On the gadget front, I really love the paperlike screen protector for the iPad. This combined with the Apple Pencil made a huge difference in the usability of my iPad for writing/drawing. I still prefer to write on paper, but it’s really great for things like my writing group where we generally meet over zoom & I can give the author a marked up manuscript (with multicolor notes).
I’m also opposed to getting too precious about writing tools. So many people have drawers full of fancy notebooks with something on the first few pages and the rest empty. Get something and use it. Don’t matter if it’s a dollar-store spiral notebook or a fancy Leuchturm 1917 notebook, just as long as you use it. Same with the writing utensil. Pencil? Ballpoint pen? Whatever. I find these days I prefer to write using a cheap mechanical pencil (the kind they sell in bags of 20 at the supermarket), but I’ll use whatever.
I used to be really precious about these things. I only used college-ruled 9½×6 150-page spiral bound notebooks and wrote in 0.4mm fine-point felt tip pen. Did all my first drafts by hand. It ended up being an excuse to not finish stuff. I do most of my first drafts typing now, because it lets me get s⸻ done (although I still take notes by hand because that helps me remember what I took notes on better).
I don’t buy the cursive thing, mostly because I write slower in cursive than in print (although I have a handful of ligatures and abbreviations I use to speed up some things).
The cursive thing is almost certainly because he's using fountain pens. Pencils and ballpoint pens lend themselves to printing more easily, because they require pressure to write, and when you let the pressure up between letters, the line stops. The first time I picked up a fountain pen and tried printing with it, I found all my letters were connecting whether I meant them to or not, and I suddenly understood why cursive exists. Everyone who's learned cursive in the ballpoint pen era has been unwittingly taught a performance optimization for a tool they're not using.
Wow I never knew this - what a useful bit of information. Makes me want to try a fountain pen, I do like writing in cursive but I often get hand cramps doing it for extended periods.
This is likely because you're writing by moving your wrist, as opposed to "arm writing". Learning to use your arm muscles to move the pencil will slow your writing down initially, but will give you more control and reduce strain over the long run.
> "I learned cursive as a child. Then I went for many years without using it much, and forgot some of it."
While fountain pens may be nicer for cursive, they were very late in the games only coming into the scene in the late 1800s, long after fashion had been set.
In the US we were taught either the Zaner-Bloser or the D'Nealian alphabet, and while most of the claims of cursive over manuscript are typically overblown and fall under scrutiny, with common use it may not be faster, but is easer for (the small sample of friends I have asked) to write while not looking at the paper. Not faster, but easier to write in strait lines without looking (in my experience).
Manuscript (now called printing) wasn't common when Zaner-Bloser printed the book "The arm movement method of rapid writing"[0] IIRC.
But for business writing (which both Zaner-Bloser and D'Nealian were targeting) it is not so much the fact that you aren't lifting the point, but that you are using your whole arm.
The scientific claims of Zaner-Bloser are almost certainly suspect, but before word-processors, taking notes while not watching your writing was a critical skill, or was in my experience.
That is a very different world that the scribes of old, or even Roman cursive, which would have only had quills, and which did not really connect letters.
If you look into secretary hand, italic hand, and court hand, a lot of it had to to with style and preferences, with the US Declaration of Independence being in Secretary Hand, which had been in fashion for official docs for centuries at that point. Shakespeare also wrote his plays Secretary Hand, while ladies of the era would have used 'Italian style' italics.
So unfortunately it seems there are many back explanations, the real history is clear as mud in the absence of direct evidence, or more correctly, claims like in Zaner-Bloser.
To clarify my point, I am fairly sure the issue is not fountain pens requiring less pressure to write with than everything else, but rather ballpoint pens requiring more pressure than all earlier pen technology. I have not used a dip pen myself, but I can't imagine it would require pressure to write.
In other words, all of the writing tools in common use since ~1950 make it easy to separate your letters, but before the ballpoint pen became commonplace, every writer had had the experience of using a pen that makes connecting letters easier than separating them. That's the experience most of us today are missing.
Dip pens do not require more pressure than fountain pens.
However, most nibs for dip pens cause more friction on the paper, because they do not have the balls that are typically welded on the ends of the nibs for fountain pens, so writing with a dip pen usually feels scratchy.
So there is an extra force from friction, but it is lateral, not a vertical pressure.
Gel pens require less pressure than classic ballpoint pens. Classic rollerball pens with an absorptive reservoir usually require even less pressure. Liquid-ink rollerball pens together with fountain pens require the least pressure.
I agree that with a high-pressure writing tool like a ballpoint pen it feels more natural to write disconnected letters, while with a low pressure tool like a fountain pen it feels better to write with connected cursive letters, without raising the nip from the paper.
Despite this, while I was still in high school, I transitioned my handwriting from the cursive style that I was taught as a small child to printed-like letters, even if I was using a fountain pen and I have always preferred the writing tools that require the least pressure, so fountain pens and liquid-ink rollerball pens are at the top of my preferences, while ballpoint pens with viscous ink are at the bottom.
Not a sarcastic response, instead, to double down on your point. If you show this to 99.9% of the world and require the spend of $50 for the screen protector on the $500 iPad to get the "paper feel", they will tell you might as well just get that Leuchtturm or Moleskin notebook.
That’s what kept me from going iPad. At the price of a 1000 setup you can buy about 25 Moleskins with, 280 pages each, + pens. If you fill 10 pages a day, that’s two years of high quality paper. My rate is more like 3-4 pages a day. So, I’m just so far out. My sense is that an iPad would last 3-4 years then it needs a battery replacement.
If all you’re doing is writing then it’s not worth it, but for me the iPad is a fantastic piece of kit that can consume media, create media, and of all types, writing to fully mastered music albums.
Most people I know that make music on an iPad only use it for specific plugins or MIDI apps. They bounce the stems out to WAV and then mix/master it in a full desktop DAW.
You'd go through a lot of unnecessary suffering trying to do a professional mixdown and master on iPad.
A musician friend used to actually do recording with garageband on an iPad. I use mine for sheet music a lot and even sprang for the external foot pedal for page turns. There was one rehearsal where I didn’t have a chance to scan everything in advance and was playing from printed music for one song and I kept stepping on the pedal to turn the page and nothing happened.
I’ve not done it, but it seems it could be a good alternative to a laptop for digital synth stuff.
Personally found newest paperlike to be a lot like glass still, you barely get that paper feel at all and I hated it. They tried to keep clarity of the screen near glass level, but that affects the feeling a lot. Eventually I did some research and found that Japanese screen protectors that give you a feel of Kent paper are excellent for writing, so I wholeheartedly recommend those. You can find best rated ones by looking at top rated ones on jp websites, I have bellemond one.
I think you're right. It's very easy in any hobby to make the gear side of the hobby be disproportionate to how much you actually do the hobby. Think someone who's spent $3k on camping gear and constantly researches gear, but rarely camps. On the other hand, if you do actually camp a lot, it is nice to have the lighter weight higher performance gear, up to a certain point. So, Stephenson, as someone who does actually write a massive amount, is right to be using high performance gear, but for someone just getting started, getting into fancy pens/paper is a distraction from actually writing.
If you are writing a lot and have dysgraphia, a cheap fountain pen like pilot varsity ($2) or platinum preppy ($7) can help you fight the excessive pressure we tend to use leading to less hand cramping. Using tools that make you write more because it is more enjoyable is good, using tools that make you spend time thinking about tools is bad. I really liked those tiny comp pads cvs sold, but I haven't seen them in a while and I don't like the dollar store ones. I just grab random pads that aren't bigger than my phone so they sit nice in my pocket.
I used ballpoint pens in school but I don't like the process: my hand often feels too tense, and getting handwriting legible is a lot of effort. Once I switched to fountain pens I enjoy the process a lot more, and the result generally look better without much effort.
I'm sure many people are OK with ballpoint pens and might even prefer the feel.
Fountain pen (+ ink and paper) doesn't really cost more than a paperlike screen protector. So it can be entirely functional. But many people also enjoy it as a hobby, collecting pens and whatnot.
> I find these days I prefer to write using a cheap mechanical pencil
I know this is contrary to your advice but mechanical pencil, get a Kuru Toga, it's a really nice improvement and not very expensive. It auto-rotates the pencil tip, so you don't have the sharp end at some point.
For permanent writing get a Uni ball gel writer, it's supremely smooth to write with. Also not hugely expensive.
They're both not the cheapest option, but an amazing writing experience without being the fancy kind of expensive.
I think people send too much time optimizing the notebook instead of optimizing what goes into it. I've seen beautifully organized notebooks that were never opened again and messy scraps of paper that someone referred back to after years.
Paperlike is indeed nice for handwriting, but it has drawbacks. The increased friction makes it uncomfortable to use your fingers to navigate the iPad for long, and since it makes the finger motion along the screen less smooth, it sometimes prevents the iPad from correctly interpreting drag-and-drop or multi-finger gestures in my experience. It also makes writing very noisy compared to the stock iPad, and also compared to paper, so if you have a shared office you might want to reconsider. I ended up removing it again from my iPad. But to be fair, this was on a $400 iPad ~5 years ago, so perhaps high-end iPads with newer Paperlike versions work better.
Across a decade, I’ve used a Paperlike on five different iPads ranging from the iPad Mini, standard iPad, iPad Pro, both Gen 1 and Gen 2 Apple Pencils plus other styluses and never once experienced the problems you suggest. I’m making this comment on an iPad wth aPaperlike protector in fact.
To the contrary, the noise levels when writing are dramatically lower and I simply cannot imagine anyone becoming fatigued because of a paperlike protector.
Interesting. I wonder what’s the difference in our usage, perhaps the amount of force we normally use when swiping and writing?
Regarding noise, one of the main reasons I stopped using it was because my partner complained about the «scratching» noises when we were home officing together during Covid lockdown, and I personally also found it loud. I didn’t get complaints on the iPad before getting the screen protector.
Regarding the friction, I personally found swiping uncomfortable over time, but I guess that might depend on a lot of factors, including force used when swiping and skin type (oily vs dry skin, skin thickness and sensitivity, etc.)?
I don’t know why the difference. But if noise is a problem I would suggest buying different nib types and experimenting with those. Amazon has a wide selection, including rubberized ones that will make writing on the iPad nearly silent.
Indeed, I did switch to a rubber-like PenTips nib after that, and it made the writing experience really silent. Unfortunately it also felt somehow clumsy to write with – worse than just plastic-on-glass writing. It’s hard to describe, but it somehow made the «turns» in my handwriting feel awkward, and despite sticking with it for months I couldn’t get used to it. There’s perhaps other brands out there that make better ones, haven’t looked around further.
In my case, I eventually went back to a mixture of laptop and paper for most tasks, and now just use the iPad for highlighting (Zotero), lecturing (using Notability on projector as a blackboard/whiteboard), and occasionally to make figures and slides. But I stopped using it for note taking or drafting.
Pro Tip: In addition to the Paperlike protector, one can buy a range of different nib types from Amazon and experiment to find a one that suits you best.
> I really love the paperlike screen protector for the iPad
Let me purposely be a little provocative here, and I don't mean any disrespect:
This is missing the point. It's not just about using the hand for a writing motion. It's about the physical sensation of actual pen on actual paper. It's about turning pages, arranging them, organizing them. It's about the serialization and finality of the words you put down. The offline character that forces a different mental discipline and requires (and enables) focus. You get a lot out of leaving your electronic gadgets behind and that's why trying to emulate that on an iPad misses the point.
Always found that writing stuff down helps me to remember things better, whether studying something, prepping for an exam, or in general. Didn't even matter if I didn't look at those notes again, it just got "stored" better.
Didn't know he is a lefty too! Fountain pens + lefty is a tough combo; we had to use fountain pens in the 1st grade and my wrist was always stained on the side. Agree with the rollerball angle, Pilot V5 is my go to now...
I noticed this as well and the question caused me to go pretty deep into writing in general.
Switched to a 36 key ergo split with a tweaked alpha-thumb layout (R is on my left thumb, Space is on the right, base layout is Hands Down Vibranium V). Started learning Pitman shorthand (again) then switched to Noory Simplex and stuck with it. Became fascinated with Zaner's Method of cursive where the writing is done entirely through arm movement and using the rhythm of the muscle movement instead of by conscious control over the pen position. At the moment I can write at about 100wpm on a keyboard, 70wpm in shorthand, and 26wpm longhand.
I believe that the improved ability to learn comes from the need to focus on a concept for longer while writing and not on the motion of the writing itself. My ability to retain is better in cursive than in shorthand and I don't notice a significant difference in retention between keyboard and shorthand.
There are a lot of fountain pen inks that dry faster, like the Iroshizuku line. And some specifically built to be water resistant etc. It is a lot different from years ago.
I'm glad he posted the video. One thing he didn't mention that is striking to me is how high his hand is on the page, essentially resting above the line he is writing, with his thumb parallel to the line. Whereas as a right-hander, my hand is essentially centered on the line, with my thumb at a 45 degree angle to the line.
Do most left-handers learn to hold their pen/pencil like that? If not I imagine it would be quite a transition to adapt to as all the motions are rotated - the portion of the stroke previously done by moving fingers in and out would instead be done by moving side to side, and vice-versa.
Edit: Or from trying it, I guess you could just write as normal and end up with everything italic/slanted.
From what I've read, lefties are typically classified into "over-writers", "side-writers", and "under-writers". That video caught my attention too, as it shows pretty clearly that he's an over-writer.
I myself am probably somewhere in between an over-writer and a side-writer lefty, edging slightly closer to an over-writer. Maybe a 20 degree angle to the line as my thumb wraps around my other fingers?
I've never found a fountain pen that I've liked because every time I've tried one, I ended up tearing the paper as I go as I'm essentially pushing the nib across the page and so the nib snags on the paper, digs in, and makes little holes. And I left pencils behind as soon as I could in school because every day I'd come home with the side of my left hand silvered with graphite.
These days, my preference is a Pentel EnerGel, a Uniball Signo, or a Pilot G-2 (i.e., gel pens like the article mentions). They can write easily without much force and dry quickly enough so that my hand doesn't smudge. For my daily pocket carry, I've also learned that I always want the capped variants rather the click kind, or else I'll end up with stained inner pockets and scribbles on my thigh. This makes the G-2s nice for home and desk use, but not for daily carry.
(And though the article suggests using cursive and not getting hung up on legibility, somewhere back in grade or middle school I switched to using either print style, or an engineering-hand-like small caps style, depending on mood. Both in the interest of legibility, despite my left-handedness.)
Actually, paper orientation was a big help too. Used to tilt the sheet so you write almost bottom-to-top, that way you at least don't smuge the writing right away, and hopefully the ink dries quick enough for the next line
I'm left-handed and always tilt paper at least 45° clockwise, effectively writing from below. Never had any smudging issues, even with fountain pens, as my hand simply never goes over any ink. Left-handed people who write from above by bending their wrist have always confused me, as it's both less comfortable and does not completely avoid smudges.
I think I would write mirrored. Especially in this day and age, there is no reason to write LTR over RTL by hand. You basically never have to write legibly for official reasons.
A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates.
Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding.
Don’t get caught up trying to figure out the right notation or highlighter color for a line. Just mark them up and later it’ll make sense.
Edit: I think the broader point that some of you may be missing is that I’m not prescribing a particular form of notetaking. I’m saying that reading is made more rewarding with active engagement. How you best engage is up to you.
I buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture.
"Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick.
It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you want to write notes, get a notebook, which gives you space to write real thoughts down. I use a trapper-keeper.
I disagree. I love buying used books and seeing what other people found interesting, whether it's by way of notes in the margins, highlights, etc. I also love it when people write their name in the front of the book and when they read it. I like the idea of a single copy of a book making its way among many people, all adding their own thoughts.
Same reason I miss those library cards found in the back of books. I enjoyed seeing the history a book had, how years could pass without anyone checking it out or seeing a flurry of checkouts.
The same is true in every realm: taste matters. But that's not a reason to blanket-discourage expression.
(I do wonder if the people here who hate it are picturing students who blindly highlight pages, and the people who like it are remembering the times they've seen a few pencilled sentences in margins of an old book)
>But that's not a reason to blanket-discourage expression
nor was there a reason to blanket discourage treating books as precious and worth preserving. i'm interested in the part where you note what you noted and let the other glaring transgression pass. That was a choice.
Knowledge is precious and worth preserving, sure, but a specific copy of a book? Unless they're doodling in the margins of historical documents or rare manuscripts, I personally can't see any reason why it should matter.
it was funny seeing this right below the comment saying "I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest.".
different strokes. if you want to ensure you don't get sick from a line being crossed out, buy new.
I have a book (not authored by Edison) that Thomas Edison scribbled his comments in the margin and I was quite happy to read them! Changing my own nearly-religious belief to never write in a book,I found that it totally changed my experience with the book and the author. There are thousands of copies of any particular modern book and it's no longer my task to preserve that unique copy for after the apocalypse. I would like to imagine my children one day being able to see their father's thoughts and dialogue with authors.
The book is "Making Good in Business" by Roger W. Babson. Babson gifted the book to Edison in 1921. Here is a link to a scan of another copy of the book in the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bwb_P9-DAU-349/mode/2up
This is so condescending. The reason I buy used is that the overwhelming majority of books are out of print and not available digitally. Which makes the vandalism especially egregious!
You noted elsewhere I said "vandalize that wisdom." Perhaps you should think a little more about why I am using the word "vandalize" provocatively and figuratively.
yes, you are using it to emotionally bolster your argument, despite it being an incorrect characterization. it reveals that your argument is not very strong.
Learn what words mean. That comment is not remotely condescending, and scribbling in one's own book (with no indication here that the owner intends to sell it) is not vandalism.
