"From Pencils to Pixels" by Dennis Baron

Baron’s essay was interesting in his development. I like the examples he gave with the pencil that ounce was tedious to make, expensive and seen as the “Top of the technology” of that time. Baron talked also about the phone and the speculation made at the time concerning its use. That was informative in some ways to read about things that we use in our daily lives which have became so ordinary objects that we don’t pay much intention to them at all anymore. The debates about the use of computer are going on like centuries ago with the pencil and the phone in the last century. Same questions are rising with the use of computers and how it will impact writing, communication and also the authenticity of texts found on Internet. I’m sure that in academic writing there are tools available to find quotation or even barrowed sentences from writers. It’s the way it is, some people find the way to break the system and others work and making it safer…The only thing really that I find regrettable is that we don’t hand write much anymore without saying that now handwriting has became ugly like paper printing. It has lost most of its personal “print”, personal identity. There was time in school when we were grated on our writing style and still in some countries when applying for a job the applicant’s writing will be study to find out some of the applicant’s personality traits….This will disappear maybe for the best….I still think that handwriting is part of one’s personality and computers take that away and maybe forever sooner that we think.