Selected news stories about the Pew Internet Project and articles citing our data.
Not all :) as informal writing creeps into teen assignments
4/24/2008 | 
Coverage
Anick Jesdanun , The Associated Press, Google News
'"It's nothing to LOL about: Despite best efforts to keep school writing assignments formal, two-thirds of teens admit in a survey that emoticons and other informal styles have crept in.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project, in a study released Thursday, also found that teens who keep blogs or use social-networking sites like Facebook or News Corp.'s MySpace have a greater tendency to slip nonstandard elements into assignments.
The results may give parents, teachers and others a big :( — a frown to the rest of us — though the study's authors see hope.
"It's a teachable moment," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew. "If you find that in a child's or student's writing, that's an opportunity to address the differences between formal and informal writing. They learn to make the distinction ... just as they learn not to use slang terms in formal writing."
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