The Right to Write Me Off

Part I.
Twitter-esque summary of “Walking with Texts: Using PDAs to Manage Textual Information” by Jason Swarts

Need 2 build a txt? Use a PDA. Decide wat info you need n reassemble it in2 a new txt. Do it wherevr n whenevr. Go ahead, defy time n space.

Part II.
The Right to Write Me Off

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but there is a time and a place for expressing those opinions. We gear everything we write toward a specific audience. For each audience we address, our manner of speaking changes. Concerned with impressing a teacher or fellow classmates, students prove that they are capable of using proper grammar. Removed from the academic setting, however, proper grammar is thrown out the window and, in a sense, language is set free. When texting someone, the texter is free to be more expressive – to be themself. Despite changes in writing style, one thing remains constant regarding any work that is produced: it will be judged.
Wendy Warren Austin, author of “Text Messaging: Rhetoric in a New Keypad,” asserts that “we are entering a new stage in writing,” one in which the informality of everyday language overlaps with academic formality (106). For some, this may be true. However, for me personally it is not. Even when given an informal assignment, I write it as I would any formal assignment. Why? Simply because I know a teacher will judge my writing. It is important to write well because you cannot afford to have a teacher write off your work, especially in classes where writing a paper replaces taking a midterm or final exam. Faced with the pressure of impressing a teacher, the idea of writing can be overwhelming. Therefore, blogs are especially difficult for me because not only are they judged by my teacher but possibly by my classmates as well. The same holds true for producing a PowerPoint. In “Absolute PowerPoint,” Ian Parker states that when you create a PowerPoint “you are judged by it – you insist on being judged by it” (353). Focus no longer rests solely on one’s writing ability, but on their ability to design and present as well. In instances in which one’s work is judged by an authoritative figure, there will always be pressure to impress.
Through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, language is freed: “Our creativity surges when opportunities for maintaining human contact present themselves” (Austin 104). Although postings made to these sites are still being judged, the need to impress is gone because the audience does not consist of authority figures but rather friends. Furthermore, as Paul Boutin, author of “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004,” argues, the character limits that are set in most of these mediums “puts everyone back on equal footing.” There is simply not enough space for the quality of one’s writing to truly be evaluated. One is free to express themselves without the fear of being written off.

Works Cited
Austin, Wendy Warren. Notes. “Text Messaging: Rhetoric in a New Keypad.” Small Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools. Ed. Byron Hawk, David M. Rieder, and Ollie Oviedo. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. 104-06.
Boutin, Paul. “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004.” Wired Magazine. 16.11:20 Oct. 2008. 10 Oct. 2009 < http://www.wired.com/entertainment/
theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay>.
Parker, Ian. “Absolute PowerPoint.” The New Yorker. 28 May 2001: 352-58.