Longhand vs typewritten
February 9th 2007 06:28
The moleskine sketchbook of Vincent Van Gogh
Some people study best at night time and in silence, while others prefer daylight and background music. Some actors work outside in, while others work inside out.
Extended mental processes, and creative processes in particular, are hopelessly open to individual variation. Development in a skill is partly a matter of finding what works for you.
So regarding the question of longhand vs typewritten, handwriting vs word processor: --
Firstly, it's not an either/or thing -- people frequently use both. The trick is to know when to use what.
And secondly, there's a large number of factors that go into the choice, including:
-- how fast you can type, and how IT-literate you are
-- how messy your handwriting, and how tiring
-- how good an editor you are, and, in general, where your various writing strengths lie
-- the sort of work you're doing -- fiction or non-fiction; prose or poetry; blogging or magazines; outlining or drafting; brainstorming or proofreading; deadlines or no deadlines
-- the style and genre you're writing in (perhaps tiring handwriting is a good thing if you want weariness in your story; perhaps typing is a good thing to access the conventions of e-mails)
-- what you grew up on and are comfortable with
-- what your associations are, how your thinking works
-- and the sheer limitations of your life, like whether or not you've got computer access.
***
Features
In Word you can word count, spell check, find and replace, and footnote. And you can easily reach Google, your e-mail, your blog, etc.
On paper you can mind map, chart, and draw.
Associations
Longhand can feel more like a diary. Typewritten can feel more like a public announcement.
Longhand can be more relaxed.
Longhand can give you permission. Whereas typewritten is closer to publication, and an audience is more distractingly present.
Speed
Typing lets you get it down before you forget it, and gives you the power to catch a lot more of what flickers across the consciousness -- including your natural speech patterns.
Typing can be closer to flying, and can encourage you to think faster. And if your mind is spewing a thousand thoughts a second, you'll need the bucket of typing to catch them.
Blathering is rarely a bad thing -- you can always go back and edit, and you always find a surprising number of gems amid the shit.
Whereas longhand can be wading through mucus. If your pen can't keep pace with your brain, you might be left with nothing to say, or might find your rhythm and train of thought unsustainable or disrupted.
On the other hand -- yes, more thought happens before and while you longhand-write, but this can be a good thing. Your brain spends more time on the words, and can bring more to them.
Editing
Handwriting pushes you towards the linear and the fixed. Whereas word processing can free you to move within a text. Typing can be closer to swimming. The text is more penetratable, amorphous.
The words can be lighter, more flexible, more open.
And creation can be more jumpy, associative. The typewritten can have gone through processes that are unimaginable for longhand. So it's not just that editing is easier, but that there's less of a distinction between editing and writing.
You can go back and forth to check on things. You can work on ideas, and on parts of the piece, as they occur to you or catch your eye. -- Thought isn't linear, so why should writing be? -- even if the end result is supposed to have this illusion.
By "editing" I mean all the functions people normally think of -- ease of navigation, cutting and pasting, deleting and inserting. But I also mean the reminders you can place -- as they occur to you -- reminders to operate in various ways on the text. You can flag problems -- you have the power of post-it notes times ten. This title isn't appropriate. This word isn't quite right. This paragraph isn't logical. This idea needs more thinking. This sentence could be better expressed...
You can divide the document into different sections, each of which needs a different sort of activity. Or if you're called away from your desk, or are unwilling to interrupt a current train of thought, then you might add suggestive words that will trigger ideas in you, that you'll later come back to contemplate, to expand on, to tidy.
Form can emerge from chaos. Pages of notes can coalesce into coherence. You can brainstorm as you go, collating the results into groups, turning the groups into polished paragraphs.
The text can assemble itself like evolution assembles biospheres, each segment changeable and changing until the entirety reaches equilibrium.
The blank 'Das Keyboard' keyboard, for the truly l33t
Inner editor
The urge to censor yourself, in content or form, to kill an expression before it's birthed...
It's sometimes thought that the speed of typing frees you from the "inner editor"; and it's sometimes thought that the correctability of typing encourages it.