Oh, I recognize your name ... wrong about so many things.
From another one of your comments here:
> No, my argument is that it's totally obnoxious to lend or resell a book that you've written in
But the person who advocated for writing in one's books if desired said nothing about lending or reselling them ... YOU were the first person here, in your response to them, to whine about BUYING such books. Talk about obnoxious!
Responding to you again to tell you to stop making personal attacks. I flagged your other comment. Stuff like this is why people leave HN.
It seems like me insisting that LLMs are stochastic parrots [presumably that's what you're mad about] is beginning to draw personal attacks on totally unrelated threads. Happens a lot. I used to have an account here with my name on it. HN is simply not a safe place to disagree with prevailing tech ideology.
The guy who dishonestly said "This is so condescending" and is making swipes at whole classes of people, accusing them of being obnoxious, is complaining about personal attacks. Someone who has been here less than a month and in that time has rubbed many people the wrong way is talking about why people leave HN. He flags a comment referring to some narcissistic rando resenting people for what they have done with their own property as a personal attack -- who did I attack with such generic phrasing?
And his "presumption" is erroneous, absurd, and misrepresents previous commentary.
Whatever. My HN front end has a mute function and I use it for people acting in bad faith. Ta ta.
It was extremely common back in the 1500/1600s, when books were far more rare and valuable to write in them. Almost every copy of these truly old books has something written in them, often by multiple people as the owners changed. That's part of the history of the book.
If the notes are good it can be a gem. If not, then it also really bothers me.
Another way of saying it is discussing a book with some people will be really rewarding. But others you will rather prefer not to. This is just an instance of a more generalizable rule: people develop preferences regarding who they want to spend their time with.
FWIW, I switched over to the post-it note method (mostly) in the 90s for real live books. Grab a few colors and shapes. Easy to remove if you don't want to share your thoughts with someone else if the book is something you later choose to get rid of.
Well not everyone has the privilege to buy new books, especially course-mandated books that the professor "coincidentally" wrote and costs hundreds of dollars.
I would even say that "crossing out lines you disagree with" is vandalism because a book can always be read by others and come to a different conclusion and debate in their mind from there.
Why treat books as disposable mind scaffolds when they can be used again by others productively and even preserved for later generations? If you found a book to be at least somewhat useful to write notes on, then why would others not also find it useful?
Margin notes are fine though as long as they do not make the main contents of the book unreadable like "crossing out lines".
This is why "condition" exists for secondhand books. People can choose a written-in one or not. If you can't afford new, note that written-in ones are often even cheaper!
I have been delighted by the writing I've seen in books, especially if it's a copy of a friend or family member, as you feel you are connecting to another reader years later, and the item is no longer identically mass-produced. But maybe it depends on the taste of the person writing in the book.
>I would even say that "crossing out lines you disagree with" is vandalism
if you cross out words in a book you borrowed, that is vandalism. if you cross out words in a book you own, by definition, that is not vandalism.
it would be uncool to mark up a textbook you planned to resell at the end of the semester, but it still would not be vandalism assuming you bought the textbook.
I think the truth is most printed copies of books are rarely read even once, so the idea of preserving them is noble but realistically not that important. And may be outweighed by benefits accrued to the person currently owning and reading it making the most of it and marking to their hearts content.
I admit I don’t mark up my books but I feel tempted to try
> Well not everyone has the privilege to buy new books, especially course-mandated books that the professor "coincidentally" wrote and costs hundreds of dollars.
Do you even understand what you sound like?
"Writing in something you own is vandalism because poor people".
I’ll never forget seeing a girl in a cafe highlight, line by line, nearly an entire page of a textbook. Watching the page curl from the wetness, almost as if writhing in pain.
I'll (lightheartedly) come to their defense to say that this is how I and a lot of my peers made it through med school. The wetness of the page indeed unlocked some supressed memories.
I think it's a combination of a ritual and some sort of somewhat-more-elevated engagement (or wishing thereof) with the material. Somewhere between meditative ritual and attention aid.
I doubt it helped much, if at all - except for Stabilo; they were the true winners.
I remember as an undergrad watching some philosophy majors do this with their reading and their explanation was that it helps them track reading progress. And to your point, that tactile act probably helps a lot with engagement!
The unfortunate part is that you can't then unhighlight a passage.
Yeah... There was no "reading" in our ancestral environment, it's rather unnatural for a human brain to focus on the page where nothing happens. Some people can adapt to that, other people need stimulation of some kind.
And it's not like some ADHD thing which is new. E.g. Stanisław Lem as a kid: "But because the act of reading was too passive, too simple, I would rest a chair leg on my calf or knee or foot and with little movements keep the chair at the very brink of falling."
Your argument is that in order for you to have a better experience the previous owner should not “ruin” the book for you. I’ve read better arguments on bathroom stalls.
No, my argument is that it's totally obnoxious to lend or resell a book that you've written in, and it's a shallow way of taking notes to begin with. It is precisely what Socrates warned us about.
I'd say this is a problem with the seller's communication, not the use of the book. If the seller didn't specify that the book was marked up, I agree with your sentiment. The act of writing in a book and selling it isn't the issue, but setting false expectations to whoever you're selling it to is.
> and it's a shallow way of taking notes to begin with
Are we really going to speak down to how someone uses a bunch of paper bound together? That's how they wanted to use it, which is cool, it's just not how you like it.
My intention is less "talk down" and more "Socrates was right." Too much of note-taking is a ritualistic behavior that actually hinders understanding and retention. I think highlighting / circling / crossing out / etc is by far the worst, but margin notes are also bad.
It is very frustrating the number of people who say "it's their property, they can do whatever they want" and similar comments, all of which are missing the point. Yes. It is legal to write on your own property. I know thay. It's my opinion that they're doing something that is guaranteed to harm overall human knowledge: whoever purchases/inherits/digitzes the book has to deal with it. And it almost certainly harms their own understanding of the book.
I printed this out just so I could cross out every line except for one. And now, with renewed mental confusion, I wrestle with my sins against humanity.
We don't even know if Socrates not writing his teachings was a principled stance to begin with, so "Socrates was right" is a shaky place to start your argument. Also "Socrates said writing is bad, so don't write in this piece of writing that you didn't force me to buy" is one of the weirdest pieces of circular logic I've ever come across.
Even if we take for granted that it was principled, it almost certainly wasn't pointed at marginalia. The argument (that Plato put in his mouth, through written text, no less) is that writing that substitutes for internal recollection can't answer back. It's an argument against outsourcing a thought to fixed text. A margin note is the opposite: it's the reader talking back to the text.
You have a personal preference about buying unmarked books, and you retreat to a Grand Unifying Socratic Theory whenever someone challenges it.
> it almost certainly harms their own understanding of the book
What? For all people who ever mark up a book in the margins or highlight passages? How could you possibly know that?
> they're doing something that is guaranteed to harm overall human knowledge
Also what? Human knowledge is necessarily a collaborative effort. Reading a text with another person's notes alongside it is just another way to engage with it. I'll maybe grant you highlighting since it's been shown to not help with retention all that much.
We have a deeper understanding of some of the most famous thinkers in history because we have books that they marked up to help us understand how they engaged with specific texts. This is invaluable for "overall human knowledge."
Herman Melville marked up his copies of Shakespeare's works and that shaped how scholars read Moby-Dick. Did he "harm overall human knowledge" by doing that?
Ok then please explain why Socrates is better than margin notes for an assumed purpose, because that is not reasonable common knowledge.
If by that you meant to suggest that for formal study, some kind of self-review process combined with cold written practice/rehearsal sustained under interleaved spacing, then that is likely the gold standard for comprehension and memorization. But most people don't even know that, either.
But the main premise is we should not assume all book reading is for rigorous self study. Margin notes can be useful for other purposes than direct understanding/retention (I admittedly don't know the psychology evidence for it but many academics routinely write margin notes here and there on (poorly written/edited) papers for purposes of idea generation, scientific criticism, etc. Presumably the Edison example mentioned above would have been more like that.).
You are correct that the reference is a little obscure -- if my memory serves it's Plato's Phaedrus.
Plato argues, in a book, in the voice of his mentor Socrates, that books will destroy knowledge. And the reason is precisely to do with the thing that Socrates is famous for, his Socratic Method of asking his students (or rival politicians or anyone) questions about what they claimed to know, engaging them in a real discussion where we come to things that we agree about and then build that agreed knowledge-base incrementally. For Socrates, a book could never provide that experience; you cannot ask the book a question.
That's actually kind of very similar to a passage in Zhuang Zi (ancient Chinese philosopher). He recounts this tale about a king and a wheel maker. The wheel maker asks what the king is doing, and the king proclaims he is reading. The wheel maker then goes on to inform the king how those books are just the trash of the ancients, and how he could not teach his son how to make a proper wheel, and the art "comes from the hand and is met by the heart". So anything that can be put down in books is certainly not true wisdom.
It also coincides with the Taoist philosophy (and actually somewhat Buddhist) of learning through actions and not speech. The most famous (if I recall the story correctly) of the Buddha teaching his disciples by smiling and twirling around a flower.
Kind of fascinating that these faraway places kind of arrived at the same ideas. Independently or not I think nobody would know but it does not matter.
They weren't though. Socratic method was a singular argument and should not be confused with the argument in Chinese culture. As a Chinese American I literally hear the Zhuang Zi type argument in lay discourse and I would argue its legacy has been a strain of antiintellectualism in secular Chinese culture, e.g. whenever people say books are not necessary or book knowledge is not "real life" knowledge is a sentiment you hear from older Chinese, Hong Kong or Taiwan parents. It is very damaging and anti-intellectual. The Socratic idea is a very different argument because in Phaedrus the argument (as I recall from my undergrad critical theory class reading this text) is that through dialectic comes truth which is a discursive argument, not an argument that truth is learned from hands-on or religious experience.
Yeah but Phaedrus was an implicit critique of Socrates so I don't buy the idea of taking Socratic approach at face value (and then in the 20th century many critical interpetations of Phaedrus in turn). A lot has happened since that time that has complexified notions of learning, and it strikes me as idiosyncratic to of the OP to cite Socrates as the solution instead. It is like ignoring the rest of the extant literature, including scientific literature on pedagogy and cognition, why do that? It is not justifiable from a STEM pov.
How dare you gatekeep how people interact with literary material? Who(M)ever purchases/inherits/ditigizes/burns a book has to deal with it, and that dealing with could include ignoring it like a grown up, using some whiteout, or if digitizing, using any of the myriad photo editing software available. Sure, maybe don't put your grocery list on a first edition of some rare Chaucer book, but Chicken Soup for the Teenager's Soul? Study guides? Infinte Jest?
A book with notes is a guarantee that the book didn't spend its life sitting on a bookshelf not being read. If people are reading it is a net positive for overall human knowledge.
Lastly, your usage of Socratic teachings is a hollow appeal to authority. Socrates is dead and a modest library in an elementary school would surely have brought him to tears had he known how far we've come as a species, much less the remainder of books currently available.
Probably the most treasured item I own is a novel a good friend of mine gave me as a gift. It was one of their favourite books, and they'd highlight lines and sections that resonated with them by putting brackets around them using a pen. Coming across those sections, and learning a bit more about them in the process, is like finding little nuggets of gold.
But I get where you're coming from as well. I guess it just really depends on the context of who/what/why when it comes to reading.
how are you supposed to know the book has been scribbled on if you buy it online, as you must do for the great majority of used books you might want to acquire?
GP makes no mention of re-selling. They explicitly talk about revisiting. Your comment would have done better as a standalone as opposed to a response to them.
And not that it matters, but "cross out" doesn't imply "destroy beyond recognition." A simple strike-through is sufficient to keep the text legible (so you remember what it is you disagree with).
Aside from shallow, uncritical notes, consider that annotating in a margin is evidence that a reader is actively engaging with a text.
Very often when I write in margins it's to question or argue against what's written (e.g. "really? what about ...", or "no, contradicts ...") which, to me, seems in line with the dialectic process Socrates promoted. Multiple sides, truth-seeking.
Sure, having a spacious notebook on the side is even better. But it's the same goal, isn't it? Engage more deeply with a text and encourage questioning as you read it, while it's still fresh.
Sometimes you have the drastic misfortune of someone totally off the rails writing crazy crap in it though, or a 3 year old experimenting with crayons. Not what the Stephenson article is about, but that sucks.
Amazon's used prices are usually set by booksellers that base their prices on stuff like this for some books... When you get to like old cheap paperback romances though, or that .01 plus shipping, you might or might not.
I would be pissed if I expected a clean, un-scribbled-on book I wanted and it was represented as such, but got that.
Buying a used book sight unseen from Amazon or from a reseller who doesn’t have a reputation for reporting used condition reliably … that’s a buyer’s choice. It’s not left to (mis)fortune.
Anyways, my point was to counter the parent post’s claim that notes in margins are shallow or unsocratic. Some are, some aren’t IME.
The first time I read "this sentence is false" it was scrawled in a bathroom stall in the philosophy department. Seemed appropriate. Left me wondering how many other people had also sat there pondering it for a few moments, certainly more than that had called that number for a good time.
As an analogy, imagine buying a movie you've always wanted to see, and when you start watching it you find the previous owner added a voice over on top of the audio containing their off the cuff thoughts about the movie.
The owner of a book doesn't owe anything to a random future person who picks it up from their estate sale or whatever. Vanishingly few books are irreplaceable enough to need to be treated as special relics to carefully preserve for posterity, and those that are tend to be already in a museum, library, or the collection of someone fastidious.
> Vanishingly few books are irreplaceable enough to need to be treated as special relics to carefully preserve for posterity
I wouldn't be so sure of that.
I always make an effort to buy books I really like (or expect to really like) in hardcover. This is because, around 20 years ago, I found some shelves full of books in a house belonging to some ancestors of mine. The books ranged from maybe 60 to 120 years old and had been unattended maybe for 40 or 50 years. At a first glance, all the books looked fine, but when picking them up, the paperback books literally crumbled in my hands and were unsalvageable. The hardcover ones were fine and I still have some with me now.
The thing is, lately hardcover runs of most books seem to be pitifully small. They print a few at the beginning and then they switch to paperback only. Often I want to buy a book that is only 5 or 10 years old, and almost no one has the hardcover. Those who do often demand extortionate prices. It's not uncommon to see regular hardcover editions of regular books with nothing special from 10 years ago, with retail price around €20, sell second hand for €100.
So if you consider that paperbacks aren't valid for preservation because they will crumble sooner than later, there will be many books with a rather small number of copies available.
Although tbf its kinda hard to check without reading the whole book, no? A bit like saying "you don't have to buy a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing"
Totally agreed. I find it distracting working through a book that's been marked up by someone else. In fact, I get the same feeling even if I marked it up myself, which is why I stopped writing in books. I would prefer to keep my thoughts and the author's thoughts separate. When I want to know what the author thinks, I'll go to the book; when I want to remember what I thought, I'll go to my notes.
You can totally mark up your books. No issue with that, if you like it. I don't personally, but I don't see why someone shouldn't do it. Now should you sell those books? Probably not.
I agree, and the very low price of used books that have writing in them, suggests that this is how people feel in general.
I have begun to write a page (by hand) summarizing my thoughts after reading a book, and put it in the start of it. That was a tip I saw on HN some time ago.
This is like saying that because some (or many) people are bad at taking notes and highlighting, taking notes and highlighting is a bad idea. It's a skill like anything else. You get better at it the more you do it.
I don't know about you, but when I re-read a book 20 years later it's unlikely I'll have that trapper keeper handy. Re-reading something later and seeing my younger thoughts is magical.
Crossing out things you disagree with is the most insane part of this. You should highlight or comment those if you’re going to mark the book up at all.
Nah I got this used text book once and it had all sorts of ridiculous stuff written in the margins. Some of the authors instructions were crossed out and replaced with their own instructions. I was really annoyed at first but then I tried some of the instructions and they were actually better than the author. I'm doing really well in potions class now.
I answered this several times in the thread: almost every book is out of print, including some of my favorites. I would be much more stupid and boring if I only read new books. And of course indicates why scribbling in a book is so terrible: if it's Tolkein or Susan Rice or Chem 101 7th edition then sure, whatever. But a lot of the worst scribbling comes from graduate students who don't value the text they're bloodlessly working through.
I read two books recently that are out of print. One of them (Georges Rey's Contemporary Philosophy of Mind) is $150 on Amazon, and out of stock. The other (Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, and Ends) isn't on Amazon at all. Used bookstores are the only viable option.
Books are treasures. The second book is an enormously valuable source of wisdom. I am glad nobody vandalized that wisdom with marginalia and highlighting.
If they're so valuable, maybe you could spare a thought of thanks that the previous owners passed them onto posterity, whatever the condition. If you don't like the condition, feel free to continue your search. Getting heated over their use of their own property isn't very philosophical of you.
You do realize that in the 1500/1600s when books were incredibly rare and valuable it was extremely common to write in the margins and that such writing is now usually treasured?
It's 100% okay for people to write in their own books, and it's okay for them to donate or sell them after the fact as long as they don't hide the fact they are written in.
No one is forcing you to buy used books with writing in them.
I used to go to a shop in a student area and pick up old Norton's Anthologies. Many of the notes were unintentionally funny. Some are occasionally insightful.
As I say elsewhere, it depends on the edition or book, and how common they are.
I would expect them to be in the condition they were graded as. I'll avoid poor or fair condition books that have lots of marking in them. Good books that have minimal marking should be fine to me.
No one is forcing you to buy books that have been scribbled in.
