people write things other than papers...
Many people have the preconceived notion that in college classes you will have to write a lot of papers, and depending on the class that might be true. But in reality, or at least in my neck of the woods, there is a lot more than that going on. One of my friends said that most of what is written in college is written in a kind of IM speak or as statement of facts (e.g. a poster about sexual assault that can be found in every bathroom on campus) when I told her about this blog assignment. Now I can honestly see the validity of that statement.
On my floor there are a few dry-erase board stuck to peoples’ doors and there will be some little message on them, like an “I’m away” message that you see when you’re busy doing something other than IM-ing your friends. The majority of the time I can walk around the halls and most of the doors will be open and about half of the rooms that I look in there is an AIM window open on the occupants computer and in almost every room Facebook is up and the people are checking it. I am one of those people, sometimes. After noticing the numbers of people who communicate through instant messaging it makes sense that they will use that when they are communicating informally with one another through a written medium. The thing that strikes me as funny is the amounts of the IM speak that makes it into the spoken vocabulary. One of my friends uses “obvy” for obvious when he speaks and everybody knows what he means.
Even though they use those IM speak phrases in an informal setting, they don’t transfer over into the formal writing for classes—the few papers that I looked over for the people on my floor didn’t anyway. And as much complaining that people do about writing those papers, they actually work on them and get them done. One of the girls in my dorm told me that in high school she would always put things off until it was almost too late, but now she has four pages of a five page paper written and it isn’t due until Monday.
When Rebekah Nathan wrote her piece, she wrote not only about the actual words that were written in the dorms, but also about the pictures that adorned the students’ doors. On my floor we are still trying to get to know everybody so the name tags are still in a prominent position on all the doorways. I can see why Nathan included that in here writing—pictures can convey more in less time than it takes to read the 1000 words that each picture is worth.
I don’t think that there will be a time when IM-ing becomes the only communication within the dorms, but it is increasing in popularity. Instant messaging has become the quick and easy way to communicate with peers, but the formal writing that must be done hasn’t been changed from the sometimes-dull academic prose that it always has been.
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