Nika Dixon

I wear many different hats in my life. Author. Professor. Multimedia Consultant. There are days when these characteristics fight for ownership of my time, and days when they weave themselves quite happily together. I often wonder how I manage, but they seem to have come to some sort of agreement, so I don’t argue.

The writer in me is constantly striving to find better ways to say something. Keeping up with new terminology, catch phrases, and slang is a must. And while I am still striving to find my own voice, I like to think I am more than capable of forming complete phrases and sentences that will convey my thoughts to the reader.

As a teacher I am appalled and astounded at the horrible state of the writing skills that come across my desk…and this is at a college level!

Hand written essays are sloppy and incomplete. Phrases are sometimes so badly broken I have to read them several times in order to figure out what the student is trying to say. Even students who opted to submit their reports digitally ignore the built in spelling and grammar checker.

But the saddest element is the answers that are intermixed with text speak. And yes, I am talking about graded essays that count towards their final marks.

Examples:

“…he went 2 get…”
“…b4 you decide…”
“…know wot u r doing…”
“…prolly for the best…”

The consultant in me shudders to think of this as the future of business correspondence.

Now having said that, I would like to reiterate that I am neither old, nor a technophobe. I am addicted to Twitter and social networking. I type two thousand or more text messages a month, and am more than happy to be working on my dual-monitor pc while simultaneously accessing other files on my laptop.

I love technology, and I embrace it whole heartedly. But like everything else in this world, it has it’s place. No matter how ingrained text speak has become in everyday speech, it does not belong in the boardroom, and it does not belong in the classroom.

All in all it’s quite a simple rule of thumb: you won’t be hired if your cover letter is filled with short forms, and you won’t be graded if your essay is submitted in text speak.

kthxbai
- Nika