If someone buys a book then they own it and can do what they want with it, without concern that maybe some day they will sell it and some narcissistic rando will resent them for what they have done with their own property.
FWIW, I'm picking up a very aggressive tone from the majority of your responses here. I'm not at all justifying the personal attacks, but I would posit that the tone perhaps invites them to a degree.
If there's no aggression intended, that's great, but I'm struggling to not see it when I read them.
I would hate reading a censored book. But a second had book with side notes and highlights is a chief reason for me to buy second hand book. Call it a time traveling mail box.
You may dislike buying used books like that, but the purpose of the previous owner wasn't to satisfy your future desire for a pristine copy. The purpose was his own knowledge. If that's what works for him, so be it. It's his book.
So it's a little self-centered to make this about you. It's not.
I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest.
A tiny glimpse into a stranger's thinking as they processed the same pages I just did.
Thoughts they may never have shared anywhere else, that may not have made sense to anyone anywhere else. A secret code only for people who just read the last few pages. Shockingly intimate.
I once borrowed a technical book from my school library, and the previous owner who donated that book in the 90s circled the phrase "proof is left to the readers" commonly found grad math book and wrote a big "W.T.F?". It made me laugh so much hha
Highest possible recommendation for its thoughtful, intelligent, entirely human, poetic writing about various interconnected topics. Maria Popova is a treasure.
Nothing quite the same as making scientific conjectures in your marginalia or jotting down ideas in books and then having strangers find them and reinterpret them their own way.
These were fun to find in college bookstores every semester. Not a fan of "highlight it all" but the occasional enlightened soul with a scientific bent.
Maybe I'm cynical, but I always get excited, only to be really disappointed by the other person's thoughts :/ They never feel like they're contributing much.
I abhor highlighting, underlining or writing in books by some previous "reader" as well as by myself. Why? It adds emphasis or de-emphasis which impedes and usually eliminates the process of rediscovery and potentially seeing something in a different light. I prefer my reading to be dynamic and unbiased by other people as well as by myself, whether that's from a few minutes ago or a few years in the past. Commentary, which is often situational and ephemeral, should be separate from the original. When a book is marked up, your choice to ignore or seek commentary is taken away.
Skill issue. I write in all my books and routinely revisit them. There are times where I can answer questions I’ve written in the margins after another read. Likewise, I also erase things and write other things as I gain more insight.
Hard agree on highlighting. I never understood it. Well highlighting and also the post-it notes marking of pages. It's just too much. Never worked for me. I only did it when I was forced to by teachers!
But not for the reasons you're stating. It was just more like "unreadable". There would've been essentially a post-it note on every single page. Or I'd highlight like half the page.
It's a bit like bookmarks in browser for me. I started out trying it. Neatly categorizing things in a hierarchy. It just doesn't scale. And I see people like your parent, with elaborate systems of bookmarks and they navigate the hierarchy, failing to find what they need, often giving up on it in the moment, saying they'll "find it later". Dude, guess what we're in a call together right now discussing a topic, either you find it now or never!
On the other hand, I don't bookmark anything at all any longer. But I'd die if I lost my history ;)
As in, I somehow remember the terms to write to find what I need and the browser finds it in the location bar history (made up of actual browser history and bookmarks if I had any of course) but it also applies recency/number of times I used it (I never bothered to look at which of these they actually apply). But I just know all I need to type is `n` and hit enter and based on how often I come here, that's gonna get me to hackernews!
Similarly at work, I remember phrases, parts of ticket summaries or even just the current epic everyone's talking about and I type in the number/summary parts and find what I need.
I could probably spend hours "organizing my bookmarks" (i.e. post-it notes and annotations) but I don't. Never needed it, never made sense, never worked. But it does need to be digital. I'd die if I had to be a 50 years ago librarian!
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On the actual article though: writing by hand definitely is awesome in general. Learning other languages in school we had to learn the vocabulary by writing translations of terms into books. Often I could tell you that "this is the third word on the second page" but not the actual translation :)
Many of the things you mention, crossing out, circling, I do not think of as actively engaging with the material, which a quick skim of the underlying research pointed out in the TFA (or maybe an earlier 2017 paper of theirs) requires using the fine motor control of actually writing. Writing marginalia is good for the brain; if you disagree, write out why, if you agree, write your reaction. Highlighting, circling, crossing out are mere consumption and only useful for finding passages later, not engaging your brain.
I love browsing https://www.themarginalian.org whenever I have a few hours to kill. It's a bit like TVTropes, but much more "literary" for lack of a better word.
The author has spent decades building a digital commonplace book of everything she's ever read, and hyperlinked everything together in a way that you can get lost in her notes for hours on end and never surface. It's one of my favorite websites on the internet, and the best example of the power of marginalia and hypertext.
Exactly.
Personally, I gravitate toward book and topic-specific notes and highlights in the book itself and use the notebook for bigger-picture things for which book references play some role. I do a lot of highlighting in ebooks and lately I've started using LogSeq. I'll pull quotes from books into LogSeq and then tag them with whatever #bigger-picture topic I deem relevant, mimicking what I do on paper.
Do you have tips to start using notebooks instead of marking books? I personally like to underline stuff in my books, when I start a new novel it's often people, places and events. I'm not sure what would be the notebook equivalent of that. Writing down what I would underline? It seems tedious and you loose context and the sense of proximity between words.
For my textbooks, I use little record cards. I write the book reference on the top line, then whatever notes or quotations etc. If it's a heavily referred to book, I sometimes use different colour cards to mean different things.
When I return the book to the library etc., I take all my record cards out and put them in a little perspex index box.
Sometimes I use the record cards to then start some more detailed notes in a notebook; sometimes the record cards refer to a page in my notebooks where I've attempted a derivation etc.
Totally agreed. I've never understood why people are so opposed to marginal annotations - it's part of why the book format succeeded as a technology! (i.e you can't marginally annotate a clay tablet). Incidentally, I always loved how Tolkien's maps had these pointing hands to indicate significant bits, and only after reading a lot of old manuscripts and incunabula in grad school did I realize that he was copying the favorite annotation of medieval writers, the manicule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicule
"Write by hand and mark up your books" is excellent advice... that I no longer follow.
Marking up books didn't come naturally to me, but I did it for a while. Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral. The illusion of permanence must be confronted and reckoned with.
But for the last 15-20 years, I have been taking notes in text files that are saved to version control, which I find suits me better.
* Notes are not space-constrained by the space of the page margins, nor by the initial form they take on the paper page.
* Notes can be revised at will without requiring complete duplication to maintain optimal appearance and organization. There is no reason to resist revising notes — the history is completely preserved in old versions, so nothing will ever be destroyed even if deleted. Even though those old versions will almost certainly never be revisited, knowing that they exist frees the mind.
* I can indulge my perfectionism and write math notes in LaTeX, music notes in Lilypond, diagrams using SVG... The act of typesetting is itself a form of active engagement the source material, although it does not have all the advantages of hand-copying and can be time-consuming.
* Digital notes take up no physical space, compatible with a minimalist lifestyle. They can expand infinitely without needing to be stored or carted around.
* Digital notes don't need to be defended against physical threats such as fire, flood, or vermin. However digital notes still require precautions to preserve them in the form of a backup regime, so this is something of a wash.
* Ultimately, I don't expect anyone but me to be interested in my notes, and I don't owe anyone my notes. When I'm gone, the notes will vanish into nothingness — and since they are not constrained by being part of a legacy for heirs to pick through, they can take whatever form suits me best during my life.
I think the main point being conveyed is that writing by hand improves recollection. Whether it comes naturally or not, or whether it is a better system or not, of course is subjective. However there is truth in the notion.
When I draw something I can remember the shapes better than if I simply sit there and stare at it. Something with the hand-eye coordination triggers the brain into remembering.
Typing in contrast, one is not tracing the shapes of the letters (the thing to remember), but pushing buttons that are not physically related.
It’s the same thing as if you can touch and hold an object it becomes much more real than if you can see it in a picture or on a screen. Remembering is connected better to touch.
Yes, writing by hand is an experience that offers unique benefits. The physical act helps to consolidate and integrate knowledge — improving recollection is one benefit, although I'd emphasize improving intuition as more valuable.
The primary activity of note-taking is forming words and grappling with ideas, though — it's not like all benefits are lost when using a keyboard. To a certain extent other activities like typesetting achieve similar ends.
My brother writes novels longhand, and I've thought hard about this topic. Ultimately, certain personality quirks held me back and I never felt carefree when hand-writing notes. Version control liberated me.
One of the benefits I've found is that it forces me to be brief. I've almost always kept notes and journals in a text format that I store in VCS, but I've found that journaling by hand is a vastly superior experience. It isn't simply about writing. It's about thinking of ways to write what I want more tersely (I'm prone to being verbose), and it's helped me process things ex post facto in ways that writing out the way I used to do simply couldn't accomplish.
I've also started collecting fountain pens, so it's linked to a related hobby. It's difficult to express that it is the entire experience, from the ink, to the feel of the pen, to what words are being written onto paper, that feels the most rewarding. I've also rather deliberately avoided document inks after much contemplation. I figure that the majority of inks I have aren't waterproof; if the journals ever get wet, everything in them will be destroyed.
That's how I've grappled with the ephemeral nature of the physical. Rather than aiming for optimizing permanence, as best as can be done on tangible, material books, I've preferred to embrace its weaknesses with full acceptance of what can (and will) go wrong. I suspect this is also because I have very little intent to ever go back and read what I've written. That could change, of course.
> Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral.
We still have 1000 year old codex in quite good conditions.
A paper book will still be readable 500 and 1000 years into the future, if properly stored. A digital file will be effectively lost in decades, if not mere years.
Most likely though is your kids, or a company paid for from your estate, will chuck it all in a skip (dumpster) and it will be dumped somewhere to rot, or be burnt to make electricity.
Millennia old codices are extremely rare, and they've survived either by dumb luck or because they were treasured.
Maybe OP is a famed thinker, whose disciples will carefully preserve their notes; or their house is in a cave that will be at sealed in a landslide; or they will die in a peat bog clutching their notes to their pallid breast as the life force seeps from their body, submerging them in preserving ooze...
The current generation cannot bear the accumulated weight of all past generations. Loss and compression are inevitable.
99% of an individual's life experiences are lost when they pass. 99.99% of what's left moves from distinct memory to amalgamated collective experience within a generation.
Even for those of us who are blessed with loving friends and family, nearly everything will fade away. The adolescent me harbored mild delusions that history might care about my notes. The mature me is no longer burdened by those expectations, and my notes are better for only having a single audience.
When I was a child, I imagined that books and the ideas within them lasted forever. The shock is not in how quickly the written word dissipates, it's that it dissipates at all.
Imagine taking a pause from your book to type out notes and run git commit LMAO. But seriously though, studies have shown handwritten notes to be more effective/memorable than typed
Michael Stevens (of Vsause fame) copies long quotes into notebooks, and he claims the act of writing it helps him remember. And if it's not worth writing, it's not a good enough quote.
> Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates.
> Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding
This is actually the biggest reason I own a Remarkable 2/Kindle Scribe, let's me "destroy" the book while also not having to worry about losing my notes.
Honest question: How confident are you that you'll have access to those notes on your Remarkable/Kindle 20 years from now?
I love my Kobo. I highlight stuff with it. But for anything really important, I then go to my computer, go through each highlight, and make notes in my org file.
(I probably should automate it - I know tools exist to extract all that metadata from the Kobo).
So, this is kind of not directly related, but sort of is.
I teach an adult Bible study class, and I use Logos for all of my notes and highlights. Your question touches on one of my specific concerns, because they use a proprietary format for their datasets. The best solution I have is that I export the notes and format them in Markdown, and I distribute them to the class via one of my blogs. Obviously, I can't include verbatim copies or quotes from the sources I use, but it's better than leaving the notes inside a platform that could (potentially) disappear in 20 years.
I cite all sources used in the footnotes of every session, so at the very least, it should be possible (theoretically) to obtain the source material in printed form and find the exact page number (Logos stores page number metadata in the digital copies). It's probably not ideal, but it's the best thing I've come up with so far that doesn't require a lot of duplication of effort.
I'm personally extremely confident. Those Remarkable tablets are very hackable. I pay for their sub, but I've also whipped up my own app for syncing content between my RM2 and my home server so that I can send news articles to it, mark them up as I see fit and archive them.
That's a decent enough solution if they let you automate somehow (e.g. sync to PC once a week without me thinking about it). I could then build further automations to parse those PDFs.
The Remarkable can spin up a web server if you connect it to your computer via USB. You can then access the files through a web browser by entering a dedicated IP address, which the Remarkable will give you. This features is disabled by default for obvious security reasons, but it's trivial to enable in the Remarkable's settings.
Point being: as this feature works perfectly fine in Airplane Mode, you don't need an internet connection to use your Remarkable.
> This is actually the biggest reason I own a Remarkable 2/Kindle Scribe, let's me "destroy" the book while also not having to worry about losing my notes.
Well... I'm mostly back to paper after losing most of the notes I had taken on my own Remarkable 2.
I buy paperbacks, chop and scan them [1] then use a reMarkable tablet + RCU [2] to do the reading.
Digitizing paper books and writing on them with digital ink is 100% the best way to have marginalia. I've tried special dotcode pens, portable scanners...writing digitally with a stylus is the best. Yes, it destroys the paper book, but it more than makes up for it with the freedom, flexibility, and durability of the digital copy.
For many, the act of note taking, highlighting and marking up enhances the value of the reading. Revisiting is secondary.
This is eminently true for me. I rarely revisit notes, but if I take notes I have a much better recall and understanding than if I just consume the content.
I need to remember that this is okay. I didn't do it because of concerns about resale value... but recently I sold books for the first time in a while and got so little money that I realize this is not worth worrying about.
I also gave up reselling books I'm done with. I donate them to the little free libraries, friends of the library, thrift shops, and even give them to used bookstores.
There used to be bins where you could toss them all in, but those have disappeared.
I was once telling a friend about a book I had just finished. They were curious about it and asked me to borrow it. I politely accepted knowing very well they could never read my copy for it was embarrassingly covered in the messy marks I had enjoyed making during my read. Fortunately neither of us ever brought the subject again and I now think twice before messing up my books!
MAny a times, the books I read don't have enough place to scribble so I keep a A5 half folded as a bookmark and write notes on that with page numbers. Once the book is over, I read through the points and try to reconstruct.
I use a mechanical pencil myself since I like the teeth and my handwriting is better when I use it. Also, ability to erase (not for cleanliness but more to avoid wastage of space) is useful.
Grandparent and parents always taught me books were sacred and shouldn’t be marked or damaged, not gonna side with either side as I do like finding small notes, etc. in 2nd books from time to time. I tackle it with a cheap little Canon Selphy photo printer I use for spitting out random hard copies of photos periodically from my phone. I always make sure to print an extra of any photo I really like. I then use these as my bookmarks in any book I read… I always have 20 to 30 odd non-fictions on the go at once in various states of reading.
This acts as a note keeper, bookmark and sort of time capsule for me. When I finish a book, i’ll always leave it in there. I don’t know why… but I just like the idea of random people (and my kids!) finding these random photos and notes in my books long after i’m gone! The photo in the book also links it to that period of my life.
I found a strange polaroid in a 2nd hand book when I was a little kid, then some years back I used a photo of my own as a bookmark, the memory bubbled back up, and here I am now. Wife and I kept saying we don’t print enough hard copies of photos, so this helps fix that a little bit as well - you could say I now print too many!
That physical books age and retain pieces of their history is one of my favourite things about them.
I found a used book that was given to someone when he graduated top of his class in the early 1900s. There was an inscription from the principal of his college, signed and with a seal from the college. I stood there gazing at it and couldn't help imagining how he finished reading it, left it here and there in his house and finally, after his time, in the attic of the ancestral home. It was later discovered by his daughter or granddaughter and then when they were cleaning up, sold to a second hand book seller rather than just destroyed.
Contrast that to a PDF which is just as crisp and clean as it was when it was created (and which could, become a format for which we don't have a reader anymore).
My grandad had a big library of books, but in his obsession of preservation, he wrapped all of their covers in gift wrap paper. It kind of defeated the purpose of having so many books in a library. You weren't able to browse them easily. I should go dive into them to take some some.
In middle school we had to make covers for all our textbooks on the first day of school (it was a school requirement, I guess to get a bit more lifespan out of the books). We used brown paper from old grocery bags.
Of course a lot of kids would then personalize their books with artwork and stickers. I guess it was that generation's equivalent of covering a laptop with stickers.
I did the same but had forgotten all about it until just now. I still put all the random stickers that accumulate throughout the year on my journal, it's a fun visual reminder of entirely random little things that happened during the year.
Marginalia is the best! I have a handwritten note about Ayn Rand in my 27 year old copy of Enchridion, a great reminder that she is like chicken pox, better catch her as early as possible. And several books such as I Claudius held together with duct tape. And soy sauce stains in Gargantua and Pantagruel from the place my grad school gf worked. Those count.
A bit of irony, going through old stuff I found a copy of Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line on top of handwritten running logs from sr yr of college. In that book, there was a ticket stub from the time I was 86ed from an amusement park. (I did not eat enough after training that morning.) I was escorted on a golf cart back to our car where I finished Neal's now charmingly quaint essay with the plastic handle listening to Nirvana.
This was August 2001 and Mac OS X had barely come out. Maybe AI rhymes where Chinese free open-models clean up but someone proprietary figures it out. Which is sad as someone dominant in the ecosystem right now is the equivalent of Gary Kildall.
+1 I have read most of Rand's works. She grew up in the Soviet Union and hated collectivism and carried it very much too far. Still I find value in her work, and if she were here today I would bet $100 that she would disapprove of the current administration.