Well, I don't know, firstly, that the inner editor necessarily does a bad job.
Secondly, I'm not sure to what extent the temptation is there. Does the option of a backspace mean you're more inclined to use it, or that you'll use it self-destructively? If you prefer to write one full draft after another, why not simply avoid deleting?
Copying
There is sometimes the claim that the act of transcription, from handwriting to screen, is itself productive.
And I think this is true.
I suppose any "productivity" has to be balanced against the hours of extra work and annoyance...
Sensualities
It's everyday experience that the physical qualities of things will inspire you in certain ways, make you think in certain ways, put you in certain moods, give you ideas. They can be laden with any number of associations; and all the sensations that come from the instrument can go into, inform, the music.
Typewriters
Perhaps they feel efficient, professional, businesslike -- put you in a working mood, give you a sense of working away. Perhaps they feel like something is happening, like things are getting done.
Consider the sound of the carriage return, or the physicality of it, especially if you actually need to push. The crisp action of the keys, their solidity, their precision. The closeness and realness of the machine, and the associations and self-image you're tapping into.
Or is the noise distracting?
Computers
Some (like me) will wank lyrical about the feel of keyboard keys, the readiness with which they bend to instruction, their bounce and resistance, the sleek speed of controlled movement.
Horses rearing to go. Fingers dancing across flute or piano.
Or is the keyboard alien and impersonal (and is this a good thing)?
Is the look of the page inviting, or intimidating? Is the blinking cursor demanding?
Some will think their computers purr, and others will hear an annoying drone, and others will think the sound nondescript, cold, mechanical, and others still will be made anxious.
But even anxiety can be conducive, depending on what you're writing.
Pen and paper
No shortage of people to admire the glide, and to spend time and money on finding the right pencil or pen (light, dark, fountain, ballpoint), and the right colour and texture of paper.
No shortage of people, also, to take pains over or even find inspiration in handwriting.
When you turn off the computer's drone, you begin to be aware of other things -- noises outside, bodily sensations...
And paper can make you think more purposefully. Just like people play better chess against real rather than computer opponents, and when there's a physical board involved.
Environment
At your desk, you can mean business, and be less easily distracted.
Writing longhand, in your bed, you can be comfortable, relaxed. People have imagined Pauline Reage creating the Story of O propped up on one arm, in stream of consciousness mode, halfway between asleep and awake.
Personality
A short time ago, I wrote:
| Handwriting is natural: typeface is not. Speech is natural: but your recorded speech is not.
When you hear words in your mind, you know them. But on page, on tape, they're another's voice, their implications mysterious. They're open to interpretation in a way that they weren't; and they have a likely interpretation, based on a statistics game; and they are vulnerable to common meanings. |
Part of what I meant was this -- that typewritten letters are always impersonal, whereas the shortest of handwritten notes has life, character, humanity (though it might well look sickly when exposed to the light of typeface).
The same word typed and handwritten means different things to you, triggers different thoughts in your head. And this could be an argument either for typing or for longhand, depending on what you want triggered.
For recording dreams, I usually find that typewritten is too impersonal, and the computer is too much of an interruption. I'll have lost the dream by then. I won't even turn on the bedroom light if I can help it. I need to carry myself carefully, to retain the same sensations and state of mind; and I need to have them within me to remember as much as possible, and to properly describe.
But there are different purposes.
When I record dreams, it's for my own benefit; I want the words that will create the same experience when I reread them; and the most appropriate words are only available at the time of writing -- when they emerge from that psychological state, and when I have the sensations to measure them against.
On the other hand, diaries are never understandable by anyone else. When you're writing to communicate, you have to be aware of the gulf between your idiosyncratic understandings of words, and what they'll suggest, how they'll be interpreted, by others.
Voice
Some thoughts on a third option...
Dictaphones and voice recognition software can be problematic, because tone adds an awful lot to meaning, and the move from audio to visual can leave words alarmingly naked. What's profound when spoken can look ridiculous on the page.
But then again, perhaps voice is a good form for playwrighting, screenwriting, or lyrics.
