Content area
This qualitative research compares qualitative characteristics identified in formal email writing with informal writing traits identified in the social network of Facebook. The email communication between nine young college freshmen with their professors is compared with the communication between these same students with their friends on Facebook. The design of computer mediated discourse analysis was used to document the comparison of the spelling in both writings with the literature used. In addition, this research describes the experiences and reasons expressed by the nine participants regarding the use of textisms. Very few studies have collected this information. In the theory of linguistic economy of Andre Martinet, applied by Susan Herring to written computer-mediated communication (CMC), categories of researchers (Wood, Nenag Kemp and Waldron (2014), Verheijen (2013), Susan Hering (2012) and David Crystal (2008)) were used to collect data. Although, were used for the analysis of textual discourse emails and Facebook. So these were recognized in the collected texts, and join this research study that reflects a positive relationship between formal writing and using textisms on Facebook. In regard to students, they used the textisms in this social network and none in formal writing.