The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

Research Writing 123 variations in results, there are some common themes that surface. Texting and instant messaging is a reflection of the literacy ability in adults, and has an overall positive effect on children’s literacy. A “positive effect” simply means that there is some sort of effect from texting that is beneficial to one’s literacy, whereas a “negative effect” would be an effect that is detrimental to someone’s literacy. Texting has an assumed negative effect on literacy. Many people believe that texting and instant messaging do not have a beneficial place in the world of literacy, but many of them either do not have sufficient evidence, or the evidence they do have is outdated. There is a significantly larger amount of evidence to support the idea that texting has a positive to no effect on literacy, than there is for a negative effect. This does not mean that the data to support a negative correlation is illogical or absurd, but that there is simply more evidence to suggest a positive correlation. L. Verheijen completed the course English Language and Culture at the Radboud University Nijmegen with his/her first thesis “The Development of Syntactic Structures in Advanced Dutch EFL Writing”, and graduated summa cum laude with a second thesis, “The Language of Quoting in AcademicWriting”. He/She nowworks as a Ph.D. student at the Department of Dutch Language and the Research Centre for Language Studies. Verheijen conducts researchunder Professor Dr. Wilbert Spooren, on modern communication methods such as texting (Radboud University, 2013). In one of his/her publications, Verheijen discusses a large variety of studies conducted on the effects of texting and textese on literacy. He/ emoticons