Usually, I write by hand as minimally as possible. Writing by hand is reserved for bulleted points in lists, simple items in mind maps, or short sentences in notebooks. Anything longer than a paragraph is typed. Due to this practice, I found this task difficult since I rarely write more than a couple of paragraphs at a time by hand these days.

The primary reasons for this are that I can type faster and more legibly than I can write by hand. The legibility aspect is important, typing produces a consistent form to all of the characters that make up words on a page. The secondary benefit is that I can type directly into a cloud based note and review it on any device or edit on my computer. 

Writing on paper with an ink pen is susceptible to messy mistakes. I decided to scribble out my mistakes and write my correction overtop for a word change, or to simply leave the characters obscured by scribbles to signify omitting the mistake entirely. Writing by pen meant that I could not easily remove a mark once left on the paper, it could only be covered up. When typing on computer, I can backspace and easily remove and correct any mistake. These differences lead to me caring less about making mistakes when writing by hand since it seems pointless to worry about, and thinking more about mistakes when typing since it can be easily corrected. Another reason for this is that most of my handwritten work is only ever viewed by me (with the exception of a postcard or note to a friend) and my typed words are often for external audiences.

Writing by hand is a more organic and less mechanistic way of writing, making it slightly closer to orality but still significantly technologically different. Comparing typing to writing by hand elucidates how typing was another major shift in communication.