Research Paper Topic

I have decided to write about the educational implications of netspeak. I will examine whether or not using netspeak—abbreviations and misspelled words to communicate online—actually makes people less intelligent, or if it is simply a tool that is turned on and off each time a person uses an online means of communication. Netspeak is beginning to migrate into everyday language and is found today even in essays. The younger generation of America has begun to become so familiar with netspeak that it has also started making its way into spoken language as well. I will draw parallels between the idea of using netspeak as abbreviations for words that the user knows the true meaning of, and contractions, whereby someone who uses them know that “can’t” really means “can not,” and that the contraction is only an abbreviation. What I will seek to prove is that there is no real correlation between the usage of netspeak and a person’s intelligence, or netspeak’s impact on a person’s ability to use formal language. Many people use netspeak, but just because they do, does not automatically provide a determination that they are unintelligent.