bart2018 said: I realize that some people like them; I do NOT. Still, they are popular and one has to learn to live with them. But this author has totally exaggerated. It was difficult to even read the article; I'm not sure I was even able to grasp the content of the article, and have no intention of going back to try to "read" it again,with all those ugly yellow faces ,some of them jumping about...no, no, no. Horrible.
I respectfully, but strongly disagree with you.
If writing a dry, technical paper then...sure. Leave the emoticons out. BUT, if you are on a community forum then emoticons are welcome...and expected. It is difficult many times to express emotions simply with the written word unless you're trying for something like 'Gone With The Wind', 'War and Peace', or some other written work where there is an understood and expected time frame to develop characters and emotions. In a short, minimum paragraph essay, intended to be read by a *community* of forum members then the use of emoticons/smilies can express emotions and feelings much faster than trying to develop that in writing.
There has already been instruction shared on how to circumvent the emoticons so there is a solution. But, if the goal is simply to read dry, technical essays then there are plenty of colleges and universities with some really good papers...and no smiley faces.
