The Impact of Technology on Academic Writing
In recent years, there have been many advancements in the field of technology that have directly impacted how people write. This is especially true in academic writing. The use of word processing software, for example, has changed how people compose their work and how they communicate with other writers. This has led to changes in the writing process, research methods, and even the presentation of academic work. These changes have had positive and negative impacts on how
paper writing has developed.
One of the most significant ways that technology has impacted academic writing is by making it much faster to draft and revise a paper than in the past. The advent of word processing software has made it possible for writers to type their work and then go back and edit it without having to retype the entire document. This has allowed writers to produce more work in less time and improved their writing skills.
Another positive impact of technology on academic writing is the ease of collaboration between researchers. It used to take much work for researchers to share ideas and information. However, the advent of internet-based writing tools has made it possible for scholars to collaborate and communicate with each other from all over the world. This has been a significant benefit to both researchers and students alike.
The most obvious way that technology has impacted academic writing is by changing the writing style. It has become common for students to write in short forms that are easy to understand, and this is because of the use of various technological tools such as citation generators and editing and proofreading solutions like Grammarly.
Using these tools has made writing more accessible for students and saved time as they do not need to go through books and journals to find relevant information. However, this has also made them rely on these technologies too much, and as a result, their academic writing may suffer.
This study examined the effects of different types of technology mediation on student perceptions of SRL in academic writing by conducting a quasi-experimental study with 280 Chinese EFL learners and evaluating pre and post-intervention academic writing tests, an SRL questionnaire, and one-to-one semi-structured student interviews. Two technology mediation models, Icourse and Icourse+Pigai, were compared with a control group that received no technology-mediated SRL support to examine whether they affected student SRL in academic writing and lexical complexity.
The results indicated that SRL supported by Icourse and Icourse+Pigai significantly affected students' academic writing performance and lexical complexity in their SRL activities. However, the results were inconsistent and suggested that different mediation models may affect SRL differently. This indicates that more work needs to be done to determine how these different technologies should be integrated into a learning context.
In conclusion, the impact of technology on academic writing is a double-edged sword, enhancing efficiency through faster drafting and global collaboration while simultaneously shaping writing styles and introducing potential pitfalls of over-reliance on tools. While technological advancements have revolutionized the writing process and facilitated international cooperation, the study underscores the need to explore how diverse technological interventions can be seamlessly integrated into learning contexts to optimize student self-regulated learning in academic writing.
