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Tenesia Sealey

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1103

January 27, 2011

Ms. Text-a-lot!

Before I started this writing log I knew that text messaging would be where most of my

writing comes from, but I did not notice that I also write a lot in class and on the internet. Now

that I have combined all of my sources of writing, I see that I have numerous opportunities for

practicing my writing skills and becoming a better writer.

Usually I delete my text messages at the end of the day so I have never gotten a chance

to really pay attention to how many text I send or receive. After I added all text and found a sum

of 1,026, I was shocked to think that I write that much during the week without actually realizing

it. Out of the 1,026 text messages there are twenty-five different conversations. About half of

these conversations were started by myself and the other half by whoever I was conversing with.

Some of the messages are extremely short and do not exactly follow all of the grammar rules, but

I do try to text as proper as possible. Like we talked about in class, it is hard to text in complete

sentences because of the urge you have to get your point across when your texting someone. Text

messages are almost just the same as chatting on the computer, you expect to get a response to

your message within one minute of sending your message. So normally, you try to do the same

when responding to someone else; Therefore, it is easier to shorten your words and phrases

instead of writing in complete sentences. I use my commas and periods regularly and still make

sure I spell things correctly except for the things I spell incorrectly on purpose for the reason of

shortening the amount of time it takes to type and send my message. I do use text lingo at times,
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but only certain words, such as: lol, lmao, smh, wbu? and wyd?. These are translated into laugh

out loud, laugh my ass off, shaking my head, what about you and what are you doing?. There are

a ton of other words that people use for texting and on the internet but I choose not to use them

because I rather say whatever it is those acronyms stand for.

I get on facebook and twitter just about everyday, multiple times a day and write at least a

few words every time I get on. Once I sat down and processed this information I realized that I

could write a pretty long paper with all of my facebook messages and comments, along with my

twitter status’. I also write online for some of my classes. English, of course and one of my

Liberal Studies classes.When I am actually in class most of my writing comes from notes. I take

notes in every class whether it be on the computer or on paper. Usually the notes are just copied

from what the teacher is saying or from a power point but it is still good practice. Even though I

have known how to write for a long time now, it reminds me of Malcom X when he said that he

wrote just to improve his penmanship. I do not have the neatest hand-writing in the world so any

practice is helpful.

When I thought about writing before this experiment, it was just something I did when I

wrote papers for classes. All other forms of writing did not count. But after seeing how much I

write everyday and how many opportunities I have to improve my writing, I am now going to

use it to my advantage. My first goal is to cut back on my text lingo and attempt to write more

complete sentences in my messages. It may not make a tremendous difference but it will help.