Manual Scripts
This was a slightly embarrassing yet meaningful task to complete. In my manual production above, I chose to discuss several thoughts triggered by the readings and the connections I’ve begun to make about text. The embarrassing part stems from the poor quality of my handwritten text. I learned to type rather than handwrite in my primary school years, and it was always something that distressed my parents. It’s an odd self-reflective moment that a 35-year-old nursing faculty member still feels self-conscious about his handwriting. I prefer typing simply because of my confidence in my capacity to communicate with it. If I had more confidence and skill in handwriting, I believe I would appreciate it more, as the nuance conveyed to the reader about the writer can foster a deeper connection.
Anyway, I don’t usually write by hand in my educator role; however, as a bedside nurse, I handwrite dozens of times an hour during a bedside shift. The medium is typically a black ballpoint pen on printed forms to document a patient’s status or an abnormal event, or abbreviated sticky notes during intense moments, as shown below, to be added into formal documentation at a later time. It’s easy because it’s always a single linear thought reflecting a past occurrence, like a photograph, such as “X has occurred at Y, Z was notified, and W has been done,” and rarely more than a few sentences. This task was much more challenging as processing my thoughts on the content vastly outpaced my capacity to translate them onto the page, and I would sometimes lose track of my idea by the time I had written the previous thought. With typing, the speed is closely matched, and mistakes are rectified quickly (and invisibly to the reader). I feel like these are the most significant differences to me.
Acute Care Bed 7, Two medications (Midazolam and Rocuronium)/doses given with times and vital signs: Blood Pressure, Heart Rate, Respiratory Rate, End-Tidal CO2, Oral Temperature + Oxygen Saturation
A single paragraph in, and my writing quality deteriorated; it became more angular as the pen failed to lift from the page, and my posture began to ache. Fixing mistakes and “dotting i’s” was time-consuming and marred the medium. With typing, you have no idea as a reader how many times a word was deleted or rewritten; only what was carefully curated is read, and in that, insights into what the writer is like can be lost. My final paragraph included a sore hand and more errors, I have absolutely gained an appreciation for the stamina of ancient scribes.
References
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.