Effects of Technology on Academic Writing

Technology being a considerable part of our society today has had a substantial impact on the way students and professional writers undertake their work. Electronic devices have impacted the way we think and handle issues in both positive and negative ways. In writing, specifically, writers have adopted skills that lead to the creation of many shortcuts to get various tasks completed. Technology has improved the research skills of writers where more information is covered and addressed. Technology has also encouraged creativity among writers, where they can come up with new concepts. On the other hand, the quality of work has been dramatically affected due to this, which in turn has affected the quality of writing. A lot of plagiarism is also being experienced in various course works where writers are no longer coming up with content and prefer to copy the work of other people. The paper will cover some of the positive and negative effects that technology has had on writers’ writing skills.

Positive Effects of Technology

Through technology, written communication has been seen to flourish immensely. Due to the vast presence of messaging applications on social media, writers have improved their writing skills. More frequent written communication has played to the advantage of writers in that they become confident when it comes to writing. The internet, as part of technology, has been able to improve the research skills of many writers in the world. The internet has become an enormous resource when it comes to research, becoming a one-stop-shop. The internet has been a source of critical information where writers find all the information they require at the click of a button. Due to this, writers have been able to come with more explanatory essays as they have more information at their disposal. Through the use of technology, writers are more creative in their work. This is because they are exposed to new content which they can use to come with work that exercises their technical ability. Writers are also able to interact with different people and get to see their work which becomes an inspiration to them when they are creating their own content. There has been an improvement of revisions for work completed. This means that writers can complete a review of their work within a short time. This means too much work is covered by writers in that they do not spend enough time while proofreading. Technology has made it possible for writers to complete group projects. Working in teams is very fundamental as it improves the quality of work writers engage in. Applications such as Skype have enabled writers to consult with one another in projects they might require help in completing. Writers also obtain new ideas and concepts they can include in their work to make it more original and informative. Technology has ensured that students seek writers’ services to help them in their paperwork as they complete other tasks. Through technology, students can entrust their paperwork to writers. For example, activities such as paper editing to different writing formats like MLA format and APA format have been made accessible through technology.

Negative effects of Technology

Despite there being various positives as a result of technology, there have also been some negative effects on writing skills that have come with the application of new technology. First, writers are relying more on short forms and shortcuts to complete their writing work. The quality of academic writing in general has been reduced due to the application of short forms in writing. This has significantly been attributed to the use of short text messaging applications. Writers often apply the style of writing they use on texting to their writing work. This affects the quality of work produced by specific writers.

Secondly, writers become more reliant on technology to do their job. It means that individuals find it hard to think through simple concepts in the tasks they are required to complete. Over-dependence on technology affects writers’ independence to the point that they are not able to develop their writing skills appropriately. Writers are also not able to obtain information from written content that may not be clear in the internet. This means that they cannot go through books and written journals to extract critical information that might be required to complete their work. Too much use of technology, especially social media, may lead to work by writers being considered too informal. This means writers may end up using short terms such as LOL, OMG, and IDK in their work. This makes work completely unstructured, and the readers may find it hard to understand what is being put across by the writer. This affects the quality of work massively because such expressions are utterly inappropriate for formal studies and may negatively affect the writing skills of a writer.

Currently, technology has made it very easy to access information. This has resulted in the reduction of the attention span required by a writer in their work. Due to this, the clarity of work being submitted by many writers has gone down considerably. Writers often divert their attention to other issues they might come across while browsing the internet. When a writer is not attentive to what they are writing, they usually lose direction of the content they intended to put across, which affects their work quality and writing skills in general. Technology has led to work by writers being too plagiarized.

Currently, writers are not able to come up with original work themselves. They rely on the work of other people to come up with their papers, which affects their writing skills. Plagiarism also amounts to poor work quality as people reading the content put forth by these writers can detect the works of other people. Plagiarism has been noted to be one of the problems facing writers due to the lack of originality. Technology and, in particular, online tools have allowed writers to automate their work. Due to this, many writers have lost their creative touch and exemplary writing skills. Various writing platforms encourage writers to use a single writing format such as Harvard, disregarding the presence of other writing formats such as APA and MLA writing styles. This has affected many writers’ skills as they depend on one form they are used to and find it difficult to use other formats.

In conclusion, technology has had both a positive and a negative effect on many writers’ writing skills across the world. On the positives, many writers save a lot of time when working on activities such as proofreading. Writers are also creative in their writing because technology allows them to learn new things that they did not know before. Technology has also helped writers to improve their research skills where they can obtain enough information primarily from the internet. On the negatives, technology has made writers rely so much on the internet, which has affected their ability to be independent in their writing. Technology has also led to the over-reliance of digital tools where writers cannot think through basic concepts. There has also been an upsurge of plagiarism where work by writers is not their original work.