations such as the dreaded Ablative Absolute, with the consequent benefit of a remarkable precision in the expression of far more complex constructs in a single structural unit than might be possible in a language tending towards a shorter, more atomic, style of construction.
On the other hand, there's readability to consider...
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The point of learning Latin (Score:2, Informative)
I'm Finnish, and as we have a very explicit syntax (visibly encoded in affixes), I didn't need exposure to another language to become aware of it. What was nice, the English grammar was a piece of cake to learn after Finnish. (And the pronunciation (more accurately, the *spelling*) in turn was a nightmare to get right...)
In Finnish, word order just adds nuanc
Re:Writing better? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Writing better? (Score:5, Funny)
I think the exception to this is my high school spanish teacher. She didn't know English and she didn't know Spanish. We argued for 3 weeks whether the word "Spanish" in the sentence "We are in la clase de la Spanish" (yes, that's how she said it) was an adjective or a verb. She argued in favor of the verb. Ah, public education.
One funny thing to note is she once gave out referrals (passes to go see the principal) to 2 students for "sending psychic messages during a test." The kids were staring at their papers very intensely and, to her, were apparently communicating answers psychically. Another one of her students jumped out of her second story window while she was teaching class, and she didn't know until he came back upstairs through the door.
Re:Writing better? (Score:3, Funny)
"Okay class, how you say 'jour hermano's padre' in espanol?"
"Padre?"
"No. Es is tio"
*under breath*"Maybe in your hillbilly family"
We all failed the test for putting down the correct answers. One other fun thing to note is when one girl in our class showed another what happens when you spray hairspray on a cigarette lighter. She was told to "quiet down".
Re:Writing better? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hehe, sounds about as competent as my grade 7 science teacher. First, he taught us that women have more ribs than men. I tried to correct him but he asked to talk to me after class...where he explained that he knows that, but he can't teach that or the religious parents will get mad.
Next, he taught us that babies' skulls have a gap in them so that their brain can grow. I said "But it fuses within a few months. Yet an adult's head is quite a bit larger than an infants. Obviously, your skull can grow
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
English on the other hand doesn't seem to have much of a grammar (I mean, a
Re:Writing better? (Score:2, Insightful)
But when I'm messaging... it's like a whole different grammar structure, which I think should be accepted within that context. I don't capitalize in messaging. I rarely use punctuation. Why should I be chastised for that? Messaging is more like speaking verbally, I find, and having done transcription work for a fair number of years, I can tell you that people almos
Re:Writing better? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Writing better? (Score:5, Interesting)
In college, and a good one [whitman.edu] at that, many of my professors were amazed that more than half of students still didn't understand the differences between "its" and "it's", "their," "they're" and "there," or "your" and "you're". I even ran across the occasional student in grad school [uchicago.edu] who had this problem. It's a sad day when students at some of the top schools in the country don't even understand their own language.
Re:elitist ignorance (Score:5, Interesting)
Show me a language, other than a manmade one like Sanskrit (yes, it was codified, organized and "fixed in stone" about 2000-2400 years ago), that isn't. All languages evolve, that's what makes them "living" languages (as opposed to so-called "dead" ones like latin, ancient greek or classical arabic). You described a pidgin [wikipedia.org], which English definitely isn't. English has been evolving and in use as its own language for over 1500 years.
If we only had one language (like your example of Esperanto), it, too would begin to evolve as new technologies, etc. came into being. Esperanto lost popularity because it was too simple of a language -- it didn't contain enough complexity to convey the meanings necessary to carry on an intellectual conversation.
Languages, dialects and words evolve because of communication needs. Imagine if I said something like "this is wonderfully spicy food." English uses the word "spicy" for (at least) two different meanings: "flavorful from having a number of spices added", and "hot, as in chili peppers." A language like Spanish has evolved its own word (picante) for the latter meaning, and thus if I were to say "esta comida es deliciosamente picante," you'd know immediately that I love hot-spicy food.
It's not elitist to ask that people learn and use good grammar or spelling. Grammar is what gives sentences meaning. You can completely change the meaning of a sentence by misplacing a comma (I know, I spent an hour defending one sentence in my philosophy thesis because of an ambiguous comma) or other punctuation mark, just as you can make a sentence very difficult to read by using "it's" (it is) instead of "its" (belongs to "it").
