Effects of the Internet on Student Writing

The modern world is an era of advanced technologies. People tend to use electronic devices all the time. Many individuals claim that such an obsession with technologies has an adverse impact on humanity. Nevertheless, pundits state that the Internet contributes to enhancing writing skills of students. In fact, the opinions related to this issue differ. Thus, it is clear that the Internet produces both positive and negative effects on students writings. However, the Internet provides dominantly benefits for students that make them become better writers.

The Phenomenon of the Internet

To begin with, in the era of the Internet, everyone writes. Writing skills become must-have because a great deal of communication occurs through worldwide networks. It is clear that the Internet both produce positive and negative impact on students’ writings. John Keller tells about the case of a student named Mark to demonstrate that the Internet helps individuals to improve their writings (Keller 2009). Mark writes every day many texts such as blog posts, e-mails, to-do lists, messages, and even slam poetry. In fact, he is good at writing, but her academic works do not demonstrate his writing skills to the fullest extent. The matter that Mark does not like writing scholarly works. He would instead add a personal tone to his papers.

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Indeed, it does not mean that Mark cannot do it, but he perceives them as senseless. Thus, it seems that students bored while working on academic works. Many believe that “tweets and blog posts enforce bad writing habits and have little relevance to the kind of sustained, focused argument that academic work demands” (Keller 2009). Such an accusation also takes place since many students apply informal constructions and words in their academic papers. Hence, one of the most essential in writing is an attitude to it. Since academic essays are associated with boredom and difficulties, many students do not like writing them. Moreover, they procrastinate because they are afraid of negative results, such as a bad mark.

Writing and Collaboration

The Internet is helpful in teaching students how to write. For instance, the variety of online tools become handy for the creation of a specific environment for studying. What is more, the Internet allows enhancing collaboration among students and with a teacher. One of the most useful tools that promote increasing writing skills and producing a collaborative environment is Google Docs. Nate Green is a teacher who can explain why this tool is efficient, and how teachers use it to help students to learn writing skills (Green 2015). With the help of Google Docs, teachers may track the progress of students, and also, a teacher can direct an individual who does wrong and comment on their works.

Moreover, the tool allows students to work together, which is crucial for a successful education. It is crucial that educators “can easily place comments in the comments box and in the margins” (Green 2015). Students immediately receive the notification about these comments in their mailboxes. Besides, it is easy to share one’s work with other peers for editing. Thus, Google Docs contributes to better feedback and effective collaboration. As a result, it leads to acquiring impressive writing skills. Green insists that “with each additional essay assignment, they need fewer virtual meetings for assistance” (Green 2015), which means that the tool is highly useful. Moreover, students demonstrate a willingness to work in an online environment.

Besides, social media has become an effective tool for sharing knowledge. The Internet is a place for “communication, creative expression, and coursework-related collaboration” (Chang & Leung 2016). Blending learning is a kind of nontraditional pedagogical approach that actively involves the virtual learning environment. There are a number of websites that have educational purposes, such as wikis. Besides, Facebook allows students to learn how to express their ideas and support them with visual tools. Social media also enables students to communicate with their teachers and other students. Crucially, 95% of students stated that Facebook helps them to develop peer relationships and enhance the collaborative discussion (Chang & Leung 2016). Also, Facebooks seems to motivate students because they have a positive attitude toward it. However, social media may be distracting. Twitter contributes to maintaining language skills because individuals learn how to contain a thought into a limited number of characters. It requires deep thinking and particular skills.

Gaining Knowledge Through the Internet

The Internet is a unique phenomenon that provides people all the information they need and even more. It often occurs to be a subject of many discussions because there is no Moreover, it teaches people how to write. In fact, the Internet “is responsible for a stronger base of book knowledge that facilitates subsequent learning, stronger information-processing skills, greater interest in public affairs topics” (Jeffres et al. 2012). Thus, it allows people to receive data about everything, just using search engines. Moreover, the Internet gives people an opportunity to encounter the current events. In such a way, with the help of the Internet, individuals read a significant amount of data daily. It does not only permits them to acquire new knowledge and know current news but also it teaches how to write. People subconsciously memorize writing patterns and new words while operating with all the information. It enables them to improve their own writing. Hence, it means that people read a significant number of post in their social media every day. They see a substantial amount of informative articles every day. Therefore, they read a lot, and they subconsciously learn how to write. The Internet is definitely is useful technology that opened for people many opportunities such as educational.