I liked some of Rand's insights, especially about quality, and encouraging the act of deliberately trying to learn, analyze, and reason for oneself.
It is weird how a lot of Rand's stuff encouraged a calming environment while at the same time her books were so packed full of interpersonal drama, though. Not sure at what point her writing became less a warning against something and more 'for' something. It didn't originally read as the selfish crazy stuff a lot of the more vociferous "profit only" types seem to think. I have no clue how they ever read her stuff that way.
I suspect I read both Rand and Pirsig differently than most people, though. Rand was less of a hardass than people think, Pirsig much more of a stickler for; more in common than maybe at first or second read.
it is fun to get a reminder not regretting being obsessed with Ayn at 18 alongside my duct-taped copy of Foucault's Pendulum (note: the actual pendulum is at Musée des Arts et Métiers which was by far my favorite such place after a couple multiday trips to Paris). i still feel The Fountainhead is pretty far from Atlas Shrugged
Since this morning I happened to grab Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by DeLeuze & Guattari and inside (17 years ago, with a Pilot v5) i wrote:
"I have a feeling this needs to be revisited after another 30 years of production, process and consumption"
well, that time is now and AI is the body without organs du jour
(i am a weirdo really enjoying this thread of conversation right now)
Depends on the edition. I lent a book years ago to someone that was destroyed by damp on a window sill. I've never been able to get another copy of it.
A less rare book in a mass market edition would be another thing.
If I'm really studying a book I'll have an office supply store cut the spine out and make the book spiral bound. It's pretty cheap to do it too, like $10 or something.
If you want to write in your books go right ahead, but the claim that marginalia and annotations have any benefit is dubious at best. A separate notebook is required. Nothing worth saying can fit in a margin.
I've come to using a pencil (usually mechanical) for this. I can write lightly (so that annotations don't dominate the printed text) and erase stray marks or correct erroneous ones. I've developed a notation convention which tends to make my intent clear without visually dominating the text. A light vertical line along sections I want to highlight, stars, question marks, or bangs, occasional comments of my own.
I recently overcame this as I've been reading more of the unread books populating my shelves. I always wanted to keep my books in pristine condition and never wanted to mark them up. Now, I realize they are part of MY collection and marking them up with highlights, underlines, notes, etc., only make them more valued since they contain their intrinsic knowledge from the author as well as my own views. Even if I want to give them to friends to read, they'll see areas that jumped out to me and maybe appreciate some of the additional context or focus I noted as well.
Aside from my college books, I rarely marked any physical books up. When I went to ebooks on tablets from hardcopy, briefly, I got into notes and whatnot with MoonReader for a couple years (like 2013-2015). Don't see any point in it now. Mostly just questions, and always about non-fiction.
What's annoying are people who want other people to find their notes in books (and even sell them for the ego aspect).
For sure. The literal first two pages of any book, essentially the back of the cover and the title page, always host a huge list of pages plus summary of something interesting i saw in the book. For instance, it will say something like:
* p85, interesting semaphore usage
or some such. This also condenses the books to important things so I can do a speed read to recall the most important parts.
> A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them
I do all that, all the time these days... :-) I thoroughly enjoy it! Sometimes I feel like having discussions (disagreeing or agreeing) with the author and will write entire pro/cons examples and/or arguments.
I don't mean this with any disrespect, but people love to find ways to overcomplicate things that work perfectly well. And maybe for some reason that overcomplicated version works better, but for many it's at best a waste of time, at worst an active distraction from the thing your trying to do.
Agreed. The important thing is to find something that works perfectly for you. Oftentimes I think people find their own perfect system and conflate it with being the perfect system.
Eep, I guess it depends on what kind of learner you are. For me, the notes being in the book, and the book being somewhere on my shelf spatially encodes it into my mind.
Offloading things into a centralized store according to a system not only causes me anxiety but it doesn’t have the same spatial kick.
I used to take notes on loose sheets of paper, fold them, and stuff them into the book between pages. I guess there are lots of ways to build a system.
A few books I've taken enough notes to collect them in a folder. I put section tabs in the book and tabbed dividers into the folder with matching colors. I note the page numbers for each note. Then I shelve that folder to the right of the book it was noting.
Reminds me how the original Mac Finder took spatial memory very seriously. Wherever you moved something on the desktop or within a particular folder, it stayed there.
That’s definitely a design principle that’s been long since lost.
I agree with the spatial memory and the many possible and valid ways to approach reading and learning. But it's much harder to recall, connect and leverage ideas that way
not as much as I used to but I still take handwritten notes when reading something I deem worth doing so by some personal semi-rational algorithm. my favorite exercise ~15 years ago was reading People's History of the US and Kissinger's Diplomacy at the same time, and taking notes in the same notebook in parallel columns. Naturally I went into product
I do this, but with Post-it notes. Something to do with the deification of books in the culture I was brought up in, which makes writing on the margins of books a sin.
I've found I don't like marking up books, because what was highly insightful and revelatory on the first read, seems obvious and boring on the second read
I use a folded computer paper as a book mark and take notes on that with a page number for reference. It preserves the book and makes it easier to find what I want.
> A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up!
Not library books though.
Every so often I get one with stuff underlined with pen or highlighter, and it's one of things that really makes me angry. (Lightly in pencil I'm okay with.)
No. Books are not to be massacred that way, if you need take notes you can still write that down on a piece of paper and leave in the relevant page inside the book. If you need to write that much have a notebook and put your book notes there, no need to destroy a book.
The way people take care of their property says a lot about them. Destroying and defacing one's own property is not someone I would trust. I'd prefer to work with people who treat their possessions with proper respect.
I would not be so quick to judge.
Book are better consumed actively than passively. To me it hints on a desire to absorb what's being read. i.e. a thirst for knowledge that is weighed above material possession.
I hear you, some books are precious on a personal level but most books are made to be used, worn, enjoyed, thrown in backpacks etc.
I can understand the used book experience gets ruined a bit, but to be frank I didn't buy the book for someone else, and they made tens of thousands of copies. I'm going to dogear the pages, write notes where I want and generally utilize the book.
I feel the same about most things to be fair, I love seeing the wear marks and signs of life and use on items. Nothing lasts forever, and it's nice when you can see the stories told by an object by it's scars.
> Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates.
I hate it when people do this. Please don't. If you must, do it sparingly and for the love of all that's good please do not cross out words or sentences.
The only thing I can forgive is people who quote a particular paragraph they liked about the book in one of the first pages where there's enough blank space. It's a personal touch that doesn't taint the rest of the book.
Some mark that this belonged to someone, maybe from decades ago, can be charming; but please, do not ruin the book for me by scribbling all over it.
I always assume someone will inherit my books, either when I die, or because I gave them away as gifts or exchanged them for other books at a used books shop.
This is my stance by default, but let's say there's a book I love which I never intend to part with, even then I would feel bad about crossing words out. After all, if I love the book, what's this "violent" disagreement/scribbling about?
> But please, do not ruin the book for me by scribbling all over it.
How would someone writing in their copy of a book impact your ability to enjoy your own copy? Relax, it's their property and it's not criminal, so let them do what they want instead of trying to dictate rules.
Because I inherited the copy, maybe as a gift or bought at a used books shop? It's obvious from context I'm speaking of books that ended up with me, otherwise how would I even know they scribbled all over them?
> Because I inherited the copy, maybe as a gift or bought at a used books shop?
If it's from a book shop, you can thumb through it and choose to not buy it. If it's inherited or a gift, then what's the harm? Just discard it if it's been "ruined" or shelve it if there's some sentimental reason to keep it, and get a clean copy to read.
> It's obvious from context I'm speaking of books that ended up with me,
I doubt any of my books will end up with you nor will the books of the vast majority of HN readers and commenters, so why should any of us care about your peculiarities and avoid doing something that works for us and that we want to do?
> If it's from a book shop, you can thumb through it and choose to not buy it. If it's inherited or a gift, then what's the harm? Just discard it if it's been "ruined" or shelve it if there's some sentimental reason to keep it, and get a clean copy to read.
Sometimes you can thumb through and discover flaws, sometimes you cannot. Sometimes you can get that exact edition in better conditions, sometimes you cannot. Sometimes you buy a lot of used books, and cannot check every one of them. It's always a disappointment to find a book with pages all scribbled over.
> I doubt any of my books will end up with you
You're being too literal here.
If you don't care about my "peculiarities", just don't engage with me. Someone mentioned their attitude towards scribbling, and I cared enough to offer a counterargument on why I dislike it.
Wow, I can't believe Neal Stephenson of all people writes exclusively by hand. His books are tomes.
I totally buy that this is the case for him. I wonder how much is just what he's used to vs what's actually better. I feel like I write so slow compared to how fast I type that I struggle to put the words together on the paper. I can spurt out something with a keyboard 10x as fast, and then re-review and re-organize and all that.
Knowing that makes a lot of sense. Sometimes his prose can read like a sentence that was started but he’s too much effort in to give up on. It probably helps his writing to do it by hand - you can’t edit quickly on the fly with paper (unless you’re cutting stuff out). I could see this as being part of his process - just write and let the editing happen later.
Whatever the process it is, long as his books may be, it works.
This actually explains why I've never been able to get into his writing despite rave reviews and countless recommendations by people I know. Something about his writing always just felt tedious to me. Im an avid reader btw.
His earlier stuff was much better. If you tried Snow Crash or Diamond Age and didn't like them, he's not the author for you, but if you tried his more recent crap like Anathem I would strongly advise you not to judge him based on it.
Give his earlier works a try and you may find he used to be able to write well (ie. he used to actually edit his work), before he stopped caring and just wrote 1000 pages of unfiltered garbage.
I find his earlier works a bit too bizarre and quirky. Although Snow Crash is the essence of cool.
Seveneves is probably my favourite, I guess I prefer harder scifi. Fall; or, Dodge in Hell and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. were pretty good too, although less so. I want to like the Baroque Cycle but I haven't managed to get into it so far.
I wonder if fiction writing at that level is like coding. You can learn to type and navigate really fast, but unless you're working on blub software, if you're doing something interesting and novel, you won't actually get to the goal faster. The bottleneck is the ideas, the structure of the story and the development of the characters, amongst many other concerns.
If I was a writer, I wouldn't use paper not because I want to write faster but because my brain works best in iterations. I want to try out an idea and see how it feels and course correct. Doing so after writing a hundred pages would be tedious. But then what do I know, I haven't actually written any books.
I taught Gore Vidal how to use a computer in 1995. After a week worth of trying to use a PowerBook Duo, he went back to pen and paper. When asked how to improve my writing, he said use a pen and transcribe your favorite author. That I would eventually find the rhythm and style and make it my own.
Very interesting. Hunter S. Thompson described the same technique for learning to write. I'll try it even if it only gets applied to technical blog posts...
That's really cool. I read Lincoln when I was around 18 and it has always stuck with me. The books you read become a part of you; they grow your view of the world. Books are the only way we have to capture the experience or mind of another person, and directly transfer not only their words but almost a sliver of the authors soul directly to others. Movies, sure.. But books hook into the imagination and mind.
when studying mathematics and computer science i would handwrite algorithms, draw all psuedocode on paper first, and reconstruct steps from published papers, all extremely useful
i've actually had marketed to me on the socials a course on "transcribing" professional writers demonstrating various angles of the craft. I'm sure the course was vibed or something. Pretty easy to identify authors you like, and whose dialog snaps, whose descriptions you identify with, whose doing great character development, etc. And then transcribe them....
EDIT: maybe the term I was looking for is: copywork?
i read half of Troilus and Criseyde out loud to myself one summer in college and i may be a weirdo but it paid dividends. unbowdlerized Chaucer is the tits
I agree with this but for a different reason than what the author gives.
When you write in a notebook you can see where what you are writing is within the notebook (e.g. ~1/3 of the way through, etc). That seems like a small thing but I think it really helps with anchoring the memory when writing, as well as with referencing it later. And of course you can also add all sorts of tabs and page markers to help even more.
As a child I was diagnosed with a condition known as dysgraphia, which makes it difficult for me to make my hand write what my mind wants it to without straining myself. Typing doesn't seem to be as affected for me for some reason.
Sometimes I'll skip whole letters in a word without thinking and need to go back fill it in. Sometimes my baselines will drift as I write a sentence despite the paper _being lined_. Cursive is nearly impossible for me without extraordinary effort, despite me thinking it beautiful and wishing to improve my abilities there.
Dysgraphia for me makes it difficult to write for extended periods of time, and results in very poor handwriting. In fact, the reason I first got a computer as a little kid was so that I could type school assignments, and this was in elementary school in the 90s when everything was still handwritten where I grew up. I even typed my math homework with awkward notation in College (my professors hated me).
All of that said, I still find that I agree with the sentiment of this post, and I do keep notebook. It's laborious for me to write, but I still find that the intentionality and forethought that it demands produces (think about it, you're committing something immutable in the real world with ink and paper) something we're losing: deeper introspection. I know this might sound silly or pretentious like hipsters and vinyl records, but I think there's something in physical writing worth keeping despite its inconveniences.
Yep. Same here. But I don't do notebooks. Any gain I might get from the writing is outweighed by the huge discomfort that writing gives me. I'm well shot of it.
I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing!
For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's an efficient way to program, nor that coding on a unicycle is better for learning.
I know lots of people do say they learn better when handwriting, just like some people say they learn better while going for a walk. This does not translate into a universal theory of learning.
When I take notes when typing, I can transcribe the content word-for-word without knowing what I am hearing and without thinking about it.
When I hand write, I am generally forced to either slow down and repeat what I am listening/watching (if an option), or actually think about what is being said, and choose the important parts to write down, or rephrase it in a more efficient-to-write way.
I am taking a course right now and I find repeatedly that I understand the concepts from taking down the notes (many aha moments), and then I remember. I rarely if ever actually look at the notes I take - they are objectively inferior as a product compared to the official course notes or the textbook.
Maybe typing would be efficient for learning if I was bad it - could be an interesting hypothesis to test.
When I hand write taking notes, I am indeed forced to slow down, and it's maddening. I'm busy trying to figure out how to condense the ideas into something I can quickly write, and in the meantime the lecturer is continuing and I've missed something important they've just said.
I genuinely do not understand how people find it helps them to handwrite notes in a lecture. If I type on my laptop, I can do that "mindlessly", which is beneficial because then I have enough of my brain free that I can also understand what the lecturer is saying. Ask a question if I have one, etc.
If I'm hand-writing notes in a notebook, I can't do any of that. I'm so focused on trying to get the stuff down that it's using a lot of my brain that I'd really rather be using to actually think more deeply about what is being said.
I'm genuinely so baffled by people who find that hand-writing notes helps them understand the material better. I used to assume they were terrible typists, but I don't think it's that.
But for example, with your comment, you say that when typing notes, you can transcribe word-for-word without knowing or thinking. But... why not just actually pay attention? Isn't that the whole point? Why do you need slower handwriting to force you to actually pay attention? That's what confuses me so much. I pay attention by default. Writing notes by hand takes away from my attention, because I have to give attention to that.
Writing notes by hand feels like it etches the concepts into my brain in a way that listening alone does not. Typing does not have the same feel.
I have never learned how to do something substantially difficult (math, foreign language, any science, or memorizing a substantial amount of content for a humanities course) without handwriting it. I remember in 8th grade latin, I copied down conjugation charts onto a chalkboard over and over until I had them memorized.
I cannot do university level mathematics without writing it down by hand.
My typing is much better than my penmanship, but it doesn't tend to make topics stick in my brain in the same way that handwriting them does.
Like, handwriting doesn't do a thing for me. It doesn't help me learn at all.
I can't help but wonder if there's some advantage that I'm missing?
But on the other hand, I don't seem to have any problems paying attention or learning. So I'm still just so confused as to how it helps. Like, is my brain already doing the things that some other people need handwriting for? Or is it not, but handwriting doesn't do those things either?
I think I'm extra-baffled because I can't even imagine how it could help. Like, I can't think of any analogy to anything else that would help me understand. I already understand the things and listen to and see, I don't have any issues with concentration or anything... so what does the handwriting add?
I see a lot of people say that it forces you to think more deeply about the material, but I'm kind of always on "maximum thinking mode" already.
It's hard to describe. In upper level math (real analysis and the like) in college I would write every single thing the professor wrote on the chalkboard down in my notebook. I didn't really study or do much homework, but copying down those proofs made the concepts stay in my brain.
Do you write when you do math? Math and handwriting are so intertwined in my experience, I can't imagine doing math past high school without at least jotting some parts of the process down.
Math is different, because most people aren't quick/accurate enough with LaTeX to take notes with a keyboard.
And taking notes in math is different from other subjects anyways, because you are literally just copying verbatim. You're not doing any of the summarization and selection that people talk about being so important to do, because handwriting is slower.
So I think that copying down math notes verbatim is not really what people are talking about at all when they talk about the benefits of taking notes by hand.
It kept me listening. When I was on minute 70 of a boring lecture I started daydreaming. If I was writing even minimal notes, I'd need to briefly consider each idea and decide whether it was worth recording.
Where does this explanation fall apart? There must be a cutoff point where more difficulty of getting the info down is worse than more ease. Otherwise, wouldn't a better recommendation be to do all your notes more slowly tracing with your big toe in the sand and then taking pictures? Do touch typists get less out of digital note taking than hunt and peck typists?
Give subjects a chopstick for each hand and say you have to hold one end and type with the other, and then test recall/understanding? That could be interesting
If you don't read notes, why waste time making them instead of slowing down even more and spending that extra time/effort on active listening/thinking?