Granted, English is a horribly over-complex language that has adopted words and phrases from a variety of other (often non-related) languages, you said it yourself - it's extremely difficult to find a replacement for it. I'm not about to say that everyone should learn English and nothing else -- far from it, I speak/understand 3 languages (only one of them very well, anymore) and find it attrocious that Americans can barely speak their own language, let alone at least one more -- but, it has become the dominant language of information, and like it or not, especially because so many people speak it, it's very important to follow the rules (and the exceptions) in order to be understood.
Just for an experiment, if you want to see how much more effort it is to have something that's just "understandable," go read some Middle English like Chaucer, where words were spelled phonetically instead of according to specified rules (and the spellings change between instances of the words). You practically have to read it aloud if you want to understand it easily. There's a reason why grammar and spelling standards evolved within languages.
Re:elitist ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Good grammar is about making it easier for your readers to read what you wrote by breaking up the text into logical structures that are easy for the eyes to parse. Whenever I see something on the web that is just one big blob of text (no capitalisation, no paragraph breaks etc.) with very bad spelling I don't read it unless the information it contains is vital. Why? Because it gives me a headache and strains my eyes just trying to parse the text to get to the information. It's not about elitism. It's about saving my eyes and head from having to read 3 times slower and concentrating twice as hard to get to the information than if the author had bothered to try to separate the words into a proper structure and ran it through a spell-check.
Having proper grammar and spelling is like having everyone using standard C or standard C++ rather than weird variant number 1000 that only works on this computer when there is a full moon. It might be more boring and staid, but having a standard framework that everyone agrees on makes it much easier to understand what the other guy is talking about. Smaller groups may use their own special deviations (which make it harder for those outside their group to understand their programs). If new deviations become popular enough they get added to the standard. But still having that standard framework is vital, and those who choose to deviate from it should still be fully grounded in it so they can communicate easily with others not in their special "group".
Re:elitist ignorance (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Writing better? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Writing better? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to learn your language is to study another. This is especially true for English which is weird because it is a mix of many different tongues.
To make matters worse, the new style grammars that have been place for the last half century rejected teaching sentence structure. For important philosophical reasons, you are not supposed to know about the predicate and object in a sentence. Me, I learned about helper words and action words, and am clueless about real English grammar.
Re:Writing better? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure that's not the only way to learn your language. I know plenty of people have had a good grasp of the English language long before they learned any foreign language.
Also, I think that you mean to say that, if you're learning English, learning a Latin-based foreign language would help. Learning Arabic or Japanese or Mandarin probably wouldn't
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
I disagree. The study of another language will draw attention to the difference between that language and your own, and it may help you appreciate the structure of your own language. But to understand that structure, you have to study the language itself. It seems like people who have studied other languages generally do better with their own, but I t
Re:Writing better? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Writing better? (Score:3, Informative)
The tidbit "...in 10th grade." would then be "...in tenth grade", and "Finding 30 grammatical errors..." would be "Finding thirty grammatical errors..."
In addition, the subject if your third sentence is "mistakes". The subject is plural, and hence "it" in the second clause of that sentence should be "they".
Of course, all this really goes to show is that it's very diffic
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
Re:Writing better? (Score:4, Interesting)
I attended a private school my sophmore year of HS. That was an incredibly difficult year for me, as the english class was quite intense in teaching the nuances of the english language (at least compared to anything I'd seen prior, or have seen since).
For basic grammar, we used Abekka books. They had the basic "underline this part of speech, circle that" problems, but in addition, there was a huge amount of space dedicated to things such as common mistakes that most people make (your|you're, its|it's, who|whom, nauseated|nauseous, etc. etc. - I've forgotten most of the specifics by now, but I have the feeling I'm still aware of most of them through basic osmosis)).
Additionally, we had latin roots, prefixes and suffixes (probably 20 or so a week combined) as well as 20 or so 3-sylabilic+ words and at least 1 book a week from the library (which didn't have shit rags like Hardy Boys in it). It was quite the course load.
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
You mean nauseous|nauseating, right?
