answer:I love emoticons. I feel like the internet is very impersonal sometimes and the use of :-D conveys a little bit of personality. A lot of times, it is hard to tell whether someone is being serious or funny over the web and emoticons can clarify. I have accidentally used a ;-) in a paper once to convey that I was being sarcastic. The professor actually commented on this and mentioned that when he read it he thought I was being serious until he saw the ;-) and realised that my argument was more complex, because it was sarcastic. I also use the @->-- rose occasionally when talking to females. It's usually enough to elict a smile, which is usually all I'm going for. Good luck on this! :-)