I get distracted and my mind starts to think of better ways to explain the last point... Soon I have no clue what the last ten minutes were about. Taking notes makes me get back on task faster so I can find the next note to write.
I'd like to slow down and just listen but the reality is I won't.
This is how it was explained to me by a tutor: handwriting is better for learning because it's slower. The need for brevity forces you to mentally engage the material in ways that are more conducive to understanding and recall.
If you can replicate that mental engagement while typing, you'd probably get similar results.
This makes a lot of sense to me in light of what we know about how learning happens. I have never seen any research on brain activity though, and my tutor didn't cite any.
I've heard this theory too—but I feel it doesn't match how we do anything else in life. For example, you could make typing slow too by forcing people to type with two fingers, or use a really tiny keyboard. Are touch typists worse at learning?
This doesn't really refute the theory—maybe touch typing is worse—but it doesn't match my logical intuition at all.
Wish I had a definitive answer. I do know from personal experience that when I'm touch typing notes while reading a book or listening to a lecture, my thoughts drift fairly often. (I'm a fairly fast touch typist though, 140+ wpm.) I'm also more likely to be thinking, "damn, that's a lot of notes!" rather than about the material, lol. Whereas while handwriting, I'm heavily engaged with the material, to the point where I lose sight of the fact that I'm in the middle of taking notes.
Oh and because it's so easy to make quick edits while typing, I find it hard to resist the impulse to correct a typo or add an extra word here and there, which further distracts me from the material.
Also, I can touch type for long stretches without the slightest mental fatigue, but I need a tiny mental break after 30-60 seconds of handwritten note taking.
If the method used for purposeful slow-down results in more cognitive load to type, it should make it worse. With enough practice with the method, the slow-down could remain whereas the cognitive load could go away. I think then it should match the effect seen with handwriting.
Here's my own more detailed article, though it's not saying much more on this.
Because it is about learning. You can't learn a hard phrase on an instrument without slowing down. You can't touch type fastly without learning the motions slowly first.
IME it's not just about slower. It's about forcing you to think about how words go together, where line breaks fall, how you're laying out bullet points, etc.
Since you can change all of this on computers (or it happens automatically), you don't have to give it thought before writing it down.
>your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing!
the thing it's doing when writing with your hand is fine motor control, one of the most important and distinguishing abilities that humans have.
I tutor in a makerspace and one thing I've observed it's that it's now easier to teach old people how to solder than younger kids, and that in my experience has never been the case before. Due to growing up on impoverished digital interfaces I see lack of dexterity that I've never seen in young people before. Same reason I suspect you see a decline in people picking up tactile musical instruments like the guitar or violin.
I agree that fine motor control is important, I just don't think forcing people (especially kids) to write by hand is necessarily the best way to do it. For example, if the kids went to your makerspace, they could learn fine motor control and probably enjoy themselves more.
Forcing people to handwrite both makes writing more laborious and takes away from what is actually important in writing, which is forming your thoughts. At minimum, when handwriting you can't go back and insert words or rearrange sentences to try out different ideas.
I do still think kids should learn how to write by hand, because it's culturally important. However, I think it could be emphasized somewhat less, and I don't think schools should teach cursive (which, anecdotally, I think is actually having a small resurgence in many schools).
It actually is difficult to find an exercise for developing fine motor control that is as complete and as cheap as practicing handwriting.
All other exercises would need more expensive tools and after inventing a sufficient number of different patterns for other activities, that would be practically equivalent with writing a different alphabet on another medium than paper, e.g. carving wood or stone, etc.
I did not like to use handwriting for things like taking notes at school or at the university, and I switched to typewriting as soon as I could afford a computer. For work purposes I now use only typewriting.
Despite this, I am very grateful that in the first years of school I was forced to practice handwriting, even if I have abandoned decades ago the style of handwriting that I was taught.
The reason is exactly what the previous poster has said, that this practice of handwriting as a child was essential for developing the motor control that I needed later as an electronics engineer for soldering or for assembling and disassembling various miniature devices.
>from what is actually important in writing, which is forming your thoughts
for one it's not clear to that this is what is actually important in writing or unrelated. That's just a bias in a culture that systematically neglects embodied practice.
In Japan there's an increasing phenomenon of Kanji-illiteracy among the young. Turns out there is a close connection between writing them out, the order of strokes and the physical activity and the memorizing of meaning of the Kanji, just passive observation or digital input can't replicate. There's a reason calligraphy is such an important tradition. There's an inherent connection from your hand, to your working memory to the processing of symbolic meaning.
This mirrors the discourse you see in math. "Rote memorization, writing equations, isn't important, you need to be able to think" turns out it really isn't and countries that teach traditionally excel at math. We live in an educational culture of thinking-pilled people who disregard the physical world and practice with abysmal results.
Handwriting notes engages your spatial memory, which is incredibly powerful (see: the ancient method of loci/memory palace techniques)
There were times in college where I blanked on important information during an exam, but was able to recall it by visualizing the physical sheets I had written my notes on. I aced several infamously difficult classes like OChem and OChem 2 using that technique.
I’ve never found it possible to do that with typed notes.
I'm curious how many times you end up in the similar situations as an exam after you graduate from college.
I share your experience of remembering written notes while a student, but I also don't have any critical need to perfectly remember any of the notes I'm taking now so comparison points are scarce.
I still remember the code shape of methods, classes or screens I work the most on while programming, so I don't see it as bound to a specific medium. That's one reason why I use figjam or Miro type tools so much as well.
Visual and spacial memory are powerful for many of us, but the relation to handwriting and perfectly memorizing things isn't straightforward, and getting adapted tool will tremendously help IMHO.
Not above commenter but I have. I have done OneNote, Miro, and several other canvas style apps. And for me it still just doesn’t click in my brain like writing it down.
I think like many things, it's not universally true. At least for me I'm a really slow writer (and poor spelling), that if I were to hand write notes in a lecture, I'd focus on writing and miss half of what is said, and fall behind to the point that something I was copying from the board gets wiped off.
Maybe typing isn't ideal, but it's the better of the 2 options for me.
When you are writing notes during lectures, you should not write word for word. If you do, you will never catch up with what is said. People often speak faster than they write.
If you want to take notes during lectures, you need to learn how to summarize in your own words. You need to write the stuff down so you can remember what was in the lecture. Something you can summarize the whole sentence with one word. Notes are for you, not for other people to read.
More to the point, even if you type fast enough to transcribe the lecture (or you know steno or pen shorthand or whatever), transcribing simply doesn't do the job of note-taking. (I speak from direct experience -- I did audio transcription work for a few years, and I generally wouldn't have been able to pass a test on something I'd just finished transcribing, even after having gone back through to do proofreading/editing at the end. There was some degree of mental engagement with the substantive meaning of things in the moment, but it was largely a "pass-through" sort of activity, if that makes sense.)
The idea isn't to merely take down a record of what was said, but rather to integrate the concepts into your own understanding: What associations can be made with existing knowledge, can you demonstrate to yourself your understanding of an abstract by contriving examples of it, can you explain it to your grandma, do you have a clear model of its scope/boundaries/limits and of where it fits into its domain, do you know the why as well as the what, etc.
The part where we have to condense what we're hearing into something concise enough that we can keep up is a feature. For that reason I wouldn't really recommend transcribing the lecture and then making notes out of it later, either (ideally we should be reviewing and organizing the notes into a more structured / fleshed-out / pared-down (as needed) form later anyway, so it would just seem to add an extra step). I don't know what everyone's courses are like, though, so maybe that approach could be useful or necessary for someone.
(And of course the takeaway here is that, assuming my understanding of it is well-grounded, and provided there isn't truly something inherent to handwriting that makes it cognitively advantageous, typing should have the potential to be just as workable a medium.)
> This doesn’t work well with hard science lectures like physics or math.
I found the exact opposite. My math and physics lecturers were expecting us to write what they wrote on the blackboards or overhead projectors down. So they had prepared the lectures this way, they wrote at a decent speed so you had time, and you could think about the steps as you transposed it to the notebook.
I found many small mistakes the lecturer had made this way, forgotten a sign or forgotten a factor, as I would follow along the whole time and go "wait, how did he get this from that".
I wrote it all down, but I seldom had to study them afterwards. I would often just gloss over and I would recall it all.
This was in stark contrast to other and later classes where the university administration had pushed hard for slideshow-based lectures. There the slides moved so fast I didn't have time to take proper notes, or I had to sacrifice listening to the lecturer. I ended up stop taking notes and just listen, but the memory of that wasn't as good as the handwritten notes, not by a long shot.
You're not really addressing parent's point IMHO. They could totally be taking well summarized notes on their computer, and free more time to properly listen instead of scribing it painfully.
I'm sure people have anecdotes of students furiously typing down every word of a lecture, but that's the same point for people handwriting/half stenographing fast enough to do the same. The attitude isn't bound to the medium.
The only way I could make the system work for me was to study the material before the lecture. Then the lecture helped cement what I'd learnt and clarify any points I struggled on.
Riding a unicycle and coding are not complementary activities - you are multitasking. Writing is aligning different parts of your brain to the same task, perhaps it is just creating additional focus.
There is no logical connection between moving a pencil to construct letterforms and deciding what you want to say. They have traditionally happened together, because before computers (or to some extent before typewriters) there was no better way to do one without the other.
You think about words, those words become physical movements, those physical movements create a mark on paper, the brain reads those physical marks, which causes it to think about words, which become physical movements, which become physical marks, which are read, which causes...
I'm sure if you drove the unicycle through a trough of paint and then used it to make words you'd have a similar experience.
Yes, there is. The act of writing requires you to think about the words, focus on them, think about their shapes and how you must move your hands to form them. You are actively and methodically engaging with the vocabulary as you write the words down.
This is nowhere near the same as doing to completely unrelated activities at the same time.
That's completely the wrong analogy. It's fairly well established through studies that language acquisition in preliterate kids is improved through handwriting (as opposed to typing or tracing letters).
Yes, but that is a different kind of improvement compared to note king during a lecture as an adult. I think hadriting ability is important, I just don't think note taking dutin a lecture is useful in any way.
Anecdotally from only place where I have experienced both. When playing TTRPGs like Dungeon & Dragons when people fill their character sheets by hand they tend to remember their abilities, features, and spells much better than people who use a fillable PDF and print it out. Even same person with fillable sheet will have to read through it constantly versus them writing it up by hand.
Probably chunk of that is copying vs interpreting, meaning just writing the rule as written vs rewording it to make it more concise and fit your brain, but also part of it definitely is it you remembering where you wrote something down instead of having to scan through bunch of stuff just to find the place you need.
When designing a character on a computer, you play around with many options, until you settle on one of them. Since you did exactly the same thing for all those variants, it's difficult to remember which one you ultimately picked. Writing down the final result by hand helps distinguish it from the alternatives in your mind.
That's very different from academic lectures, where you are directly told the facts, and not a multitude of equally valid alternatives.
If you are just copy pasting off of the board then probably. Hard to say since I have not had experience with both methods in this context.
I still think writing by hand makes stuff stick better especially if you are one of those 500 wpm typists where very little thought goes into typing and it is more like a reflex
I definitely got more out of paying full attention to lectures in university compared to wasting effort on hand writing notes. And properly typeset lecture notes written by somebody else are much better for studying than the illegible handwritten notes I produce.
> I know lots of people do say they learn better when handwriting, just like some people say they learn better while going for a walk. This does not translate into a universal theory of learning.
If lots of people said they code better while riding a unicycle, I'm not sure I'd just dismiss it off hand.
No but I want real evidence. Lots of people say they are more productive with vi than a GUI editor but depending on the task a real study can show one or the other is more productive. You see this all over - expensive audio cables sound better than cheap...
I share the skepticism, I feel you could probably pull up a bunch of random examples like walking being better for you than driving somewhere at a short distance but it's just not practical for long hauls and so they are definitely pointing to tangible benefits but maybe taking them out of context (enthusiasts for handwriting over typing pointing to real benefuts of writing but maybe ignoring how this can slow you down in impractical ways for greater speed and movement, etc.)
For myself, a significant difference is that writing a single word longhand "feels like" a single long unified action whereas typing a word "feels like" several short distinct actions. The motor-sensory action of writing matches that of speaking a bit more closely than typing, especially if you're a scribbler. OTOH I suspect typing is better cognitively for transcriptions, meeting minutes, etc., where deep understanding is unnecessary. I am sure you can cook up a study that proves or negates any one of these suspicions.
Sometimes I get benefit taking notes on a computer, e.g. I read Wittgenstein with notes in org-mode, took lots of notes about software/CS directly in the comments of the program implementing the ideas, etc etc.
As a pianist, typing a word kinda feels like playing a phrase on piano, which isn't that different from writing a word by hand. I suspect this is highly dependent on your experience.
There is no such thing. Presumably there is a person who concentrates on algorithmic problems better while riding a unicycle. To the best of my knowledge the research shows people do not learn in the same way, although our hardware is more or less the same. The trick is to recognise what works for you, and only way to find it out is bu trying different things. Most people who succeed at all in higher education become experts on how they themselves learn best, simply because you won’t learn multivariable calculus, become fluent in Mandarin Chinese, or become an expert in late medieval poetry without trying every trick in the book to ram all that information into your brain.
Saying that, there is things that work for _most people_, active recall being probably the most universal one. Which simply means that if you do something a lot with a lot of repetition, you will eventually get quite good at it.And the probably is something in hand writing that forces you to actively engage with information processed better than typing for most/many people.
Personally, I have also noticed the better I get at touch typing the smaller this gap in enforcing learning by writing by had versus typing comes. That is purely anecdotal of course, but when we forced all the kids to use laptops to learn, did we teach them how to type properly first? Or to use computers in general? Or did we just gave them Chromebooks and said “good luck kiddo”?
I personally hate handwriting. My handwriting is ugly and slow, and I keep making annoying mistakes that I can’t fix. It’s generally a terrible experience.
> For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk.
This is an astoundingly bad comparison and I think you know how invalid it is. Doing two separate unrelated activities at the same time is not the same as engaging more parts of your brain by focusing on a single task.
You’re right in that what works for one might not work for others, but your argument is dishonest at best.
I mean, be skeptical all you want, but at least TRY it.
I know I retain more if I handwrite notes. It's my lived experience, so that's what I do in meetings, generally. These notes get transcribed back into some orderly data store for later reference, but the initial notes are pen and paper.
Oh, I can tell you for myself that handwriting is awful. I'm focused entirely on the process of writing and can't think about anything else. When I type I feel like I can move at the speed of my brain.
Or... Hear me out... Don't take notes at all. I'm sure I can find supporting material that is just much better than my paltry notes. I find that for me, it detracts from engaging with the material. I just much better prefer to listen and engage and think what is being said.
I only take notes if I am trying to work out some of the things said or as support for this or that or maybe 2 really interesting lines or quips I want to remember just so later and I find particularly surprising or interesting (or mistaken, hah).
When solving math problems, yes, by all means take notes! I find writing with a pen indispensable because it's much more flexible and expressive. And i need the memory caching that writing provides.
Indeed, the research is just laughable on its face, and of course it doesn't address the real issue - proving that all that extra brain involvement is positive, but hey, the author has already invested in the fountain pens, needs to prove it was the right choice!
I always wrote by hand - probably because I spent over a decade in academia dealing with equations. I always have a pen in my pocket (without a pocket protector!)
About a decade ago I went back to writing with fountain pens after a nearly two decade hiatus. Oh, the joy!
But very sad he has no (real) tips on dealing with hand fatigue - other than to write in cursive. I always had hand fatigue for writing long stretches of prose - even back in my school days. A few years ago, I simply had to change how I grip the pen to reduce the pain, but I still can't write many pages without significant pain and the need for breaks. I can't imagine writing a whole novel that way.
Also, I wish he told us how he gets that handwritten stuff into digital form. Does he just mail handwritten stuff to the publishers?
In the past, I'd write twice: Once by hand, and then I'd type up anything worth saving to get it in digital form. A royal pain!
Then with Whisper and LLMs, life got a lot better. I would simply read what I'd handwritten, and get an LLM to clean it up. I only occasionally needed to fix it up after that.
Now LLMs are so good at it that I simply take a picture and send it to the LLM for transcribing.
I don't care how much people hate AI - for me it has quite literally reduced physical pain in my life.
The muscles in your hand and fingers are small and tire pretty easily. The muscles in your arm and shoulder are bigger and can do a lot more work. Back in the day, folks who were taught "business cursive" like the "Palmer Method" were taught to keep their hand mostly static, and to guide the pen strokes using their arm. The way I do it is by planting my forearm on the desk as a pivot point, and moving my arm and shoulder to make the pen move. It took some getting used to, but my handwriting looks about the same as it did before, but no more hand pain.
I almost exclusively write in cursive, so I don't have any personal experience, but I assume the only real difference is in how often you pick up the pen, so my guess is that it should be roughly the same.
> But very sad he has no (real) tips on dealing with hand fatigue
I also spent a good amount of time in academia (math & physics), wrote everything by hand (dozens of pages per day), and I, too, suffered from serious hand fatigue & RSI for years, even when using a fountain pen. My recommendations:
- Use as light and as thick a fountain pen as possible. Also, very thin & hard pen tips may be nice but in my experience they make it harder to write.
- Work on your posture (if you don't do that already). Work out your neck and your back in particular to compensate for sitting all day every day. A stiff neck (even if you don't feel that it is stiff) can seriously impact the nerves in your arms & hands and, thus, muscle tension & recovery.
> Use as light and as thick a fountain pen as possible. Also, very thin & hard pen tips may be nice but in my experience they make it harder to write.
I use Fine-Medium nibs (some fine nibs are too fine, and some medium nibs are too thick).
