Summary Of Does Texting Affect Writing By Michaela Pullington

Michaela Cullington, author of “Does Texting Affect Writing,” declares texting does not affect students writing. Cullington uses facts to support her overall claim, and gets many teachers’ opinions on the subject. The author did not use valuable sources, which questioned her overall purpose. Cullington used a lot of her own opinion throughout the text, but lacked supporting facts. The story has many flaws, making Cullington argument on how texting is not affecting students writing, not reliable. Cullington’s story is targeting teachers that believe texting is doing harm to students writing. She is mainly targeting the older teachers who do not have great experience with phones. She targeted older teachers because they tend to not be up to date on new technology. Cullington started her writing off by sharing an

Naomi Baron, a linguistics professor at American University, believes that texting is harming students writing. She states, “So much of American society has become sloppy and laissez faire about the mechanics of writing” (131). The author used this quote to drawl in the teachers who believe texting is harming students writing. Cullington goal is to make them continue reading and learn how she believes texting is actually beneficial. By putting the opposing view point of texting affecting writing in the beginning, is confusing to the target audience. The readers have to continue reading the whole story to understand the authors target audience. This makes the beginning of the story misleading to the target audience.

The overall purpose of Cullington story is to persuade and inform the audience that texting does not affect writing. She believes students do have a texting language, but they know when not to use it. Cullington started her paper off with using information on the opposing view point of texting. She gathered information from teachers on their intake on the problem of texting affecting students