I love my American Heritage Dictionary of English Usage. It gives histories of the controveries and actual usage patterns, and its editors have found a good balance between not disagreeing with traditional usage commentators and practicality.
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
I don't think so, ignoring any grammatical errors, "I'm feeling nauseous" means the same as "I'm feeling nauseated".
Re:Writing better? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
He mentions that he also studies German. That's a good thing, as kids learn the differences and similarities with/between words and tend to become curious why that is. Learning is good, and an idiot in [insert language here] (just as an example, no culture-bashing) is just as stupid as an idiot in English. I speak broken Francais, myself, but I've learned a lot about how people
literacy tutor (Score:2)
Re: second language (Score:2)
In this case, cause and effect may not be what you think.
Re:Writing better? (Score:2)
Language is culture, and culture is heritage, and it's always something to be proud of. Good use and respect for one's language implies respect for oneself. It can't be but a winner.
Re:Writing better? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a simple enough reason for this.
English is taught (at least in English speaking countries) as a language for everyday use. In England I guess it would be something like Estuary English [ucl.ac.uk]. It's a language where words are slurred together (in a general sense, I'm not implying the English are drunk all the time :), 'slow' letter-groups are lost (what==w'ot, what's up==wass'up, hmm...). What is really being said is obtained mostly from the context and slang is used often.
Foreign languages, in your ca
It's all coming true! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's all coming true! (Score:2)
Schooling interfere with education? (Score:5, Informative)
On a more serious note, if you want some highly interesting reads on how "schooling interferes with your education," read some stuff by John Taylor Gatto [cantrip.org]. It's scary 'cos it's true.
Dlugar
Re:Schooling interfere with education? (Score:5, Informative)
It was a statement of his own life, not advice to his son.
Re:Schooling interfere with education? (Score:2)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:Schooling interfere with education? (Score:5, Funny)
--Mark Twain
Re:Schooling interfere with education? (Score:2)
From what I hear, they produce confident, self-assured and completely uneducated children. A school inspector I talked to said the kids there were *years* behind those in mainstream schools.
Sorry... (Score:2, Insightful)
It does work... (Score:5, Insightful)
The secret is practice and peer review. That's the best way to build writing skill, whether the Internet is involved or not. The Internet makes it easier, that's all.
porn stories (Score:5, Funny)
Even today, I'm sure it still has the effect of improving hand-eye coordination and strengthening my forearms.
Three cheers for porn!
Well... (Score:2)
As a homeschooler... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is no suprise to me that the kids participating in online forums are doing well, when they're doing things they want to do they will put in more effort and energy. It is a given.
Re:As a homeschooler... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is even worse with only children. They are seriously deprived when the are homeschooled and it can really effect their quality of life when they are older. There is a lot more to school than gaining knowledge.
Re:As a homeschooler... (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously though, why do people think home schoolers get locked into basements and forgotten? They *do* meet other children, whether through things like scouts or sports or not. We aren't a bunch of recluses, you know. We don't try to stick a floppy in someone's mouth [theonion.com].
Re:As a homeschooler... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am (or was, I'm graduating now) a home-schooled
child. I also do not have siblings. I haven't ever
been to a summer camp, or belonged to very many groups. I have had only a few close friends.
Yet, I do not think I'm lacking in inter-personal
skills. Actually, I seem to be more gregarious (sp?) than most other geeks that I find.
If I am deprived of anything, it is being maltreated by my peers.
Where have
I'm a kid in a similar situation, and I agree - (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two things that have contributed to my becoming a better writer: One, writing lots - my "hobby" has made me write more than I would of ever written normally at this stage of my life, and two, when you are read by 15,000 people, a couple people out of those 15000 point out every little error you make.. and I have learned from those errors.
My main focus is reviews and analysis of blah, and the experience i have gained online has shown up well in school through my commentary's and other literary analysis thatI do, my english grades are much improved over where they were several years ago, and each year get better. (If only I could make these skills blatently evident in college applications *cough* columbia's fu foundation *cough*).