It is clear that in order to learn how to write one needs not only to write a lot but also learn how to read like a writer. Students who deal with the mass of data daily should “understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what you can learn about writing by reading a particular text” (Bunn 2011). Thus, close reading is effective for analyzing a text and noticing particular words and techniques a writer made. The comprehension that writing is a specific compilation of choices made by a writer motivates students to understand this process better and apply writing techniques of other writers to their own essays. Therefore, students not only learn how to write a text but also, they gain an immense amount of knowledge related to different topics.

Blanding Writing with Another Media

Interestingly, modern students tend to write more than previous generations. However, students are not much aware of the principles of academic writing. Therefore, some believe that “Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into “bleak, bald, sad shorthand” (“Clive Thompson on the New Literacy” 2017). Nevertheless, students are intelligent enough not to use informal language in their academic papers. Moreover, it is professors who have to teach them what kind of language use in their writings during classes. It is curiously that Andrea Lunsford states that technology is “pushing our literacy in bold new directions” (“Clive Thompson on the New Literacy,” 2017). Students write a significant amount of written pieces. It occurs because a great deal of socializing happens on the Internet, and it involves texts. Thus, such an everyday practice may contribute to improving students’ abilities to express their thoughts and structure it in a readable text.

In addition, Schwartz claims that technologies allow to improve the variety of forms of writing. Many teachers say that “online writing improves collaborative writing among students” (Schwartz 2016). However, there is also a belief that the Internet leads to the blending of formal and informal writing, and students may not understand the copy law. In fact, many students prefer to receive feedback through a shared document. Fulfilling various tasks with the help of electronic devices happens to be pleasant and comfortable for them. Moreover, many students demonstrate a willingness to do assignments related to the involvement of digital tools. These tools also permit us to write quickly.

Plagiarism

It is the truth that the Internet produced an immense effect on plagiarism. It allowed people to find any data or source and plagiarize it quickly. However, the Internet also provides many tools for battling with this phenomenon. Nowadays, it is easy to detect plagiarism in electronic texts,  and it is even called “a golden age of plagiarism awareness” (Bailey 2016). Importantly, plagiarism tools contribute to the improvement of students writings. It happens because individuals started making credits to the original sources in their works. Also, they learn how to paraphrase others’ texts. It is useful because it teaches students to read the information carefully and create their own writing style. Therefore, “The Internet eliminated the need to look through stacks of books to find the right work or passage.” Search engines make it easy to find the original author and prevent the case of the theft of intellectual property. In fact, plagiarism is a result of laziness and poor time management skills (Bailey 2016), and the Internet stimulates students to write their original works. Thus, it has become easy to plagiarize someone’s work, but at the same time, particular tools facilitate the process of detecting this issue.

To conclude, the Internet has become a useful tool for enhancing students’ writing skills. It happens that the modern generation writes an incredible amount of texts compared to their ancestors. People use the Internet all the time because it helps them to communicate with others, search for needed information, and know the current affairs. Therefore, it allows people to write collaboratively, for instance, with the help of Google Docs or social media. Also, individuals may find any information to write their text on the Internet. Nevertheless, there is a concern that students blend formal and informal writing, but it is possible to eschew such an outcome with the assistance of a teacher’s directives.

Works Cited

• Bailey, Jonathan. “How the Internet Changed Plagiarism.” Plagiarism Today, 26 Apr. 2016, www.plagiarismtoday.com/2016/04/26/internet-changed-plagiarism/.
• Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2, 2011.
• Chan, Winslet Ting Yan, and Chi Hong Leung. “The Use of Social Media for Blended Learning in Tertiary Education.” Universal Journal of Educational Research, vol. 4, no. 4, 2016, pp. 771–778., doi:10.13189/ujer.2016.040414.
• Green, Nate. “The Advantage of Google Docs in Education.” EdSocialMedia, 21 Jan. 2015, www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/02/the-advantages-of-google-docs-in-education/.
• Jeffres, Leo W., et al. “Acquiring Knowledge From the Media in the Internet Age.” Communication Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 1, 2012, pp. 59–79., doi:10.1080/01463373.2012.641835.
• Keller, Josh. “Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 June 2009, www.chronicle.com/article/Studies-Explore-Whether-the/44476.
• Schwartz, Katrina. “How Do Tech Tools Affect the Way Students Write?” KQED, 19 July 2013, www.kqed.org/mindshift/29982/how-do-tech-tools-affect-the-way-studentswrite?fbclid=IwAR2TgBormZal8S3XNi4Ry_NOW8puugHmJhki_jMCqe3QyFyfDhk5QXfYGYk.
• “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy.” Wired, Conde Nast, 4 June 2017, www.wired.com/2009/08/st-thompson-7/.