Jessal Castellanos

Professor Branson
Writing 2
05/27/16
Study on Writing Habits
The genre of writing determines the medium used and the characteristic of the way we
write, as well as the time spent on that particular genre. Research by Amanda Lenhart, et al.
suggests that most teens write by hand for both non-school and school related writing (Lenhart
2008, 20). However, Lenhart et al. notes that the main medium of communication used by teens
to communicate with friends and family is through technological mediums, such ass cell phones
and computers (Lenhart 2008, 30). In correlation with these studies I also found that most of my
writing is done by hand, and communication with family and friends is mainly done through text
messaging. Thus depending on the genre that I am writing for determines whether I write by
hand or use my laptop and other devices. In another study, Applebee and Langer find that from
analyzing existing data between 1978 and 2005 there is a consistent reduction in the amount of
time 8th graders spend writing in the classroom (Applebee and Langer 2006, 7). This parallels my
study, since the amount of time spent writing for school is significantly lower than the amount of
time spent writing for my internship. Langer and Applebee also found that by 1996 over 90% of
students reported using computers for the writing of stories or papers (Applebee and Langer
2006, 20). While it may be true that writing stories and papers for school is mostly done with an
electronic medium. These specific genres of writing are less common than a typical writing
assignment on any given day of school. For example many students take notes or write shorter
assignments by hand, only when dealing with an academic paper do most students switch to an

electronic medium. Thus supporting my argument that genre dictates the medium that will be
used.
The process by which I conducted this study required me to keep a record of my writing
habits over a period of five days. The span of days recorded ranged from Friday to Tuesday. I
chose to include my weekends as oppose to only including the five days of the week because a
great deal of the writing I do for my internship gets done over the weekends. I separated my
writing into three categories: internship, school, and social. I chose to track how much time I
spent writing and what medium of technology I used for each category. Thus my units of analysis
are the time spent writing, genres, and mediums used. I used the timer feature on my phone to
track the time spent writing for each genre. I recorded the medium used on a sheet of paper and
also noted down the time I spent writing as well. The last thing I chose to analyze was the
amount of attention I pay to my audience for each genre, I didnt have a concrete way of
measuring this but the only time I really pay attention to my audience is for writing assignments
for school. While writing for my internship mainly consists of revisions and writing for social
purposes is much more relaxed because Im not worried about how my writing is perceived by
my friends.

Internship
Electronic Medium; 18%
Pen and Paper; 82%

I
mainly discovered that I spend an average of eleven hours writing for my internship mostly on
pen and paper and occasionally using my laptop. For the five days I tracked I only wrote about

three hours for school related purposes and the majority of the writing was done using pen and
paper. Lastly for the social category I only logged a total of thirty minutes of writing which were
all texts through my cellphone.

As the pie chart above portrays the majority of my writing for the Internship is done through pen
and paper. The total amount of hours I spent writing was eleven. The amount of hours I spent
using an electronic medium total at an average of two and the other nine were spent using pen
and paper.

School

technology mediumd; 33%

Pen and paper ; 67%

This genre also shows that the majority of my timespent writing was with pen and paper. Leaving only an hour of my time spent writing with a
laptop. I was surprised to find that I only wrote three hours total. This is probably due to the fact
that I started recording on a Friday and most of my school writing is done during the week. So a
more accurate study would most likely require the tracking of my writing habits over the period
of 7 days.

Another astonishing result is the fairly small amount of time I spend writing for social purposes.
All this writing is done mainly through text messages and social media. That is why this Genre
doesnt require a visual representation. The total amount spent writing for social purposes was
only 30 minutes. After keeping a close eye on my writing habits these results are expected. Even
though I have my phone with me at all times my messages are fairly short and sporadic.

Internship
School
Social

Pen and Paper

Electronic Medium

This last chart represents the time-spent writing using both mediums, for each genre. I wanted to
include a visual representation of all the data in one chart for an easy comparison. As shown the
internship clearly takes up most of my writing time, with both mediums.
The fact that I only wrote three hours for school total can be attributed to that fact that I
only logged my writing habits for Monday and Tuesday. As I mentioned above in order to ensure
a more accurate study the sampling size would have to be bigger and the time span for the
tracking of my writing habits should have been at least seven days. However, this wouldnt have
changed the results much because most of my time writing would still be for the internship.

Whether I was writing for school or internship related purposes the same results emerged most of
the writing was done with pen and paper. These results are surprising, especially with how
deeply embedded technology is in present time. These results contradict the findings of Applebee
and Langer, where 90% of the students reported using computers when writing stories or papers
(Applebee and Langer 2006, 20). The differences arise because of the differing genres in the
studies. For example, Lenhart and others found that most students write by hand for both nonschool and school related writing. The discrepancy is due to the fact that the study by Applebee
and Langer is only looking at the stories and papers students write. Where Lenhart and others,
and my study are looking at writing activities in general. This goes to show that genre determines
the medium because most students who write specifically papers or stories use a computer. Now
looking at the bigger picture most students report doing most of their writing activities in pen and
paper. Looking at the social genre it was also surprising to find how little time I spent on that
category in relation to the rest. Especially since in the digital age electronic mediums are
common and widely used. Since we are in an era where communication across vast distances is
facilitated, its astonishing to see that I only spent a total of thirty minutes writing for this genre.
In order to get a better understanding of the average time people spend writing for social
purposes the sample size should be much bigger. An interesting study to follow up on would
involve comparing the amount of time people spend writing socially before the widespread use
of technology and after. The last interesting discovery from this study is the fact each genre
evokes a different response. For my internship my main focus is revising my writing, making
sure that everything I write is generally free of mistakes. For school assignments I mainly pay
attention to the audience Im writing for. Lastly socially is a lot more relaxed writing because I
know my writing isnt going to be scrutinized. Lenhart et al. found that this is the main reason

why teens dont believe writing for social purposes is real writing (Lenhart 2008, 15). Students
reported writing in a relaxed manner and not worrying too much about grammar or syntax when
writing for social purposes. Overall even in this digital age pen and paper is still the preferred
medium but ultimately the genre determines the medium and the characteristic of our writing.

Works Cited
Applebee Arthur, and Judith Langer. The State of Writing Instruction in Americas Schools:
What Existing Data Tells Us. Center on English Learning & Achievement University of
Albany 2006: 1-30. Google Scholar. web. 27 May 2016.
Lenhart Amanda, Arafeh Sousan, Smith Aaron, and Macgill Alexandra, Writing, Technology
and Teens. Pew Internet and American Life Project. 2008:1-71. Google Scholar. Web. 27
May. 2016.