Do you normally write by hand or type? Did you find this task difficult or easy? Explain.
Up until the end of my Bachelor degree, I hand wrote all my notes. I found that hand writing notes helped me retain the content and I found that reading notes for a test on a computer rather difficult. As Gnanadesikan (2011) mentions, “information only existed if someone remembers it.” In my case, I wrote the notes so I could remember it. In the past, I had signs or pictures I would use to represent some words or phrases such as drawing large exclamation marks for ideas that the professor mentions will be on tests. To others reading my notes, it was “encryptions” to my notes (Gnanadesikan, 2011). I also had to brainstorm my ideas using paper and pen, using the old school topic sentence, evidence and concluding sentence format as my way to work through my writing. However, since, I’ve completed a one-year teacher’s college program and now my masters where I find myself becoming more proficient with typing. The ease of typing and deleting allows me to work through my ideas, see my ideas on paper and either continue with it or start a new document with ease.
I do not find writing by hand difficult if its a short reflection. To me, it can be therapeutic. However, anything longer than 3 pages I would struggle with. This is due to the way I hold my pen/pencil. Being left handed, in order to see what I write, I have learned to use an improper pincer grasp in order to see what I am writing and to better control my pen/pencil. On my ring finger, there is a permanent bump near the base of my nail due to the pressure of my grasp of a pen/pencil. You will also notice that throughout my writing, it gets messier and I smudge more. This is not due to my lack of concerns of aesthetics alike Phonograms (Schmandt-Besserat, 2009), as I usually am attentive not to smudge, but over time, I forget and my papers become messy.
What did you do when you made a mistake or wanted to change your writing? How did you edit your work? Did your choice of media play a part in how you edited your work?
To edit a spelling mistake, I used whiteout to cover it and write over it. As I am writing by hand, I couldn’t just begin writing aimlessly like I would when typing. Every sentence was planned and thought out, or “carefully crafted” (Gnanadesikan, 2011) to minimize major errors and having to rewrite. I would think about how I wanted to write the sentence word for word before penning it on paper. If a major mistake was to be made in this writing, I would have scrunched up the page and redo it all over again. If a mistake was made in typing, I would have just deleted the paragraph and continued. Thus, my choice in media affected how I went about beginning to write my work and how I progressed through my writing. I think in hand writing, I also edited less and did not proofread as detailed as I would in typing.
What do you feel is the most significant difference between writing by hand and using mechanized forms of writing? Which do you prefer and why?
One difference in writing by hand was time. Being a quick typer, writing by hand required more time in writing, but also in thinking. As I wanted to keep mistakes to a minimum to avoid having to rewrite, planning each sentence required more time. In typing, I would try out the sentence and if it didn’t fit, just delete and try again. The preplanning in typing was less. In this aspect, I prefer typing. Typing all my ideas out and rereading them to see if they fit is similar to thinking out loud. Typing is similar to the benefits of codex as mentioned by Richard Clement (1997). It is convenient, not necessarily more compact but easier to carry without damaging, more economical in that I don’t waste paper, and comprehensive as I can working on several works at a time and also save work (Clement, 1997).
It is also important to note that I am able to type in Chinese but not write by hand. This is due to my lack of fostering my own heritage, but at least, I can use pinyin to type Chinese on the computer. This is because pinyin is typed as the word is said, in which I find the character to add to my work. Although Schmandt-Besserat (2009) argues that technology is limiting the writing systems of some culture, it does help Westernized individuals like myself, get back in touch with my culture.
References:
Clement, Richard W. (1997). “Medieval and Renaissance book production (Links to an external site.)“. Library Faculty & Staff Publications. Paper 10. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/lib_pubs/10
Gnanadesikan, A. E. (2011).“The First IT Revolution.” In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons (pp. 1-10).
Schmandt-Besserat, D. (2009). “Origins and Forms of Writing.” In Bazerman, C. (Ed.). Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text. New York, NY: Routledge.