The daunting task of writing longhand and why you should do it(jenniferbrogdon.substack.com)
jenniferbrogdon.substack.com
The daunting task of writing longhand and why you should do it
https://jenniferbrogdon.substack.com/p/the-daunting-task-of-writing-longhand
30 comments
My Chinese partner has very neat handwriting. From the age of 5, if she wrote a character incorrectly she had to write it again 50 times. Saying that, it's easier for Chinese people to forget how to write characters because the Pinyin typing system means stroke order of a character is easily forgotten.
I'm thrilled to be an adult in the age of computers where i basically never have to write anything by hand ever.
My penmanship was always terrible, and this was magnified by being left-handed and being taught to write in a manner which drags my hand through recently written ink. Half my notes in hs and college were illegible. I'm envious of kids today taking notes on laptops or tablets.
My penmanship was always terrible, and this was magnified by being left-handed and being taught to write in a manner which drags my hand through recently written ink. Half my notes in hs and college were illegible. I'm envious of kids today taking notes on laptops or tablets.
Handwriting (Palmer script) was consistently my worst grade through grade school. And my writing has done nothing but deteriorate in the decades since. My notebooks from college are at least legible.
I can feel you. But for slightly different reasons :-)
It so happened that I could read fluently way before Kindergarden. (Older sister taught me)
While I've been spared from Kindergarden because deemed 'too playful' this longhand thing never made any sense to me, because almost anything I've read was print, block letters, while anything longhand usually took more time to read, even if it was written nicely.
So why should I write in that complicated way?
I denied that stubbornly, scratching out block letters as fast or faster than the others did. Absolutely readable as I might add. Even today.
This is one of the things/conventions/traditions I don't get, and probably never will.
It so happened that I could read fluently way before Kindergarden. (Older sister taught me)
While I've been spared from Kindergarden because deemed 'too playful' this longhand thing never made any sense to me, because almost anything I've read was print, block letters, while anything longhand usually took more time to read, even if it was written nicely.
So why should I write in that complicated way?
I denied that stubbornly, scratching out block letters as fast or faster than the others did. Absolutely readable as I might add. Even today.
This is one of the things/conventions/traditions I don't get, and probably never will.
TIL about the Palmer method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Method
As a leftie, how would you write without going over already-written stuff? The only way would be to write backwards, right?
I just gravitated toward fast-drying pens for the rare occasion when I do need to write by hand. Like you I have been using a computer for any serious, long writing task since I was 12 or so.
I just gravitated toward fast-drying pens for the rare occasion when I do need to write by hand. Like you I have been using a computer for any serious, long writing task since I was 12 or so.
Downward and sideways. Turn the paper clockwise by 90° and write down each column (formerly rows across the page) from the right side (previously the top) of the page to the left.
That’s what my leftie former boss did, and her handwriting was great.
Without being able to easily rotate the characters, here’s what it would look like:
That’s what my leftie former boss did, and her handwriting was great.
Without being able to easily rotate the characters, here’s what it would look like:
JH
te
sl
ul
mo
m,
e
r
s
Every time i tried to do that, i'd get yelled at by my elementary school teachers, so that common sense method was drilled out of me.
I should have just converted to being a righty..
I should have just converted to being a righty..
Some lefties learn to write by either hooking their hand above or angling it below below the line being written, sometimes complemented by slanting the page toward or away from their writing arm.
The lefty problem is why I'm baffled that languages like Hebrew or Arabic that write right to left exist at all. Surely most people are righties, and writing systems would be written with that in mind.
I have fine penmanship but no ability to keep handwritten notes organized. Basically once I write it, I assume it’s lost forever. Now that I have a backed-up, searchable, accessible from any device directory of notes I have no issues keeping track of my writing.
If the founding fathers had word processors, the Constitution would be 1,000 pages long.
Handwriting forces concision and more careful thinking before committing ink to paper.
Handwriting forces concision and more careful thinking before committing ink to paper.
Like film cameras.
I compose longhand, and then type into a computer, which works as a very good compose->edit process for me. Longhand is for getting the idea out, and even though I can type faster than I write with a pen, my effective words per minute (without editing and rewriting) for composing ideas is faster longhand.
But that's just me. Different people have different preferences.
But that's just me. Different people have different preferences.
I type so much faster than I write by hand, that it’s actually detrimental since my writing falls too far behind my train of thought. Also have to concentrate more on writing vs. typing , which means in a note-taking context I also start losing stuff and not paying enough attention because I’m trying to catch up.
Also the distraction to rearrange paragraphs or look at word count sounds totally artificial - have the discipline to just plow through the typing and revise later, and for gods sake learn to use your word processor and turn off the damn word count function.
Which is to say - nice, cute article but - do what you’re faster and more effective at.
