For this task, I chose the first option: manually writing a diary entry for Wednesday, September 27th, 2023. It was a stream-of-consciousness reflection on my mood and life at the moment.
In my daily life, I type far more than I manually write; I am an extremely fast typer, and thus my typing is much more suited to keep up with my thoughts in comparison to my physical writing. However, I didn’t find this task particularly cumbersome or difficult. Since I was a child, I have always loved writing in journals. This carried well into my undergraduate degree, where I used to make elaborate bullet journals. Writing by hand is a fairly straightforward exercise. Unfortunately, when I am writing a longer text such as in this exercise, my actual legibility is terrible, which is not ideal.
As this diary entry is not a text intended to be written following the prescription rules of language in academia, I did not do much editing in post-production. Due to my choice of pen and my decision to double-space, I would have been easily able to edit more had I needed to. However, I did make a few edits while I was writing; this was either in the form of simply writing the correct word over top of the mistake, or crossing out the mistake and writing in the next available space. If I had been using a pencil or a digital word processor, I would have erased the mistake immediately, but as this was using ink, crossing out the mistakes was the most efficient method for me rather than utilising correction fluid.
There are quite a few differences between writing by hand and using mechanized forms of writing, but I think the main difference is reproducibility. The invention of the printing press allowed for a drastic shift in the ability to disseminate information through written form. The time investment of having to write something neatly and without errors so others can read it is tremendous. That is not to say that mechanized forms are entirely not time-consuming – for mechanized forms of text-making, having to assemble each page and stamp individually to make the prints certainly still takes much time and effort – but the amount of copies created after that time investment vastly outcompetes handwritten text, which increases accessibility of knowledge overall.
Hi Anne,
It was lovely to read about your 4th task! This one one of the ones I skipped, although I think I would have quite enjoyed doing it. I have always been a prolific note taker and I love making lists and writing memo’s and have tones of sticky notes scattered all over the place (part of my memory palace technique 😉
On the other hand, I also love to type and really enjoy the rhythmic process of typing long essays and scripts and such. Just a few days ago, I had to fill in quite a few gaps for my final project podcast transcripts that weren’t recorded when I tried to do voice to text for it. It took me hours but it was kind of meditative.
I also find that I can write more easily in a stream of consciousness style with pencil and paper than I can when I am typing. I wonder if our brains are wired differently when it comes to writing on paper than when we type on pc’s or text or on our mobile devices? This would be a really neat study to look into, I’m sure it’s been examined before but I haven’t read any articles about the results of such a study.
I also feel quite conflicted when I am giving my students writing or brainstorming time for assignments because I feel that they can probably be more creative and enjoy more freedom when they can do this with pencil and paper. I usually get them to brainstorm either on paper or on a blackboard (yes they still exist in Japan!!) or whiteboard as I feel this yields more outcome than if I just left them to do it on their devices. But I’m also very conscious of wasting resources such as paper and have tried very hard to keep most of my classes paper free. I wonder sometimes though, if I am constraining my students by doing this way? In the more than twenty years I have lived in Japan, I have seen more paper and plastic wasted that I can say; it’s just mind-boggling how much paperwork comes out in our daily lives here. I have to go through my daughters school bag every day to fish out the 5-10 flyers or notices from her school and it drives me crazy to be honest! I guess we need to find a balance when it comes to using paper vs. devices for projects but I certainly cannot imagine being without my notebooks anytime soon. I also love journals and usually have at least half a dozen of them floating around the house at a time. I can never stick to the same one so my notes end up scattered all over the place. Someday, I need to streamline this process somehow and I have never kept a bullet journal but I have had friends who have and highly recommend them as a way to stay organized. I love this idea, so maybe that will be a post-masters 2024 project for me to finally try!! Thanks again Anne and have a beautiful winter holiday.