Amusingly, I've discovered recently that my handwriting is much worse with thick pens. I write better with pens slightly on the thin side (but not too thin). Of course, that doesn't mean it's better for my wrist!
My first was the Pilot Metropolitan. Still a solid pen I recommend.
My next favorite was/is a PenBBS - perhaps the 309 - I don't have it on me at the moment. I replaced the nib with a Goulet nib, and somehow made it extremely smooth. I've not been able to make any other Goulet nib that smooth - somehow got lucky.
These days I'm heavily using a Platinum Plaisir which is also surprisingly smooth (no modifications).
Every time I've paid more than $50 for a pen, it hasn't been worth it. I can't get the ink in my Opus 88 pen to flow consistently. I'm sick of it.
I'm partial to Faber Castell nibs, but the pen I bought had a grip that I didn't like, and I don't want to spend the money to try their other pens.
I find his dismissal of iPad writing to be unconvincing. He talks about how we have calibrated our writing utensils over centuries to involve the proper amount of friction, and how that knowledge goes out the window when you're writing on an iPad.
That may be true, but it's not like you can't just re-acclimate to the experience of writing on an iPad. Most people don't handwrite much, period, so if they start handwriting again they're going to have to have an adjustment period either way.
I personally would think that the the benefits of digital writing (searchability, portability, infinite canvas, handwriting cleanup, digitization) would outweigh his friction quibbles. I personally don't find it to be tiring to write on an iPad, even without a screen protector (which some people use to increase friction). Also, e-paper devices tend to have more friction-y feedback, but he doesn't address this at all when dismissing all "gadgets" outright.
I went down the physical-writing-digital-capture system over a 10 month period. Bought the right stylus tips, the paper-like screen cover, etc.
Ultimately went back to my moleskine that fits in my back pants pocket and I don't have to worry about battery life.
Perhaps the biggest reason why my experiment failed was that I found it difficult to look back at digital written notes beyond a week. There is no physical flip...
Equally important though, I didn't retain information quite as well when writing against a screen. I can't explain it. I wanted the system to work, but it didn't. Maybe I tried to write too verbose, more carefully than I would a paper page... hoping my more careful writing would be captured by OCR better. I don't know but it was different. Intended focus matters.
Less effort = more retention to me.
Digital writing, at least at that time, was more effort to me it seems
My issue with the iPad is that it just does not have the fine-fidelity or response time of real ink, and it's not something that never fails.
It's so frustrating to be so pregnant with an idea, to open ones iPad, and to find out the battery is low, Procreate isn't working, the Notes app is confusing to navigate, oh no you're writing but your palm has slid on the screen, etc.
I've spent a lot of time searching for a digital alternative, but IMO we're at least a decade away from digital handwriting being even close to on-par with paper, even ignoring friction and feel.
I do find the iPad battery drain to be annoying and inexplicable. When they first came out, iPads held a charge for weeks in standby. New ones drain in a few days, even when background app activity and such are disabled. And you're right that it is frustrating to pick up your iPad and discover that the battery is near-dead, which happens with surprising frequency.
That critique doesn't apply to Remarkables or Kindle Scribes though.
I shut my iPad down when I’m not using it because the passive drain is absurd. I don’t need my iPad to do literally anything when it’s screen off. I have a phone for notifications.
Huh, will give both of these a try. But man, I would not be thrilled if the only way to have decent battery life is to make my iPad not-findable, or to have to turn on wifi whenever I want to use it (I couldn't really set much of a schedule).
Seems like the Find My bit could be taken care of by not updating location until the gyros are triggered. Honestly I'd be happy to have it in airplane mode when not being touched as well. IDK what they could call the setting, maybe an Airplane When Idle Mode?
The study he cites is also specifically using digital pens
> Brain electrical activity was recorded in 36 university students as they were handwriting visually presented words using a digital pen and typewriting the words on a keyboard
kinda funny.
It's also not clear from this study that there is actually any benefit to "more brain activity". Of course doing more complex motor tasks requires more brain activity but nobody guarantees that this helps with remembering things.
i had no science, but in college for shorter works i always thought handwriting, typing, and reading it aloud was my allowing my brain to hit a problem in three different (not more, different) ways before / even if ever being in front of another human being (or now their non-union AI equivalent)
i still feel writing something down helps with memory formation, in part because i remember the act of writing it down. cocktail napkins and whiteboards way better than ipads also
i remain obsessed with Pilot v5 rolling ball extra fine; i would say Pilot g2s are for proles but the outcome if you leave it in the dryer is far less severe
I have a "paper-feel" screen protector and a metal nib on my Apple pencil. The combination provides a comfortable amount of friction for me, and the fact that it's matte cuts down on reflections.
Friction is also variable, with pen and paper type. Although the iPad is a bit too slick, it gets very fatiguing (I did most of my HW in college on the iPad)
It may be the case that the iPad is slicker than ideal for some people, but even if that's the case it doesn't relate to his point about centuries of adaptation or whatever. In the past, we were limited by the laws of physics and the materials available in our environment. If people could have had whiteboards 200 years ago instead of chalkboards, they would have taken them (easier to erase, no chalk dust). But they didn't have them, so they didn't use them.
The problem with digital writing is that you loose spatial orientation because of panning and zooming. At least I think this is the reason why I sometimes prefer pen and paper.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees with this statement and it makes your comment seem a bit reductive. It's not so much a dismissal of writing on a particular product (iPad) as much as the article is about optimal writing by hand, the best materials, and some of the reasoning as to why.
While you may be convinced writing on a screen or tablet is objectively superior to doing things the "old way" there is literature on the topic indicating otherwise you might want to consider - that being said, everyone is different in their preferences and anatomy. I for one can't stand to write on a plastic/glass surface with a stylus, the ergonomics feel wrong and my retention for journaling is significantly worse.
iPad is terrible for hand-writing. It's (relatively) heavy, so you can't hold it and write on it. It's slippery, and the friction between the pen and stylus is bad.
Not only is it heavy, but it's stiff and rigid. If I lay my notepad over my deskmat and not all of it is on it, that's no big deal, the notepad just conforms to the surface. But the ipad is going to rock back and forth.
It's also that I'll often not have my entire notepad on the desk, I might not have room, might only have the top corner on it, or just quickly jotting something down. An ipad, that's too precarious and unstable, no a notepad, it just works.
I often have like an inch of the notepad hanging off of my desk, when my arm is across it, the notepad just flexes and it's fine, if I do that to an ipad, it's cutting into my arm.
It's not just the ipad, I've also tried a remarkable and a kindle scribe and they all suffer from the same issue. Notepads are just more flexible, both literally and figuratively.
The stroke size is highly customizable. What do you mean "the friction between the pen and stylus is bad"? As others have pointed out, you can get screen protectors and nibs for Apple pencils.
The problem is that the screen surface and the pen are fairly far apart, so the stroke appears "floating". This makes it harder to do fine drawing.
Try to "dot i-s" in a long word and see for yourself. It's just awkward. So people compensate by using thicker strokes that hide that "floating" effect.
I'm studying Chinese, and writing the characters is pretty much the only way to learn them. So far, the only device that semi-worked for me was a reMarkable 2 tablet. But its software is too shitty to be useful.
Agree that it would not be best for fine drawing (although the new Pros have the proximity feature that perhaps helps with this. And I agree that Chinese characters could present similar issues in terms of legibility, given how much precision is required.
But for writing in English and many other languages, it seems like this doesn't present a huge challenge. I am particularly interested in (but have not yet tried) the handwriting cleanup feature. This seems like a nice middle ground between full digitization and leaving chicken scratch as-is.
I loved reading the writing-setup guidance. After a lot of writing myself (mostly throwaway stuff) I've settled on a fountain pen with a small stack of decent printer paper on top a stainless steel clipboard. I skip the clip and use four magnets on corners of the paper to hold it in place. The magnets are either small enough or slide around easily enough to give me the space I need to write but hold enough to keep the paper in place. Importantly, the magnets don't cause any ripples or rising of the paper as the clip does over it's backing. Writing on this setup feels uniformly smooth.
Once I settled on this method, other writing setups felt unsatisfying. Maybe others will enjoy this setup as much as I do :)
I like writing by hand, but I don’t agree with the logic that it’s good because it recruits more areas of the brain. The less effective the medium is, the more of the brain it will recruit; chiseling on a stone tablet is probably a more complex task and it probably gives a more broad stimulus to the brain, but it does not mean it’s such a good idea. I would personally prefer to use a text editor for effective writing and then crochet for fine motor skill.
I agree that “more areas of the brain” does not mean better necessarily, however I do wonder about the chiseling stone thing.
If you chiseled some formula or something into stone you’re unlikely to forget it any time soon. I wonder if forcing yourself to ruminate over something a bit longer than it takes to type it, in a way that can actually hold your attention or repeatedly bring it back to the topic, doesn’t indeed help.
Right, it's a false signal. It doesn't mean that more things are retained.
I think what happens in these types of threads is that the people who like handwritten notes, perhaps even obsessively so, all pour in. But that population of handwriting fans isn't necessarily representative of the population overall.
I've done Julia Cameron's "morning pages" exercise off and on over the years, write three full pages of flow of consciousness by hand first thing in the morning, and it's shocking how good it is for unlocking ideas and working through problems when done consistently.
I've done that for a time, then fell off for the past few years. Today, I'm getting out my journal right after I hit 'send' and I'm doing this. To whoever is reading this and may be in a similar situation, let's start the streak up again today!
EDIT: I did it and am glad I overcame the inertia - it was a little over a whole year since I pulled out the journal, so if whoever out there is still on the fence, give it a shot, it's worth the accomplished dopamine afterwards!
Not the GP, but my daily journal goes in a proper journal book (though I find the cheapest possible one that has semi-rigid covers) and my freewrites go in cheap wide-ruled composition books.
The only rationale I have for that is the journal form factor holds more words and is easier to pack on trips, when I tend to leave my freewrites behind.
Don't underestimate the importance of a pen, ink, and paper you like. I found my pen a decade ago: Lamy Studio, in British Racing Green, with a medium nib. I found my ink not long after, from J Herbin's collection.
It wasn't until I got a nice notebook from Leuchtturm 1917, though, that the ensemble came together and I started looking for excuses to get my kit out and write things down. Since then, I've moved onto notebooks from de Kempen, but the point stands
A nice pen is... nice. But it's as easy to fall into geeking out about pens and paper as it is keyboards, knives and other kitchen utensils, tools, etc. In most cases, any pen is as good as any other. Or just find a cheap mass produced pen that feels good in your hand. They are plentiful. Then buy a stock of them.
I actually like using pencils, with a thick lead because I tend to have a pretty heavy hand when writing and I will continually break a thin lead.
I don’t know about the brain but it’s good for the final results in my experience coding, writing and composing (orchestral music). The results are better and it takes less time if I start with pen and paper before “committing” to the computer. One of my favorite authors Jennifer Egan also writes fiction on paper (non-fiction articles still on the computer). More thoughts: https://www.phpied.com/starting-in-the-analog-domain/
I’m 2.5 years through college in pencil and paper. I’m 45 and the Apple Pencil sucks compared to regular paper and pencil. It was fun for the procreate course but I would never depend on it for actual note taking. My retention is off the charts compared to my fellow students who are largely not taking notes that I can tell, at least when they’re younglings rather than my middle aged self. Apparently the biggest problem with modern students and note-taking is that they cannot handwrite rapidly because they never learned cursive.
Don’t be involuntarily incapable like your peers, kids. If your school didn’t teach you cursive, teach yourself ASAP. Not calligraphy, not oblique italic roundhand, just pick a cursive and do an entire drill book end to end and make sure to take hand breaks whenever it hurts for 5min.
I love handwriting. I do daily logs of my workday. I just write what’s happening, what I’m doing during the day, what tasks are coming in, and so on. Surprisingly, it works well for a person with ADHD. It’s a method to ground myself and avoid slipping into ADHD hyperfocus.
The only problem I have is doing it comfortably. My desk is cluttered with a keyboard, laptop, and monitor. There’s barely any room to write with proper posture, and shuffling things around every time just isn’t practical
Huh. Sounds just like me :D
Depth helps there. Since I started working mostly on desks with a depth of 80 cm in front of me (or 31 inches that is) it's gotten usually pretty easy to squeeze in a notebook or a paper (also hanging the monitors on the wall, so that no foot is on the desk any more, gives another extra 10 cm).
I actually have around 70 cm, but for some reason it still doesn’t feel right. Maybe removing the monitor foot is key.
After reading your comment, I tried moving the monitor as far as I could to free up space. And it’s actually better. Notebook is next to the keyboard on the right side, not sure if that’s optimal when looking back and forth
I'm a convert to the idea of just having a cup full of Bic Cristal (cheap, ubiquitous, reliable, replaceable, 76 year old design) ball point pens. Whenever I temporarily misplace one, I just grab another from the cup as I find them. When I'm cleaning up, they all go back to the cup. However, his point about how hard you have to push to write is making me reconsider. On the other hand, I'm also not writing 42 inch high stacks of manuscripts like him.
I used to be a fan of Zebra Sarasa (retractable, not one of the variations) which I thought was better than the G2, but it wasn't always reliable (maybe they changed something), was more expensive, hard to find in stores (G2 are everywhere though), and accumulates a glob of ink when you draw a line across the page, which ends up wherever you next write something. I happen to have a G2 next to me so I'm testing it for the same problem now, and ended up with a glob somewhere along the long line. I cross things off of todo lists a lot or draw dividers between sections of the page so that happens all the time. Still, it might be a good compromise for the pressure issue for writing sentences.
Not that I'm that price sensitive, it is kind of nice: Sarasa ($2+ each, if you can find it), G2 (~1.25 each), Cristal ($0.10-$0.25 each)
The G2 definitely does glob. That's one of its bigger faults. (Others being that I, personally, prefer a line width between the 05 and 07 options -- obviously this is world-stoppingly critically important -- and that really old ones, I mean really old, tend to get disgusting sticky grips.)
Mostly they're just nice for being fairly rugged and reliable in a way most nicer pens just aren't, for carrying loads of ink, and for being ubiquitous. They're far from perfect. They're just... Good Enough™. And that's good enough!
I do one slightly different, if they carry the G2, they likely also carry a pack of retractable Pilot Precise V5s in a 4 pack of black. I prefer V7s or V10s, but even a v5 in black has a better/softer grip than a G2, does not glob like a G2, has a cool needlepoint that plays nicer for fine writing than a G2, and has a stronger clip than a G2.
The downsides are A) nontransparent barrel B) people tend to steal them more than G2s and C) 80% as available as a G2
The V5 is a great pen! They used to be my daily driver, and if you want what they do well, they're hard to beat. (Fountain pens can and will, but they're fussy, and everyone knows it. They're basically V5s on steroids: same highs, same lows, just more of them, with more choice and customization possible.)
But I would never call them "robust". Unfussy, yes. But a G2 glob is just a minor annoyance. A V5 leak, and they do leak, is a real problem. They're also prone to quick deaths if they roll off a table. G2s don't care about such minor mishaps.
I've never heard of clutch pencils before! I'll definitely check them out since I'm not sure I'd ever put pencils and asmr in a sentence together -besides the one I'd just typed- and yet I still occasionally need one.
>pressure
the gel pen I use can write under its own weight, so it's surely less pressure than any pencil would require, unless it's particularly soft and hefty?
The core idea is really solid, but isnt half the article about finidng the right type of paper and taking care of fountain pens? I don't think my setup (free notebooks from events + ballpoint pens) will reduce yourt brain activity compared to a fancy fountain pen and fancy italian paper.
I have found writing even on my ipad with apple pencil to be wayy better than typing on my keyboard.
I am thinking of switching to a supernote which allows me to write on a paperlike surface, but mainly because it is free from distractions and notifications on an ipad.
i mainly like the idea of a blank canvas and writing and rearranging thoughts on that canvas - which pen and paper do not allow.
He wasn't saying "buy a fancy pen, it's better for your brain".
The positioning is "every time people hear that I write on paper, they come up with all these reasons why it won't work for them (crap/smudges/etc). These are the things I do so that's not a problem for me"
I can write code just fine on a random Dell membrane keyboard I got for free, but it's much more satisfying to use a mechanical keyboard. It seems like the same idea applied to hand writing, and I think you're more likely to do more of something if it's enjoyable.
I wonder to what extent these habits or quirks are self-learned or "self-imposed" (probably the wrong word). I guess, it gets us in the comfort zone to free up our brain energy to perform more important tasks.
I don't think there is an argument in the article that contradicts you. The part about choosing a pen is to point out that pencils and cheap ballpoint pens require more effort than fancy fountain pen. Which is true, but it is mostly commentary about "writer's cramp".
The part about choosing paper is about fountain pens being blotchy where better quality paper helps.
You can write with anything and on anything, but just like how it is much more enjoyable to type on a fancy mechanical keyboard it is more enjoyable to write with fancy fountain pen. Although I prefer gel pens since they are just easier to have a bunch around.
Hard disagree on both accounts. Mechanical keyboards are obnoxious and tiring to use because of the insane travel. Fountain pens are nice when they work, but the ink evaporates, the nibs clog up, and accidentally bluing yourself is not uncommon among fountaineers.
Agree, the best part of writing by hand for me is that I can do it anywhere and anytime. Randomly during a hike or laying outside in my backyard, small notebook + pen is easy.
Fountain pen + fancy paper sounds like I am tied to a desk again. Stephenson is probably doing way more intense sit down grind out some pages type writing sessions though.