Nothing is faster than voice, though it might incline you to repetition, and to shorter, more clipped thought-packets. Though very few people type over 80 WPM, 180 WPM is comfortable for speech, and the upper limit is around 250 WPM.
Voice is even less editable than handwriting, though this might or might not mean that you less self-censor.
People will probably find that much of the time they use mental dictaphones already -- they'll compose verbally, and then transcribe.
***
Notes
-- Do typing and handwriting use meaningfully different parts of the brain or access different aspects of the unconsciousness? Well, probably. But I don't know if I've noticed a tangible difference.
-- The question has arisen in a psychological context whether typing or handwriting is more therapeutic, and which is more inclined to make people self-censor their content. I think the results have been mixed. But this undergraduate study reports no difference -- "Do Computers Depersonalize Personal Disclosure? A Comparison of Typing to Longhand Disclosure" by Charley S Blunt (Southern Oregon University McNair Program, Spring 2006, vol 2, pp 82-94).
-- This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. The moleskine sketchbook came from this website. The blank Das Keyboard keyboard came from this website. The yellow legal pad came from this website.
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Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
The last thing in life I ever wanted to be was a typist, perish the thought, but now we all have become one.
A keyboard, for me ,frees me from the bondage of the written word. Where time is a scarce commodity it sets us free.
Incidentally one can do mind mapping etc on the computer, all it needs is the skills sufficiently developed to allow of their usefulness.
A well structured, thoughtful post, especially for those of us who like to study or are required to.
But, it was very long.
katyzzz
Comment by Damo
I have to admitt that I have gone from writting out things by hand to using the computer. This has taken me a long time to make the transition. I used write everything out then retype it, only in the last couple of years have I been able to type as freely as I used to scribble.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Your correction is a good one -- that drawing, mind-mapping, etc can be done on the computer.
Dear Damo, if you don't mind my asking, was it a typing-speed thing, or did your ideas just not flow when you typed?
I think there's a lot to be said for writing out longhand, then typing it up. Is your current process any different in terms of creativity?
Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
The mess and chaos (and humanity) of the pen lends itself to more 'felt' writing, in my mind.
The flow I think is also enhanced by ink.
8 hours? arduous. Well worth the labour.
Norm
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Comment by Trina
Hiphop
Confessions of a Serial Dancer
Competitions
Clubbing
There are advantages to both and a lot of the time it's about efficiency and what method does what the best, which produces the better end result etc. I am constantly switching between the two and have come to a conclusion that I shouldn't always rely on technology.
Main example: I used to use a PDA to organise my life, now I use a Filofax. It sucks when you're out of battery and you need to know where your next appointment is...
It's too much of a headache to make my phone handle those functions like notes, appointments, contact lists, etc. I find it faster to write that information.
Doing mind maps and plans, drafts and anything to do with the initial stages of a process, I usually do by hand then translate it to computer. Why? Easier. I have lots of spare paper that I use and reuse and recycle.
Comment by Damo
I think it was a realization that there is no such thing as writing, only rewriting. I don't type any faster but I write better when I write slower. I have less to throw away because i think things through better before commiting them to record. Also I have cut out the step of trying to read my scrawl (Thumbnail Dipped in Tar) and type it slowly to the computer.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I think, had Beethoven been around today, he would have been a typer -- endless fidgetings and rewritings, sometimes only to return to the original idea... Mozart would have been longhand, the bastard.
Hey Trina, thanks for reading!
But what about your blog posts? Drafted or mind-mapped longhand first, and then typed up?
Comment by Trina
Hiphop
Confessions of a Serial Dancer
Competitions
Clubbing
Comment by Damo
Most of my posts are just done in one go. Planned in my head and checked on the PC for spelllinz erruz.
I am using Orble as practice. Also there is little time to do any rewriting in a day so sometime what I write is about as raw as my thoughts ever get.
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
Interestingly (or not), when I am doing a plan or rough draft of writing, I will almost always hand write the original plan. I find that, as you said, handwriting helps me work out a logical order to thing.