School, in tandom with the web have made me a much better, and much closer to a college level writer. I think the key thing about the web is that it has removed the age barrier. I started in 7th grade, and I wrote from a kids perspective. As I grew up, my writing also grew up to the point that now only do I do the writing, I also run much of the site. I don't think that most of my readers know that I am still in highschool. I am infinitly grateful for the web to have presented me with thise opportinities. I frankly don't know where I would be without it. (I started using the web in '93... thanks to a brand new school with a brand new computer lab)
Re:I'm a kid in a similar situation, and I agree - (Score:4, Informative)
s/and senior/and a senior editor/ or s/and senior/and the senior/
s/writing lots/writing a lot/
s/would of ever/would have ever/
s/15,000/13,000/ s/15000/13,000/
s/commentary's/commentaries/
s/english/English/
s/columbia/Columbia/
s/tandom/tandem/
s/kids/kid's/
s/now only/now not only/
s/infinitly/infinitely/
s/thise/these/
s/opportinities/opportunities/
Try joining your school newspaper. Simply writing for a website doesn't get you nearly the same amount of constructive criticism that the school newspaper editors and faculty advisors can provide.
Re:I'm a kid in a similar situation, and I agree - (Score:2)
As opposed to some people [slashdot.org].
closer to a college level? (Score:2)
Re:I'm a kid in a similar situation, and I agree - (Score:4, Funny)
It would seem you still of a way to go.
mommy, what's "MPREG"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having been exposed to both sides of the HP fanfiction, and having rejected both of them for my own reasons, I would have to say any parent that would encourage their child to join in this type of community has certainly not been exposed to it in its entirety and would be sorely mistaken to assume it is a safe place for children to roam.
IM Doesn't Directly Harm Writing Ability (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get why people say this. You could claim that IM faciliates poor English, but I don't see this as an direct effect. How could a program turn words and structure into that s*** you find in chatrooms?
I think kids are just farking lazy. While IM allows them to write horrible sentences without being screeched at by teachers, implying that poor prose is caused by IM is a stretch. These are the kids who, don't know when to, use commas, or won't use the correct words, even if they're forced. IM just allows that trend to solidify into habit, since they're all chatting instead of watching TV or talking on the phone. Think about it: if computers didn't exist, when would these people write at all?
wold u disagre?
In high school, I offered a classmate (in the accelerated English class, mind you) the chance to break my physics bridge if he wrote a pro-choice paper, mainly because I was sick of hearing his Christian ramblings during class. I'm undecided on abortion, but I wanted to understand how someone like him would argue against his beliefs. I saw a perfect opportunity to challenge his arrogant moral zeal, the same flavor that makes the rest of the world hate us and makes me want to break his face. When I saw his draft, I almost cried. The writing was so unstructured that I could hardly understand anything. The kid couldn't conceptualize a thought he didn't agree with, much less express it in a quasi-coherent form.
When I started using IM, my anal-retentive friend would scream at me if I didn't include puncuation, or capitalize my sentences. Now, I can't stand when others don't do the same, and my writing has benefited tremendously. If I write a paper and check it once, I catch most errors, and figure out more effective ways to arrange sentences. Your ear will learn syntax and structure, even if you don't. Writing benefits writing, and the only harm inflicted by IM is allowing kids to write how they want. If you read any number of high school papers (my dad used to teach 10th-11th grade English), you'd understand. The difference between those papers and IMs? Well, they capitalize their sentences, and they're considerate enough to include periods.
IM is not writing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Proper writing and IM are so dissimilar in nature that I doubt that children will pick up good or bad habits by using the 'broken' language of IM. Let your kids use IM all they want; just make sure they do some 'proper' reading and writing as well sometimes.
Slashdot has helped my writing skills! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it hasn't really improved my grammar or spelling (sorry grammar nazis), but through the obscene number of posts I've made since I've started contributing to slashdot discussions I have refined my writing skills. In my quest to come across intelligently and post something that people will want to read I've gained valuable communication skills. For evidence I simply consider how much better I do with respect to karma than when I first started posting, sure the karma bonus helps and I've probably learned to be a bit of a karma whore (why post something that no one will read) but I do believe a significant increase in the number of my comments that get modded up is due to writing skills I have improved by posting to slashdot.