Don’t wait for the right equipment to start writing, _but_ there is a little joy in just splashing a little on a nice pen and nice paper. A few decades in life and I’ve assembled a set of multiple fountain pens, in different colours and sizes with different inks and colours. It adds to the fun like herbs add to a dish.
the point isnt that it is 'italian paper' (actually the high quality stuff is generally from france and japan), but the coefficient of friction of the paper is much reduced. It is not fancy as much as it is very well engineered
And the long term studies will show that it’s indeed not good, people will discuss it, and nothing will really change, except that there will be a counter movement, and writing code by hand will become a real craft again.
We also know fast food, alcohol, etc., are bad for you and yet most people do these things. I wouldn't bet on LLM usage going down due to it anytime soon.
I thought the purpose of coding was to produce software, but apparently every action I take should be evaluated on how well it achieves arbitrary brain calisthenics.
Coding manually keeps you focused on irrelevant details. I find people that actually like that cognitive style and try to remain in it for as long as possible insanely unproductive. They'll spend years coding up shit that can be replaced in a month. I've seen it happen multiple times now and I'm getting sick of it. Proper problem decomposition and architecture is everything. Think about your problem domain. Code is just bullshit.
I'm dealing all day with developers incapable of thinking about anything else than "queries", "classes", "structs" and "early returns are bad". Semantics, ontologies, interfaces, abstraction boundaries, problem decomposition: ain't got no time for that.
We got structs to initialize, copy constructors to worry about and header definitions in bloody C++ to deal with! Oh look, you forgot to use Yoda-speak in your conditional, also you initialized two variables instead of one in this completely transient, temporary piece of code that is only run once every two months. Let's talk about this all morning! Because code hygiene is so extraordinarily important. You should definitely worry about each and every line of code. I hear it's "good for the brain".
Wacom tablets come with a stylus that simulates a pencil lead.
It actually wears down over time which may sound like a bug/trying to get you to buy more but I have to say that it really does feel like using a pen. There is just enough drag to give you the sense of moving without it feeling like drawing on glass (like an iPad).
A lot of people reading this may say "But I'm a SWE, not an artist. Why would I ever need this?" My response is that if you ever used a whiteboard and now you work remotely, you would be surprised how much faster meetings can go when you can quickly draw out a data flow. I'm a DevOps/SRE and I've also used it during outages to explain to management or other teams "ok, here is how it's supposed to work and here is what's broken"
If you get one, I highly recommend the Medium [0]. The Small is very portable but feels a bit cramped and the Large is too big for someone who isn't using it all the time. The Medium is just big enough to be comfortable but easy to put aside when you are using the keyboard.
Kobo stylus is similar. Closest experience I've had to actually writing on paper. Quality of thought too, is closer to that of actual paper writing, compared to typing.
I've always struggled with writing by hand primarily because I tend to over-tense my grip on a pencil/pen even with an ergonomic grip attached. I learned to touch type pretty early on, so back in school before they let us bring laptops to class I would sometimes "type" notes and imagine the text of them in my head as I typed. This still helped with my retention compared to just listening and making mental connections between the concepts being introduced. Sometimes I would type out the full detailed notes and then by hand write out tiny personal shorthand bullet points that would help me recall the general point.
To this day, if I'm trying to learn something new, I will sometimes "type" on an invisible keyboard if I don't have a pen/paper or a smartphone I can write down specifics on. It doesn't work as well for things like memorizing phone numbers or like support ticket ID numbers, but I've found it helps me ingest knowledge even if it doesn't help as much with raw information the way writing by hand does.
Now all of that said, I have also found, like Neal Stephenson, that a high quality, low friction pen on notebook paper tends to feel the best and produce the least cramping. To this day, when I absolutely need to take handwritten notes, I use a Sharpie Rollerball 0.5 black pen with a small notebook, primarily for D&D (and other TTRPG) prep-work, so that I can recall specifics off the top of my head better while improvising.
I'm a huge fan of N.S. and what he says might be true, but I have an aversion to writing by hand after being tortured while growing up in the late 80s.
I just couldn't seem to hold a pen or pencil the right way and would always fall behind following along with the rest of the class. I was forced to spend hours at home with worksheets tracing over letters. I was led to believe that if I couldn't write properly I would be a complete failure.
It turns out being able to use a computer and type quickly was a more useful skill.
That was a reccomendation from a philosophy professor I had in college. By the end of the semester, I didn't even have to review my notes.
I went back to school at 25, and that moment made me realize why school felt strangely more difficult, and then I remembered that we wrote down everything back then.
> when you write things down by hand you’re recruiting more of your brain, which is a good thing.
I completely agree! Perhaps it's simply for one reason: slowness.
Writing by hand slows down and the brain "breathes", calms down, and the waves of thought flow at their proper pace.
We aren't made to rush always: by slowing down, our brain also has time to better process thoughts and information, one at a time, and each one is given the "time it deserves."
Our brain works best when it's relaxed and has time to make all its connections.
Thinking is, first and foremost, an exercise in slowness.
(ps: I'm also left-handed, I wonder if this also affects the functioning of the brain...).
As an academic, I concur with the findings. However, some points for discussion:
1. I don’t believe iPad doesn’t offer the same benefits of writing with pen on paper. I mean iPad writing can be made to be almost as realistic as pen on paper with good accessories. It can be slow, doesn’t waste papers, you can edit, color code it, annotate in a way that’s backed up. I definitely like writing on paper, but I don’t see too much of a difference with iPad.
2. I absolutely love using Pilot V5 RT pens, and haven’t found something that is as smooth and satisfying when put on paper. What are your favorite pens? Are they available on JetPens for trying? Thanks!
If you love the V5, then the next step is definitely a fountain pen. There are plenty of guides out there, so I'll not waste time doing an inferior job of making a specific recommendation.
Out of all the things I’d consider to help me improve or be more productive, this has to be at the bottom. I actually used to write notes all throughout college, mostly because I couldn’t afford a laptop and would use the school desktop computers when actually writing code. But, I don’t see any degradation from moving to a workflow where I never physically write anymore.
I also don’t understand his stance on using cursive. Everyone that writes quickly develops their own scribble, which they can easily read and doesn’t involve taking the pen off the paper. What’s the point in relearning proper cursive?
> you’re going to get tired faster if your muscles have to exert more force
I like to handwrite, but my right hand gets tired very fast, especially as I got older. I write almost a shorthand style, and it is hard to read, but I value speed of writing things down versus the neatness or readability afterward. The author recommends fountain pen or gel rollerball pen, which I have both tried.
Does anyone have any other advice for preventing fatigue? I've also tried to learn to use my left hand, so I can switch hand when my hand gets tired. But even after months (or years?) of trying, I could never get it to write, or atleast to my satisfaction.
Clench the other fist while writing. This loosens the writing hand. Something in the subconscious releases tension in the other hand. It's a trick I've used with reasonable success and it's immediately effective. It does require a bit of conscious effort, but overall it's a great hack.
Other posters are providing advice about writing from the shoulder, and writing slower etc which I would agree with. The other thing I would mention is: how tightly do you grasp/hold the pen? Try relaxing the grasp a bit.
(I've noticed this with students I support. In the UK the public exams known as GCSEs and GCEs are written papers, and some adult students who need to take them have similar fatigue problems).
If you're willing to try things like non-dominant hand writing, it may be worth learning something like business cursive. Most of the movement is done with your arm, and it was designed for people who had to handwrite all day for their job.
A liquid ink rollerball pen, for example the classic "uni-ball Vision Elite" is even closer to the effortless writing experience of a fountain pen (i.e. with a minimum pressure on the paper), than any gel pen (but gel pens are still much better than traditional ball-point pens, which require an excessive pressure on the paper; fountain pens and liquid-ink rollerball pens need to just touch the paper, almost no pressure needed).
Versus a fountain pen, a liquid-ink rollerball pen has the advantage of being insensitive to orientation (which may be difficult to control if you tire easily) and it is also much more unlikely to dry up when unused.
I do not write so much by hand as to become tired, so for myself I prefer a Japanese fountain pen with a nib that allows variable-width lines, for less boring letter forms, but if the criterion for choosing is the maximum possible comfort then I recommend a liquid-ink rollerball pen, and I have experimented with all kinds of writing implements known to mankind.
Except for using the most comfortable writing tool, there is nothing else to do besides changing the style in which you write, to simplify the hand movements.
Perhaps you should alternate between 2 different styles of handwriting, because they might stress different hand muscles.
I have no idea what style of handwriting you use, but I am not convinced that the kinds of "cursive" handwriting that were taught in many schools are really the least tiring, despite their emphasis on minimizing the number of times when the pen is raised from the paper. Many years ago I have abandoned the kind of writing that I was taught as a child and I have switched to one of the variants of the so-called "Italic" handwriting, which are now promoted in many places and which are a revival of the Aldine letters from the Italy of the 16th century, which have also been the base from which the so-called "Italic" style of the printed typefaces (fonts) had been developed. Such a handwriting has improved readability, but how fast and comfortable it is felt, can vary a lot between people. It works for me, but that does not mean that it would also be the best for others. There are books and on-line tutorials about this.
Perhaps you should just write slower, to avoid fatigue.
Consider using "bubble mapping" and connecting words/thoughts, instead of writing linear text.
I write a daily journal - in this calm relaxed mode, I write linearly (on dotted paper).
When I'm in a business meeting, or taking notes where time is fleeting (a speech / seminar), I use bubble notes - which is effective for quickly getting the thoughts down, and connecting them.
Don't hold the pen too tightly. Find a pen and paper combination that doesn't require force to write. Ball point pens on cheap notebook paper are notorious for requiring too much force. On quality paper with a good pen the ink will flow effortlessly because of gravity and capillary action. You will only need a light pressure.
I'm left handed and I never really learned a good grip I could write with. So I've always struggled with handwriting. I also have an essential tremor in my left hand. As I have aged, the tremor has gotten worse. So now, I have to grip tight to minimize the tremor.
I've pretty much given up on handwriting, it's embarrassing to either try to write, or have someone else write stuff for me. I ask my wife to fill stuff out for me all the time, but people probably think that's weird when they see it.
I buy nice notebooks and nice pens that are satisfying to use. I practice my handwriting, so the finished work is satisfying to look at. I think it gives me a bit of dopamine boost.
Go a bit further and use pencil or charcoal so you can smell the wood and lead and feel the texture of the drawing surface, helping your brain make more connections.
It also allows you to make more mistakes, which can lead to surprising directions.
And the team who makes the most mistakes usually *wins*!
See also:
The Hand - How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture
By Frank R. Wilson
Drawing on the Right Side of The Brain by Betty Edwards
Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court by John Wood
You Matter More Than You Think by Karen O’Brien with illustrations by Tone Bjordam
I'm surprised he didn't mention editing. On a computer this is trivial; on paper you need an ink eradicator, correction tape, or correction fluid. And even those are only good for small corrections. If you want to insert a sentence or paragraph somewhere, that's not really possible with paper.
Also, if you want your text to be published online or printed, it needs to be digitized somehow. Which is a good OCR tool for handwriting, especially if it's not very legible? Just feed scans into Gemini perhaps?
Agreed. As someone who frequently rearranges the structure and order of sentences as I go, I don't even know how to attempt writing by hand. It would be a complete mess. I expect that the common refrain would be wait until the second draft to make such rearrangements, but it's often the bones of the story I'm trying to set properly, and if the bones are broken, there's nothing for the meat to dangle upon.
But maybe it's different for me, since I write nonfiction?
I think writing by hand trains you to be more deliberate when writing. You can't easily go back and make changes, so you have to think ahead more before you write.
For paper it also helps even more than digitally to outline the logical structure of a text before you actually write down full sentences.
I suspect it's because Stepenson stopped editing his work a long time ago.
He used to write a ton and edit it down to a normal-sized book, but once he got popular he just decided to (seemingly) publish everything he wrote, without editing.
As a writer, I used to love to handwrite; it was practical, easier, faster, with no misspellings. But now, I had to adapt to the new format, and I think I'm good at it too. If I write something by hand now, I must think of putting it on digital, and that's overwork and time-consuming. I also tried using OCR apps, but it never feels the same, and the outcome might be wrong sometimes too, which means you have to edit that work.
But I still try to write lil notes by hand when possible and practical.
But yeah, I miss using notebooks for handwriting. Feel nostalgic now.
Does anyone here handwrite a blog? I've been thinking about doing that, but I'd be interested in how people accomplish it. Personally, I'd like this to be a hobby that gets me away from screens, so I'm looking to focus more on handwriting and minimize how much I'd need to interact with a digital device.
Not a blog, but I handwrite presentation slides sometimes. And, of course, pages of notes. I use my ReMarkable 2 for that, so it's pretty easy to import to desktop and run scripts.
I’ve recently gone back to writing by hand, at least for text that is of a reasonable length. The workflow that works for me is a third-party app on my iPad that converts my handwriting to digital text that I can then paste somewhere.
I’m sure, as the author says, it’s not as good as the real deal of writing with an actual pen, but I need it to be digital text eventually and don’t want to waste a lot of paper. I have found that I’m more creative and enjoy writing more.
I'm curious about everyone's opinion on writing "by hand" with a stylus on tablets like the Remarkable, Kindle Scribe, iPad+Pencil, etc.
I like sketching and outlining with pencil and paper, but my handwritten notes are often illegible and disorganized. I know it's partly process and my poor penmanship, but digital surfaces compensate for this with built-in organization, searchability, and easier integration into projects and knowledge bases.
I think tablet handwriting is fine. I had some six weeks of down time a while back and took advantage of it to go through the Getty-Dubay book Write Now: the Getty-Dubay Program for Handwriting Success to improve my handwriting legibility. There's a website now https://handwritingsuccess.com/ and for your purposes even more relevant, there's a mobile app. I'm not affiliated, in case you're wondering.
As for disorganization, that's kind of the nature of early notes.
There are ways to kind of organize them. One technique I use is writing them on notecards or notecard-sized paper, which I can later shuffle and organize.
I used an iPad + Apple Plencil for my last 2 years of University. I love the idea of digital notebooks, but for me writing 99% of the time in cursive zero friction between Pencil and glass was not a good combo. I find, at least for me, cursive needs that friction.
I tried some big name matte screen protector, I can’t remember now what it was called, and it was pretty good. It was like 70% of the way to feeling like paper. The Pencil tips would wear away but they still lasted much longer than the sticks for a mechanical pencil would. But the way the matte finish would diffuse light hurt the sharpness of the iPad display so I’ve been using these Pencil tip covers instead. It took some getting used to, and I still prefer actual pencil to actual paper but this at least saves me from buying and storing tens or hundreds of notebooks.
I tried for years to make handwriting on the iPad work, but it never clicked for me. I randomly encountered a reMarkable Paper Pro Move recently, instantly purchased it. For the first time in my life, I no longer tote a paper notebook with me. The software, simplicity, low-latency, form factor, writing feel, everything is absolutely perfect for me.
My handwriting is roughly legible on paper (but getting worse). It is the same on an iPad+pencil with a Paperlike screen cover. It was impossible to read on my Remarkable 2 - the resolution just isn’t there for me.
I think it’s important to have that friction between the stylus and the screen. And if you have that, I am pretty happy with notes on either my iPad or paper.
I found the Paperlike to be worse than the iPad screen alone, but I've been happy with the Astropad Rock Paper Pencil as it comes with a replacement tip for the Apple Pencil that has a metal tip and generates some noticeable friction.
I was filling notebooks too quickly and didn’t know what to do with them so I switched to a Kindle Scribe. It’s more expensive than a bunch of nice paper notebooks but it’s worked well for me. I export my handwritten notes for safe keeping and can have AI conversations with them as material. I also tried Kindle HD tablets, which worked just as well, but I got a lot of eye strain since I also work on a computer all day.
I am in the same camp. A year ago I switched over to taking notes on a Kindle Scribe, and as a voracious note taker it has been going very well. There are a few small negatives:
- twice a page of text just vanished completely, in roughly 500 pages written in the past year, due to some shenanigans with the selection tool
- Over 40/50 pages notebooks don't seem to export reliably. So for my work notes I start a new notebook every month (I average approximately 1.5 pages per workday)
- I no longer scribble as many unspoken impressions down as I did with paper (where I had known before, that small writings in the margins on some paper of mine where as save from looking in to, as the insides of my Jeans' pocket watch pocket)
Positive:
- I can send PDFs of my notes out within a minute to any email
- a lot less to carry around, I just make sure to keep it with me, nearly all the time
- organizing notes retrospectively is a big leap forward from paper - I can just select lines of text I wrote and move them around, even shrink them a little (to fit an extra line of text or two on the same page)
So far I haven't gotten used to actually extracting the notes with the Kindle application on my PC, it's always going over Amazon's servers whenever I click "share" to export my notes...
How do you go about having AI conversations with your notes?
I was cleaning my office a couple of days ago and found stacks upon stacks of paper. I've had a habit for over a decade of taking printer paper, folding it half length-wise, and scribbling notes on it as I work. I use it like a temporary scratch pad. It is an ingrained habit at this point, as soon as I have difficult focused work to do I reach for the paper and pen. Urgent site-wide outage? Start scribbling. Big feature decomposition? Start scribbling.
So I have this massive stack of notes that I glimpse at before shredding or whatever. Nothing of permanent value, nothing that I look at even 24 hours after it is written. But the sheer volume of the writing like that I do surprises me ever time I clean it out. It's like a novella sized stack of paper with server names, sketchy diagrams, peoples names, dates, commit hashes, debug messages. Lots and lots of lists. Things underlined, circled, stars, strike through, arrows, etc.
It is such an ingrained habit that its almost a compulsion, like someone is tying my hand behind my back if I don't have access. It is like my brain needs reassurance that some detail I just noticed won't be lost, at least it will be on the paper if I need it in the next 5 minutes. Like an extension of my short-term memory.