But then when it's time to get the writing done, I'm 100% on the keyboard. I can type a whole lot faster than I can write, so it's much quicker. Also, I like being able to cut and paste chunks of text.
Great work!
Comment by Wendi
When I'm writing poetry, or journal-style writing from an emotional perspective, it's almost always done with the left hand on paper. However, for "rants", I prefer to type so I can transfer my thoughts as quickly as I think them, then go back and clean it up afterward. I think the rants are when my typing speed hits levels over 100 wpm.
When it comes to research type pieces and articles, I do a combination of both. I keep a word document open on the computer for my general ideas, but I keep a notebook to my left side for note-taking. That way, I can research, record, and write all at the same sitting.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
[...]
“The typewriter has become the symbol of a non-existent sepia-toned era when people typed passionately late into the night under the flickering light of a single naked bulb, sleeves rolled up, suspenders hanging down, lighting each new cigarette off the smouldering butt of the last, occasionally taking a pull from the bottle of bourbon in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.” Wershler-Henry’s second big point is that people believed that what was typewritten was dictated, by a voice separate from the person typing; even people composing at the typewriter thought they were receiving dictation from elsewhere.
[...]
It is a shame that Wershler-Henry, so willing to generalize about our experience with the typewriter, does not spend much time on the difference between that and our relationship to the personal computer. Consider, for example, our physical involvement with the typewriter, which stands in relation to our connection with the P.C. as a fistfight does to a handshake. On the P.C., we use the same typing skills that we used on the typewriter, but the contact is not the same. We run our fingers lightly over the keys, making a gentle, pitter-patter sound. On the typewriter, by contrast, we had to stab, and the machine recorded our action with a great big clack. We liked that. (As Wershler-Henry tells us, a silent typewriter was put on the market in the nineteen-forties, and nobody wanted it.) The noise told us that we had achieved something. So, in larger measure, did the carriage return—another line done!—and the job of changing the paper—another page done!
Which brings us to the white page. Mallarmé spoke of the uncertainty with which we face a clean sheet of paper and try, in vain, to record our thoughts on it with some precision. As long as we were feeding paper into a typewriter, this anxiety was still present to our minds, and was revealed in the pointillism of Wite-Out, or even in the dapple of letters that were darker, pressed in confidence, as opposed to the lighter ones, pressed more hesitantly. A page produced on a manual typewriter was like a record of the torture of thought. With the P.C., the situation is altogether different. The screen, a kind of indeterminate space, does not seem violable in the same way as the page. And, because what we write on it is so effortlessly and undetectably erasable, the final text buries the evidence of our struggle, asserting that what we said was what we thought all along.
[...]
Something else to think about is the effect that the computer, with its astonishing capabilities, has had on us as writers. Take just one example: the ease of moving a block of text. Highlight, hit control X, move cursor, hit control V, and, presto, that paragraph is in a new place. Of course, we were able to move things in typewritten text, too, but all that business with the scissors and the tape made us think twice, and maybe it was wise for us to hesitate before changing the order in which our brains produced our thoughts. In recent years, I have read a lot of writings that seemed to say, “This paragraph is here because it seemed an O.K. place to shove it in.” Furthermore, by allowing us to move text easily, computers influence us to write in movable units. In the novel that won Britain’s Booker Prize last year, Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss,” there is a line space, indicating a break of thought, every three pages or so. In “The Iron Whim,” the average chapter length is eight pages, and much of the book is simply a miscellany, a collection of anecdotes. (The subtitle, “A Fragmented History of Typewriting,” is accurate.) This gives it a light, less-holy-than-thou tone, in the manner of much postmodern scholarship. “I don’t trust any idea of truth,” Wershler-Henry seems to say, “and I’m not going to pretend to.”
Comment by Pogejr
The application would be for an internship program.
Thanks for the help in advanced.
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
I think I'd have to say typing, though, for the reason that you give. My feeling is that typing is to such extent the norm throughout the business world that handwritten would seem unprofessional or eccentric.
Comment by Pogejr
Comment by Lana Syltie