For your #Write, I have a meme for you, on the right side of the post. I know that you are working on technical writing (instead of essays), but the idea probably still applies.
So here’s the question I have for you: Why do students spend more time proofreading a post for Facebook than a document for school? What’s the difference between a status update and an essay for school?
There’s no one right answer. Think about what happens and why. You can post your own thoughts or reply to someone else. For a bigger challenge, you can also talk about how you might encourage yourself or others to invest time in proofreading a document.
6 Comments
This is ironically related to my genre analyses report. So, thanks!
Can you say more, Andre?
Funny meme. I am not usually one to make Facebook statements, but I know from my adolescent years in social media I would do this. I think maybe it is because people want to make sure their peers know they can write. They know who will be reading their post and what the person will think about it. With that being said, I think now more than ever I have tried to do a quality job revising and editing my papers. This is probably because I am more interested about the subjects I am having to write about and I actually want to put out a product I can be proud of. I think that is why it is important, if your passion is going to involve a lot of writing, to take the writing assignments in your major specific courses seriously because the habits you develop doing classwork will translate to the real world.
Personally, I proofread my social media posts more because people are quick to criticize poor uses of the language. I can say I’m guilty of immediately wanting to correct someone when they point out that I used “your” instead of “you’re” and vice versa. I think this stems from a wish to avoid publicly embarrassment.
Also, I think that when peers read through a report and provide feedback, they have a more polite state of mind. Most people won’t be rude and say things about how the author doesn’t know how to use English correctly; however, people on social media have no qualms against loudly pointing out one’s mistakes. Peer reviewers try to remain neutral and polite, providing the author with more confidence and comfort in submitting a paper that is not grammatically perfect.
I’ve never thought of this comparison before, but it is definitely true. I am better at proof-reading my assignments now, but in high school I barely ever edited my essays. I think people are much more self-conscious about what they post on social media, because so many people see it. Most people want to maintain a certain image through social media, so they are careful about what and how they portray their ideas. Assignments are usually only read by one or two people who are grading it. Students don’t feel the same pressure to maintain an image or look “cool”.
I rarely use Facebook, but i definitely understand this comparison when ever I tweet or post something on Instagram. I view the reason behind proof reading over Facebook posts more than an essay is due to the length. Reading over 2 sentence require little to no effort while reading a 5 pages essay gets boring fast.