As well I've even tried writing short stories and posting them on my site, not that they're any good but it's fun to put up something that someone might read (even if it's only a couple friends who give pleasently baised reviews:). I don't get to write as much as I'd like to but I've found I very much enjoy doing it and I am sure I never would of started if it was not for the ability to post them online even though no one will read them but a couple friends who I could have given them to anyway.
It doesn't matter if it's posts to slashdot or short stories on my site, the online community has inspired me to write things that require thought and that cannot help but cause my writing abilities to improve. Now I merely await the trolls who shall flock to point out that this post isn't well written at all (hey it's 1 am here!).
Re:Slashdot has helped my writing skills! (Score:2)
I'm coming up on 1900 posts on slashdot, and though many of them were funny one liners, incoherent rants, subtle trolls and raging flamebait, many have been rather thought out and labored over.
I find posting to slashdot is like a journal of sorts; I've discovered and formed many opinions, revised them, thrown some out, and revisited them.
Slashdot has done much for my thinking, as responding to arguments requires (for me anyway) a well-reasoned response. Mostly I've found that I'm co
My favourite alliteration: (Score:2, Funny)
I disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
Most People Can't Spell (Score:3, Interesting)
People that speak clearly will put punctuation in random places. One of my friends explained to me that he knew punctuation belonged in there, but he didn't know where it went, so he made it up as he went along.
In the end, however, language is a popularity contest, right? The words used the most frequently prosper and surge into the forefront of our vocabularies, and those less often used fade away. Spelling and grammar are also in flux constantly, but at a very slow rate that drops below most peoples' radars.
As time goes on and these electronic tools become more and more common, I would expect to see a levelling occur; Even though I can spell fairly well, I'd advocate phonetic spelling and reduction or elimination of homonyms. Call me a philistine, I don't care...
change for the machines. It's a stoned-the-crows-at-home Schroedinger's world.
Re:Thank kde for konqueror (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe you should try enabling that option in Konqueror, that way you can finally make sure your spelling is correct.
Poor Headline (Score:3, Funny)
porp
writing (Score:2)
Anybody remember these guys? [everything2.com]
Triv
Writers do it to themselves (Score:3, Insightful)
Some will never get off their 'u r 2 kewl' and onto meaningful spelling. It's when you are writing for a larger audience than a high school English class that you become more obsessed with the way you convey your meaning. (That's what makes writing this comment so hard!)
Appropriate words for the correct forum. (Score:3, Interesting)
Different forums. Different grammar.
On livejournal my words come out pretty much like they would from my head, random, stream of consciousness with little regard for form. Chatting? Chatting is for filling in on communication with another person when you can't/won't see them in person or talk on the phone. IM doesn't need or require the same level of formality that one puts into papers or correspondence for work.
There's nothing wrong with 'teh k1dz' these days writing garbage in chat or in forums because these are throw away mediums, no different than a phone chat, except they may be saved for others to see.
Graduation (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll never forget the time when I was standing in line to appear for graduation (2002). All of us in the top ten were talking about our speeches, and I asked one of them (2nd in our class) if I could read her speech. I skimmed through the standard-issue "glad we made it this far"-crap, but when I finished, I realized that she ended the speech with a preposition. I laughed, and mentioned this to her, suggesting a minor change. Her response? She simply shrugged and said she didn't care.
I think this is the true problem with most kids nowadays. They don't care. And why should they? I remember most of my "writing" classes consisted of idiotic writing prompts like:"If you were a seagull, what would you do?" (actual prompt)
These classes are too much about expressing your inner-seagull that punctuation and grammar are considered secondary at best; page length being the most important factor, of course.
I mean, honestly, the problem isn't that difficult to define. Let's not blame IM for what is fundamentally the fault of our society as a whole. I think, before we point fingers, we all need to step back and ask ourselves, "What is going on here?"
-GrymRe:Graduation (Score:2, Interesting)
My guess is somebody decided that creativity is much more important than the knowing what the phrase "past participle" means. Parents don't want their children to be the next $40,000/year editor at Harper Collins, they want their kid to be the next J.K. Rowling.
Re:Graduation (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to pick up a copy of Strunk and White: "Not only is the preposition acceptable at the end, sometimes it is more effective in that spot than anywhere else." You won't find a reputable modern English guide that teaches differently.
