writing

American teachers are increasingly finding Internet chatroom and forum-style abbreviations are showing up in their pupils' assignments. A survey of 700 teenagers found more than one-third say they have used abbreviations such as LOL (Laugh Out Loud) ... in schoolwork. A quarter said they'd even used emoticons, the combinations of punctuation marks which represent different emotions and are traditionally used in online writing to replicate the tone and body language which accompanies spoken language. More than 40% of those surveyed said programs such as Microsoft Word encouraged poor grammar and ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Kim S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I love your site! It is one of the best I have ever seen to date. My question for you is this: I have Windows XP Home Edition and I would like to be able to save my the programs I download directly to ... CD recordable. The problem is, I don't see an option in the 'Save as' window to save to disc. Can you help? " My response: First, let me say that this is a tricky subject and requires quite a bit of technical knowledge. I will do my best to give you the 'break down' with the least amount of techie-talk; however, I strongly believe that ... (view more)