Rich Menga is PCMech's video guy, an author and part-time host of PCMech LIVE.If I were a schoolteacher and some dopey teen put an emoticon or dared put an ‘LOL’ in any written assignment given, here’s the mark he or she would receive from me:
F
I don’t care if what was turned in was the most masterfully written thing on the face of the planet. If there was so much a hint of netspeak present, it’s insta-fail.
Is it true that turned-in written assignments contain netspeak from time to time? Unfortunately the answer to that is yes.
Very sad.
It is absolutely NOT the responsibility of the teacher to “translate” netspeak from a turned-in written assignment. If you happen to be a schoolteacher and see netspeak on anything turned in, FAIL it and make them do it again until they get it right.
I can understand seeing emoticons, LOLs, etc. on the internet because, well.. it’s the internet. But on written assignments? NO, NO, NO.. wrong. Wrong in so many ways..
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4/28/2008 9:56 am
As a teacher I would definitely mark it wrong. Just like a misspelling or grammar error.
Automatic F? I don’t think so. That’s am extreme reaction to what is truly a small problem. You seem to think that it’s OK for the Internet, but then what happens when the schooling is done via the Internet?
Especially if it’s just a brain fart from the child. After four kids, I know brain farts. Some of them have gone on for years.
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4/28/2008 12:16 pm
My wife teaches 7th and 8th grade English Literature and comes across this quite often. She marks it as incorrect and goes onto the next paper.
I am waiting for the day when Emotbonics is brought before a school board and they acept it a learning or teaching style.
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4/28/2008 12:23 pm
An automatic F is kind of exaggerated. Just count every kind of slang as a spelling mistake. Emoticons are different. Seeing an emoticon in something formal is just weird. I wouldn’t call an emoticon internet slang. More like an unimaginative way to express an emotion.
Funny trivia, in Dutch (my native language) ‘lol’ actually is a word that means ‘fun’.
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4/28/2008 8:27 pm
Generation Y is taking over the world!!!
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4/28/2008 11:21 pm
This is not limited to high school. This type of writing is popping up at the college and university level as well…even in upper division classes. Between emoticons and countless wikipedia citations, the research paper is becoming increasingly painful to grade.
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4/29/2008 10:17 am
I teach college students. It’s amazing how many will insert netspeak into their formal essays, and I always give the essay a poor grade. Why? Because at this level, students are expected to show some awareness of their audience and adjust their language accordingly.
On occasion, students will violate grammatical conventions in order to drive home a point. This practice is perfectly acceptable, but it must be clear that the student is deliberately violating the convention. A student who turns in essays incorporating netspeak or who emails me using textspeak has failed to show that she understands both how and when to break the rules to get her point across.
Additionally, students need to realize that how they present themselves in writing matters. Someone who uses netspeak in an otherwise formal communication (and essays are formal, as are any communications with institutional authority i.e. the instructor) does herself a disfavor. The students may think I’m a bit of a fogie when I mark them down for their use of informal language in a formal setting, but if it makes them think twice when they apply for their first job, it’ll be worth it.
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4/29/2008 12:32 pm
Automatic fail? Maybe not, but it should be marked as wrong and the grade should reflect that. It is understood and accepted that the Internet has it’s own “language” but this does not mean that children should not learn proper English (or French or German or whatever language is their native language). It saddens me when you see otherwise bright kids online who can’t put two coherent sentences together
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