David Crystal writes

Acosta 2

Paul Acosta

Dr. Parsons

English 101 R

2/13/2022

Why All the Fuss Summary

David Crystal writes a book about Texting and the affects it has on students writing. In Crystals book Txtng:The Gr8 Db8 We focus on the chapter Texting: Why All the Fuss. Crystals opinion on this topic is that texting can be a very helpful way to practice the English language, he has a very positive attitude towards this topic. He is trying to persuade his audience that texting could be more helpful by providing more experience of writing rather than it being a encumbrance. His audience is to the schools, students, teachers, and anyone else who is against texting. The four main ideas that Crystal develops in this chapter is: know the difference between formal and informal language, be aware of generational talk downs, be careful of taking in misinformation, and what effects does texting have outside of literature.

The first main idea Crystal talks about is knowing the difference between formal and informal English. He brings up that when he talked to students, they said that they knew the difference and that using text language for formal school use is defiantly not appropriate. In fact, students that do use text language in their papers are either in a hurry or just lacking effort in what they write. Only a small percentage of students use aberrations in their schoolwork,so this raises the question of how the idea of texting became associated with negative affects in literacy. He also brought up the point that most of the students that use aberrations place higher or advance higher in English than most. Crystal also brings up that 10% of the child population have learning hinderances that affect reading and writing. With all this in mind how much of these negative assertions are credible.

The second main idea is to be aware of generational talk downs meaning that each generation talks down about what the new generation has. Crystal brings this up because generations leading up to phones have said kids are poor reader/writers because they watch too much tv, play too many video games, too much internet, or not enough reading. Noticing this pattern repeatedly you cant help but ask if the same thing is happening here. How could the whole writing system change if the text language isnt used by students in the school because they can tell the difference between formal and informal. So what Crystal does is he is making his audience question the opposing sides credibility while building his own.

The third main idea is to be careful of taking in misinformation which is something Crystal urges you not to do. The debate over text language is people having all these opinions with inaccurate information. An example of this is when people read off Wikipedia that NZQA was allowing schools to accept text abbreviations in exams, when this wasnt the case. People found the Wikipedia website way before the NZQAs official response saying that their regulations haven’t been changed because that may cause clarification issues among graders and the students exam. Crystal again just trying to discredit the other side of this debate about how does text language affects students reading and writing.

The Final main point that Crystal Makes is that text Language has effects on students outside of literature. This would be sleep because students can get messages that wake them up in the middle of the night. Could create reduced attention span, lower Iq, could cause addition to texting and make people want to text back immediately(while at work or school). Can cause physical problems like wrist pain, neck strain or strain on arms because of looking down, constantly using one hand, etc…. These are more pressing issues that should be focused on more when talking about texting not how it affects students writing. This is what Crystal was trying to get his audience to understand to hopefully persuade them into seeing that text language isnt as big of a deal as people make it out to be.

Work Cited

Crystal, David. Texting: Why All the Fuss? Texting the Gr8Db8, Oxford University press,2008,pp 359-371.