We're In the Midst of a Literacy Revolution

Mike Sauter sends in a piece from Wired profiling research by Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford, from which she concludes that we don't need to worry about computers and the Internet causing a decline in general literacy. "[Lunsford] has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students' prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples — everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring. 'I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization,' she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it — and pushing our literacy in bold new directions."

Liar.

[geminidomino]

she concludes that we don't need to worry about computers and the Internet causing a decline in general literacy

lolwut? I c wut shee did thar. Were all loosing r minds, u no?

Internet is for porn

[Anonymous Coward]

"In bold new directions."

I've written and enjoyed reading more porn^w adult fiction than I ever have in school.

Re:Liar.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell if that's textspeak or retard speak.

tl;dr

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr

Re:Ya!

[idontgno]

You accidentally the English Language.

Re:Liar.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying, "I can't tell if that's Paris Hilton or a skanky white girl."

Re:What About Plagiarism?

[MickyTheIdiot]

so.. wow.. you're saying that a huge percentage of papers being turned by my students are plagiarized? Maybe like over 50%?

I guess you shouldn't answer that. I probably don't want to know the answer...

Re:And Today is Reading Rainbow's Final Broadcast

[bugeaterr]

Reading Rainbow has been in decline since Geordi ditched them for that Chief Engineer position.

Who would've thunk it?

[monoqlith]

It's weird how communicating by reading and writing many more times over than we did during the 20th Century would have somehow made us better at it....

Re:tl;dr

[purpledinoz]

tl;dr

tl;dr

Re:What About Plagiarism?

[jollyreaper]

The Internet facilitates easy plagiarism. I assume papers for sale on the 'net generally have good grammar. Is it possible an increase in Internet plagiarism caused the increase in literary quality?

We certainly know no-child-left-behind did not help the early stages of the pipeline.

Just a thought...

-jolly

Re:Liar.

[camperdave]

Yup... Ever since them young-us started building that tower at Babel, I can't understand a word those hoodlums are saying.

Re:Liar.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's ok, there's help for you out there on the net. if you try here [4chan.org] yu will find that there is a board made for the betterment of the world. It is descriptively labeled /b/, for a better tomorrow.

Re:Liar.

[BrokenHalo]

I can't tell if that's textspeak or retard speak.

All it means is that the good professor Andrea Lunsford has based her conclusions on incomplete data. If she hangs around on Slashdot for a while, she'll realise that literacy is a thing of the past.

*ducks* ;-)

Re:I think...

[eln]

I mean, maybe if we wait long enough, far enough into the future - they'll release IPv6!

You know, you were making some really good points, but then you went way off into crazytown with this one.

Re:Liar.

[Afforess]

my head almost exploded.

Don't you mean asploded?

Re:Baseball

[Entropius]

I taped some pennies to her paper with a note: "This *arrow* is currency."

I was admonished by my boss not for being snarky but because money changed hands. :P

Re:Liar.

[Chris Burke]

I deliberately included that colloquialism, just for you. :)

Re:Liar.

[The Grim Reefer2]

By the same token, your great great grand children will have no idea what you are mumbling.

That's because it'll sound pompous and faggy to them. ;-)

Re:What About Plagiarism?

[cerberusss]

The Internet facilitates easy plagiarism. I assume papers for sale on the 'net generally have good grammar. Is it possible an increase in Internet plagiarism caused the increase in literary quality?

The Internet facilitates easy plagiarism. I assume papers for sale on the 'net generally have good grammar. Is it possible an increase in Internet plagiarism caused the increase in literary quality?

Re:Liar.

[Anonymous Coward]

... but some audiences need to be poked in the eye with a ";-)" to get the message across.

Is that an ironic wink, or are you hitting on me?

Re:Liar.

[yolto]

They'd better understand "Get off my lawn!" or there's going to be trouble.

Re:Liar.

[lewiscr]

hahahahaha: "poked in the eye with a ';-)'". Good one.

Re:Liar.

[SlashDotDotDot]

TL;DR

Who vs. Whom

[Cid Highwind]

To sum up that debate: On the internet "who" is generally used by a writer making an honest attempt to communicate. "Whom" is used mostly by people who didn't like the first writer's point of view but cannot articulate a real rebuttal, in an attempt to steer further discussion into futile grammar pedantry.

Re:Grammar vs. style

[Chris Burke]

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here.

I think I just have a hard time describing the tree I'm barking up. A person has language problems in their rant about language? Oh, how ironic!

Banishing prescriptivism from grammar doesn't mean that anybody is entitled to talk write however the hell they want in every context.

Yes, thank you! I am not a grammar nazi, I agree that a lot of rules that what you call "prescriptivists" prescribe are archaic and out of touch. Because English has evolved. Yet at the same time, that doesn't mean any god-damned thing you type is correct just because you invoke the name of "evolution".

I.e., a lot of what people ordinarily call "grammar" is really style, a way of choosing linguistic variants to convey implicit messages about oneself and one's social standing.

Within fairly wide limits, yes. Yet there are common rules for language that go beyond style. There are the accepted rules of the day, and many of them cross all cultural groups. For example, if you are speaking English but put the adjectives after the noun, then your "style" had better be poetry or you're not doing it right. "Style" is one thing. "Error in properly executing the style you were aiming for" is another.

The thing is that "good grammar" in the prescriptivist sense is just one more style among others in our society. It's a style that is associated with educated upper-middle class white-collar professionals

Uh-huh, well I'm not talking about this privileged white "prescriptivism" you're talking about. There is no "style" from Harlem to South Central, other than flat ignorance, where "lose", as in "to misplace, or fail in a competition", is spelled "loose". When someone spells it "loose", that is a mistake, not a deliberate execution of a particular style.

"Evolution" is not a magic phrase for making spelling and grammar mistakes turn into correct usage. That's my point.

What this amounts to is that there should be one and only one linguistic style that everybody should conform to, which spells words in one particular way. Why?

No, it's the same damn thing you said above: Just because there isn't a Board of Official Language Correctness doesn't mean you aren't wrong when you say something incorrect in a given style, context, or situation. There are lots of styles, there are lots of ways to use language incorrectly for any given style, or even for all styles.

"Linguistic error" and "more than one linguistic style" are not mutually exclusive concepts!

The best answer is probably along the lines of this: "because people who have power over you will tend to discount you if you do not"; There's no more to it.

Kno, zats bulplop. Best aswer be is most somery do words any speak want isn't wide blue mark yolen seeby. Me be smrt most ungulingly quiet. Engrsh be best, sum stile.