ALERT! (Score:2, Insightful)
Worked for me (Score:4, Interesting)
This fomula is very convenient cause it lets you express emotion in the first part and then immediately act on it in the second part. Typical in person, harder to convey in standard writing.
Another benefit of writing is that when I write about subjects I'm interested in, I tend to learn about them by going through the writing process, and I get to do research from Google(and nowadays Wikipedia) every so often. It's all very good practice.
Well, which is it, then?! (Score:2)
Writing improves itself (Score:4, Interesting)
I have always liked to read, but my lower education English classes did a fair job of beating a love of writing out of me. It wasn't until I accidently stumbled into and started writing fan-fiction online that I learned to enjoy it.
Peer review helps, but the amount that it helps depends on the peer group. Books on writing can be good sources of ideas, but they can't improve your writing for you. If you want to write better, you have to write. Given time, you can't help but improve.
*honk*
slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
The moderation system definitely rewards humor. It also rewards clear and concise writing. I think writing tons of Slashdot posts has made my writing more concise. I blame this for my inability to meet page length requirements on my papers. I get right to the point, say everything I want to say in a few pages, and then can't fill the rest up with BS. I also think reading Slashdot has given me a better sense of how to be funny in writing (ignoring IN SOVIET RUSSIA and friends for the moment). I'm constantly looking at failed joke posts and saying "man, that could have been a +5 funny if only he had phrased that differently, or said this extra thing."
Overall, I think Slashdot has given me experience in writing short, clear prose that may be useful in work communication or writing documentation. It hasn't helped with writing 10-page research papers, but once you're out of school nobody cares how many pages you write. I'm interested in what other people think of Slashdot's effect on writing skills. Have you noticed an effect it's had on your writing?
Here's the problem. (Score:2)
The problem with learning all of these grammar rules is that kids need to Think Different! Just like apple says.
I'm not sure what I need to think about "Different" but I'm still working on that.
Perhaps they meant "Think Differently"?
No surprise to me (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm home schooled, and the way we did it I never was required to write papers by hand, or anything, and only once or twice on a computer. I know the letters, I read a lot, but my handwriting was horrible, my spelling was abysmal, and I didn't care. When did I ever use it? I told my parents that I couldn't spell and didn't care to learn to, it just wasn't something I needed.
A few years later we got AOL, a terrible place to be sure. I already know many of the things one must know... like AOL sucks, only morons use l33t speak, etc..
Being a Star Trek fan I went into the official Star Trek "The Bridge" chat room. I had an extreme fear of appearing foolish, and a worry about being understood. My grammar was as bad as my spelling, if not worse. I decided I just wouldn't say anything unless I was sure it was selled correctly. This lead to a
Fast forward a year... I got invovled in a gaming community with a series of message boards. There was a certain amount of role playing that went on, and wars of words between different teams was common. I began posting, and arguing, and in effect writing like crazy. I probbaly wrote an average of at
By the time I was halfway through those six months I was feared by all as a killer debater. Why? I marshalled my arguments well, turned phrases like nobodies business, and generally wrote up a storm.
Since that time I have grown considerably more lax with regards to all aspects of writing. (My speed, first honed in chat rooms so as to be able to keep up with the rapid scrolling, is the only thing which is better than it was then.) But now, though I worry less about putting in all the punctuation, and am no longer a strict capitalization nazi, I am much more engaged in general about English. Now I ama connoisseur of the English language, and am somewhat fascinated by language in general.
I attribute the majority of my skill and learning to being online and in a forum where I
Re:this is my home (Score:2, Funny)
Re:this is my home (Score:2)
Re:how are harry potter fanfics improved writing? (Score:4, Funny)
With what? Magic wands?
*tiptoes away and mumbles something in lowercase to placate the dreaded lameness filter*
Re:how are harry potter fanfics improved writing? (Score:2)
Re:I can forgive the alliteration (Score:2)
Funniest thing is the plural of "virus" is "viruses".
Re:Slashdot (Score:2)
Safari has helped my spelling immensely, however, I still tend to overuse commas, and really need to watch them, in particular.