Also the distraction to rearrange paragraphs or look at word count sounds totally artificial - have the discipline to just plow through the typing and revise later, and for gods sake learn to use your word processor and turn off the damn word count function.
Which is to say - nice, cute article but - do what you’re faster and more effective at.
Perhaps there is something to be gained by being forced to slow down anyways. Speed for the sake of speed isn't always the highest priority. Certainly there are contexts where "keeping up" is a priority, but not always.
I do sometimes make handwritten notes for various reasons. Mostly when I'll have access to the slides and just want to capture some key points. Something like a talk that I'm going to wrap up, I definitely type.
I have no experience in writing novels, but I do have quite a bit in being a student. I always cringe a bit at these purists thoughts of "you retain better when you write by hand" and "your creativity is better". The process of studying and learning is much, much more than just writing things down. Even if it was true that it's better to write by hand, the amount of productivity you lose by not having things in a digital format (weight, indexes, search, linking with other sources, corrections, drawings, etc) is just not worth it.
Not to mention that I think it's misguided to solve a problem by attacking it sideways. Writing by hand to fix excessive correction doesn't actually fix the issue, it just sweeps it under the rug. Maybe it's just delaying it until the point where the novel has to be reviewed and now they want to do the same corrections, but harder.
Not to mention that I think it's misguided to solve a problem by attacking it sideways. Writing by hand to fix excessive correction doesn't actually fix the issue, it just sweeps it under the rug. Maybe it's just delaying it until the point where the novel has to be reviewed and now they want to do the same corrections, but harder.
Bullshit. I tried writing longhand for years with different pens and techniques. It was always slow and uncomfortable. I'll never write longhand again if I can possibly avoid it.
Computers do seem to encourage constant revision of small snippets. It's the same with art. You'll see artists with their fingers on CTRL-Z and re-drawing each line a dozen times until they're happy, line by line. I'm guilty of that too. Yet, I also find that just finishing a whole piece first before revising it is more efficient, because you can put a higher focus on the bigger picture. Programming IDEs have the same problem, they keep distracting you away from the bigger picture to fix all your tiny little typos first, when you'll probably have deleted that code already by the time your code is really ready to test.
This is a really interesting point.
I wonder if this is why I seem to be more productive in Vim.
I wonder if this is why I seem to be more productive in Vim.
"I still like writing things out in longhand, finding that a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness"
-Obama
-Obama
I had calligraphy at school (France, late 70's) and always liked to write by hand.
I only type today and the only cases when I write are in the school booklet we have to communicate with the teachers and when I am at a whiteboard.
This said, I used to draw geometric figures when on calls (it helps me to concentrate), and now I juste write nuce nonsense calligraphy
I only type today and the only cases when I write are in the school booklet we have to communicate with the teachers and when I am at a whiteboard.
This said, I used to draw geometric figures when on calls (it helps me to concentrate), and now I juste write nuce nonsense calligraphy
"Citation needed" for most of the claims.
Nope. I'm left handed, and writing longhand hurts my hand after a while, more so if I try and make it legible.
There are methods of writing longhand left-handers can learn that are not uncomfortable.
http://www.musanim.com/mam/lefthand.htm
http://www.musanim.com/mam/lefthand.htm
I've went through the whole page (well, it's not long) and actually... none of the methods can compare with writing with the right hand. So maybe we have to be honest: Our alphabet/longform (and reading from left to right) isn't made for lefties.
I broke my thumb (right hand) once and had to do with my left hand for three months and noticed myself how stupid writing with the left hand is - not because I'm right-handed but because the written language is not designed for it. Honestly, I now understand why it was not unusual to tell lefties to write with their right hand.
I broke my thumb (right hand) once and had to do with my left hand for three months and noticed myself how stupid writing with the left hand is - not because I'm right-handed but because the written language is not designed for it. Honestly, I now understand why it was not unusual to tell lefties to write with their right hand.
This article touches on the link between memory and handwriting. There's a huge increase in retention of written things, something like 70% of what we write makes it into our long term recall memory, which blows my mind. No matter how pervasive computers become, we can never forget our physicality.
I often wrote my college essays by hand (pen/paper) first. It seemed a more “direct” way to write than typewriter. I’d often wind up with plenty of length once I’d type it up, too. (I’ve always been able to type about the speed I think, too, so this wasn’t a bandwidth thing.)
Anecdotally, I've observed that most (all?) native Chinese speakers I've seen have very clear and uniform (as in similar to that of others) handwriting, even in English. I noticed this especially when I was grading tests and had to read dozens and dozens of variations of the same answer written by different people. I wonder if it's because there's a lot more emphasis on learning writing by rote and on uniformity of certain strokes in the characters.