I have also kept a journal for 20+ years, mostly on paper. I often use a fountain pen (Lamy 2000) and notebooks with high-quality paper, but I am not super picky about it. I've used the cheapest school notebooks to the finest Japanese boutique papers. I'm a fan of the Pilot G2 and pens that have a similar feel. I'll also journal in Google Docs, Apple notes, or text docs in VS Code.
It is hard for me to disentangle the supposed benefits from the sheer weight of habit. It is just something I do, part of who I am.
> Removing friction by using a hard stylus on glass will actually make the process more tiring.
Well since I've never written with a fountain pen, and the type of paper I write on with the fountain pen matters, I'm probably better off picking up the habit with an ipad or the like.
From the source paper:
> Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning
I would also be interested in whether the parts lighting up are actually contributing to learning the task at hand. The 2024 paper quoted above didn't mention a test for comprehension. The prior Stanford experiment also reasoned that writing helped with comprehension because students were forced to summarize.
I'd like to see an experiment that forces both groups, typing and writing, to summarize while their brains are scanned. I'd also like to see results from tests for comprehension for each group. I feel like that would make a stronger case for whether the benefit from writing is actually worth it.
feel like he is saying 'do not use a frictionless writing surface' and generalizing that as 'gadget'. my remarkable is very similar to real pen and paper and has helped me immensely in retaining course material when taking notes vs my laptop
I have used fountain pens for the past 30 years. To me, writing with a good fountain, pen and quality paper feels like an air hockey puck floating on an air hockey table, smooth and effortless, and it allows me to get into the zone and think much better than I can by typing and to a lesser extent writing with other types of pens. Whenever I have something really important that requires deep thought I always use fountain pens. They do require maintenance in the form of periodically cleaning them, but the benefits of improved thinking outweigh the minimal maintenance cost.They are inexpensive and I find the quality of the paper is also important which I did not originally appreciate. Personally, I like Pilot fountain Pens, which start at about $15-$20, and Maruman paper. Both are readily available on Amazon or from specialized sources.
If you use cartridges, you might try buying a converter and using bottled ink. Takes about 10 seconds to fill and the flushing of the pen by filling makes it right smoother longer before having to flush out with water. I’ve only had that happen when I left a pen for several months and forgot about it. An incidental benefit, as there is an almost infinite variety of types and colors of inks. If you go to a site like jet pens, or Goulet pens, they have a whole range of inks you can choose from
Back in uni, I used to write down notes both in class and during my own revision. It truly helped me pass tests. My go to was the Pomodoro technique. 25 minutes of reading and writing then 5 minutes of rest. Did this for four 25 minute sessions.
By the end of the day I had short notes of what I had read that day.
This was my personal trick at the university. I was writing down all the notes during classes, even at the ugliest of my handwriting, but after classes insat down and rewrote the whole Notes in a better and clear way, so I was directly storing information in my brain.
I just needed to re-read the better notes 1 or 2 times and I could already recall the information, even at distance of time.
On the topic of left handed writing: Switching to the uni-ball jetstream (RT SXN-210 or Sport SXN-150S) was a noticeable improvement for me. I did not search for other alternatives but would be interested if there are similar quick-drying options that work well.
I tried the Pilot G2 before that because it got recommended often, but for me it was way worse.
I've always love stationery. Over the years I've looked up pen reviews and tried out many different types including fountain pens.
I watched a video recently from someone, from memory the creator behind the youtube channel vsauce. Very briefly, he lost some notes to water. His words, thoughts and ideas vanished. His solution was switching to pencil.
I'm addicted to people talking about pens and pencils. Adam Savage also has done a few videos on his favourite mechanical pencil.
Apparently Stephenson loves fountain pens and reluctantly gel pens. In general, those are water based inks and will wash away with water. There are one or two fountain pen inks designed to be more permanent and won't wash away with water.
Just something to keep in mind if you're currently writing or want to start.
I did some fade tests with several pens and a pencil on a laser print. The pencil and toner were the only things that hadn’t faded in direct sunlight after two years. Even high end pens faded.
To be fair, your notebook probably won’t get light like that, but pencils are pretty archival.
Interesting. I wonder if in 100 years time Stephenson's fountain pen writing will still be around. No doubt they are all scanned, but, maybe the originals will fade.
I saw another video about someone's favourite pen and he gave the reason as check fraud. Apparently the uniball 207 is pigment based ink and doesn't wash away in acetone.
I just searched then on youtube for acetone pen check fraud and it looks like there's a 13 year old video about it, and a million copycats. Either copycats are lazy, or the 207 is still $2 13 years later.
For last few months, whenever I am trying to understand a difficult problem or a concept or addressing a complex issue at work or in relationships, I try to write one page by hand. Often it brings clarity or surfaces the core confusion/misunderstanding. I don't know why that works but it has been really useful.
Speaking of ancient practices coming back into favor: Are other people thinking meditation would be useful as they wait for their LLM to finish?
I've incorporated back writing by hand some time ago but find as models get smarter and I throw more at them they have also been taking longer.
In these moments even a notebook can register as something of a distraction. I already aim to keep my phone far away but I'm curious about trying to commit to meditating between prompts. Part of me feels like it would be a little silly. But maybe not.
Doodling in a notebook feels preferable in these moments but also feels like a context switch when the agent is done. Then again perhaps I need to just refine my process so notebook planning can feel like it is working more in parallel with the LLM rather than us blocking each other...
Writing by hand, marking stuff and seeing the paper come to live is very rewarding when looking back at what you've done.
But at the same time its so hard to organize, archive, and find previous notes, that's mainly the reason why I take digital notes more often.
I still hand write a lot of code, and especially when starting out on projects or making more fundamental changes. I find it leads to better architectural solutions. My thinking has been that writing it out by hand can be slower so my brain is incentivized to think through the options and come up with more concise solutions. But maybe, as the article suggests, there are other small factors to hand-writing that lead to an improvement as well. I also use then go through the hand-written code to "execute" programs in my head and I think this also leads to higher-quality code. I encourage anyone that wants to be genuinely good at programming and software engineering to give it a try.
Perhaps there is a balance to be struck? I have thought long and hard about this, and I have settled on taking notes by typing on my laptop. The benefits are far too many: I do not have to carry my notes around to read them on the commute; I do not have to worry about losing them; I can rewrite them to my heart’s content without messing up the layout; and I feel that I type faster than I can write.
I do partly agree, though. When I am studying a new concept or reviewing old ones, I tend to scribble my thoughts down. I have not been able to replicate brainstorming while scribbling and doodling on an electronic device. The friction of my pen on paper seems to actually wire the pathways in my brain.
Used to write all meeting notes by hand to help me focus on the meeting and actually retain information. Fell out of the habit but must get back into it! Definitely helps especially if it's not a topic that's naturally gripping to me.
Since this is more about tools than the purpose I’d like to add my favorites:
Pilot friction pens - the four color versions. I find multicolored notes great and they are erasable.
Muji spine notebooks - hit the perfect balance between cheap and nice to write on. For me, a moleskin becomes “too nice to waste on this meeting” - the spine version lays flat and it is easy to rip out a paper if someone needs a sheet or you are really unhappy to keep some scribbles around.
It scores bonus point for cardboard cover making it easy to write on the outside
Added bonus points for no spills, blobs or airplane worries.
Silly question, if we believe the concept of evolution then we evolved to write by hands to materialize our thoughts. But as in some future we might not have paper to write on ( though we have writeable devices)
this gives me a question like when would our brain think its time to evolve from handwritting to typing and then typing to Brain computer interface so that we can write at the speed of thought?
> I use a lot of moleskine notebooks and Mead comp books, which I can buy in bulk online.
Moleskine notebooks are beautiful, but I always felt they were far too expensive. Would love to learn where they can be bought in bulk for a more reasonable price.
I wrote almost my entire PhD thesis by hand, with a pencil. When I made mistakes I erased them. My handwritten notebooks contain close to the final version of each chapter (there were, of course, some further corrections after typesetting).
I don't like writing in pen. I like being able to erase stuff. Having scribbled out bits looks messy and gets on my nerves.
Whatever implement you choose, I do concur with the author that writing by hand is good for you.
I don't write much these days, but I do fill pages full of notes, mostly diagrams and other pictures. I don't understand how some people with jobs similar to mine don't use paper at all.
I hated paper until I found a decent pen (frixion erasable, mediocre) and paper (Lemome grid notebook, very good). It's still harder than typing, but I've found nothing better for thinking through challenging problems.
When learning new languages, frameworks, or systems, I've learned over the last ten years that I -- as ADHD riddled as I am -- retain and engage with information a lot more when I write by hand, even if I am not medicated.
today I posted a show HN that got insta-flagged by an AI detector. I had written the post then gone back and forth with claude, getting to a refined version I thought was much better. claude said it would hit way better with hn (me?).
after getting flagged I found the original, reposted, and it is actually so much better. not polished, not a masterpiece, I'm nowhere close to a professional writer. But it's like a human story with the marks of human care.
i fear my brain's getting smoothed down by reading all the generation and I need to drop the AI crutch for a while, at least for copy/writing.
I've no idea on the state of research about this topic but I've always wondered if this really has to do with the locomotion side of it or if it's more about the fact that writing by hand takes a bit more effort and time.
For example, for taking math notes it's easier for me to write by hand rather than take notes in my laptop (because writing LaTeX takes time). If I spend more time on my notes in my laptop, would that improve retention?
I have been thinking about that with regards to the new generation, I forget where but I saw a YouTube video interviewing Gen Alpha and how they couldn't recognize calligraphy texts.
I was sad, of course, but at the same time, it made me think if their brain is just being shaped differently. Could it be that this sort of thesis "writing = good" applies to us because we belong to a generation that had our formative memories shaped through that activity?
Is there something inherent to writing that makes it good or is it just a consequence because we did things that way?
Well, sorry but look at the methodology on this. The study the post leans on did not study learning. 36 adults went around copying familiar words, and their "typing" is key presses using one index finger (!).
I'm afraid this one's close to going down the replication crisis whirlpool. According to Sol:
"Direct replications found no reliable learning advantage, while a 2024 meta-analysis found only a *small* handwriting benefit but a far larger typing advantage in information captured."
Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis” by Abraham E. Flanigan and colleagues, published in Educational Psychology Review on July 12, 2024
I’d like to point out that basically all education research is only partially reproducible or not reproducible at all. So even though this study says it’s good for your brain. Have some skepticism.
If you're like me and lose things and want cheap pens that offer water resistance, try the PaperMate Inkjoy ballpoints. They roll much easier than other ballpoints, in my experience.
I wrote this reply by hand and then used by keyboard which is connected with my mac mini using Bluetooth to type it here so you guys can see it.
"I write all my notes and letters by hand and I started writing them like 2 months ago when I was researching on something and found out the benefits of writing by hand. My post went mega viral on X (@ihteshamali) you will see it here on X and it got like 120k likes and people really loved it. And most people said they will now turn back to writing by hand which is nice."
What the research shows and what Stephenson is alluding to also points to the way the design of digital technology has flattened human-computer interaction by prioritizing speed.
It is not impossible to design digital products that achieve the same balance of fountain pen on paper. But having used the iPad for journaling with a good toothed screen protector, I think we are still far from it. Even with the barrel rolling and pressure sensitivity, an actual pen just writers so much more expressively.
I keep a handwritten journal and write in script. My penmanship isn't great, but it's good enough.
For exams in my intro programming classes, I allow students to bring a handwritten notes sheet if they wish. I get anything from a few sentences to a sheet so full of writing it almost looks gray. From what I can tell, students who really put effort into their notes sheet look at it less frequently but tend to score higher. This tracks with the studies I've seen on handwritten notes.
I have about 20 or 30 fountain pens. I do system architecture diagrams, with notes in the margin, using pen and ink. It does help me think. I actually find it relaxing and fun.
While writting I think there's a very fine line that separates external storage from memorization. What I mean by this is that sometime we write ideas so we can avoid forgetting and be able to come back them (David Lynch), or as we write and develop a thought or subject, we are actually creating memories.
I think the point of writing stuff down is mainly organization, storage and exploration and not a memory exercise.
I have been experimenting with more hand writing notes as well. What I have been finding is better retention and more focus on what is that I'm following, wether is a book or a meeting.
I recently also started to review flashcards by printing the cards due today and writing down the answer opposed to reviewing them on a screen, and I have noticed a much higher retention as I am not distracted by the mere presence of the device.
As some have noted, if you like writing by hand for all of the benefits listed in this article but also want a digital copy for search, taking a photo and having an LLM read your handwriting works really well.
To streamline this process I wrote an iOS app that does exactly this. I used it to digitize my handwritten diaries, but it works for any handwritten paper.
I'm a huge fan of fountain pens, it's a very satisfying experience to write with a nice pen on a proper paper.
I use platinum 3776, it's quite expensive one, but it's just amazing. I originally bought it for sketches, but ended up using it for journaling.
Ended up buying one to my wife, she said I'm crazy to spend so much on a pen (200$) but few weeks after the gift she said that it's amazing and she enjoys it a lot.
20 years ago when I use to instruct a 101 class on programming, in the first 2 weeks, I made everyone write simple programs with paper and pencil. Students thought that was insane, I would catch them mocking it. I always had the last laugh... those who took it seriously always performed the best and went on to have more successful careers.
My hand hurts when I hold a pencil for too long, it has always been that way since when I was young. The computer saved my ability to write longer texts.
> It might then seem reasonable to think that writing with a stylus on an iPad or similar would be best, since no force is needed and friction is minimized. I don’t think this is true. A small amount of friction is actually desirable.
I find digital handwriting quite pleasant and almost better than writing on paper. Friction is indeed an issue, but you can just buy a dedicated screen protector to address this problem.
Yeah especially for doing math, I've found it's really helpful that I can just select some equations I wrote and shift them down (or insert more space).
It helps with adding derivations or additional notes after the fact.
However I'm considering moving back to handwritten notebooks for some things, purely due to the simplicity (no worry about battery life, technical issues, or the difficulty in switching back and forth between my book reader and my notes app).
i'm not totally sold on writing prose by hand. it's still a little too uncomfortable for me. but, for doing mathematics or memorizing things, i have specific rituals built around handwriting that i finally figured out how to make work quite well. i have funny hard requirements though: a) clean, white printer sheets only, absolutely no lines, they are distracting b) mechanical pencils only c) a flat, hard, stable and clear writing surface is a must d) a real eraser must be available
my technique for memorizing things involves a handwritten spatiotemporal reproduction from memory (put everything in the same place on the page in the same order) with spaced repetition that exploits sleep cycles. took me forever to figure it out, but once i did things like exams that build on toolboxes of rote memorization became a lot easier!
i guess i should also mention that i have long had an interest in reproducing the causal nature of handwriting for composing text on the computer. things like write only editors that attempt to encourage that same sort of causal flow.
This is why I use a reMarkable tablet for my notes. I noticed a few years ago that when I wrote down my notes I actually remembered them more easily. Something about the hand/brain connection helped etch my thoughts more deeply.
I still use Apple Notes, but more as a place to store copy/paste info I want to save or checklists. But for meeting or game design notes? Writing those down 100%.
The Remarkable tablet is so close to what I want. I just wish it was 13".
My iPad is 13" and having a a display about the same size as a sheet of A4/letter paper is nice. It's so nice to have a full size display for marking up pdfs.
Now that I've gotten used to the iPad with Goodnotes, I'm not sure I'd get a 13" Remarkable. I'd probably buy one, but I suspect their notes app would be enough of a downgrade that I would probably return it.
How is the remarkable at converting handwritten notes into text? Especially so that you can search over it?
Yeah, I used to handwrite my notes on paper back in the day, and still do for a couple of important topics, but switched over to putting things in Evernote several years ago. The reason is actually do need to do searches over them quite often, and it’s obviously very difficult to do with handwritten documents.
It does a pretty good job. But to be honest I don't use that feature often. I also have the keyboard for it but don't use that often, either. I really mainly use it as a notebook.
I don't know about reMarkable but LLMs are good at recognizing handwriting from photos. I wrote an iOS app to do this for my handwritten diaries, but it works for any handwritten paper: https://inksightful.app/
Somewhat related, I've seen more and more colleges now banning devices in class and reverting to handwritten notes and exams only, presumably due to AI. When I went to college this was actually already done, where many professors, even for CS, made you write code by hand. And it's true, it actually helps you reason better when writing it down over typing it.
When i was in college, we wrote a lot of C code in those blue notebooks. And this is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, which is probably why I don't totally didn't hate whiteboard coding tests. And when I'm trying to work with a new programming language or tool, I'm usually writing things out by hand (helps with the memory, like the article referenced).
I hand write my notes so that I don't have to find them again when I need to remember them. I used to study the same way - just summarize everything I'm reading into hand written notes, maybe read them once more before the test if I had time, and pass the test. It's nice to see that my successful practice is now backed by research.
I know this is true and all but I think a lot of people never really write anything anyways. Texting, random notes, emails. Strange to say but it feels kind of hipster and performative with the technology we have, which kind of makes it hard to enjoy. What I mean is I understand the theory but never have a chance to implement it or even want to.
That is why I call good pens like my Fink [1] a thinking tool. I always wonder if it is nature or nurture, but I am sure that writing helps me to think in a straight line.
I am really trying to get everything digital. But I much prefer writing by hand, especially when doing math. I got Samsung s10+ and have 2 problems: the pen is too damn small and my handwriting sucks for recognition so it's mostly PDFs for now instead of fully digitized. Anyone have similar problems with solution?
> I want to again live in a world where application developers use public, community driven standards to create interoperable applications with common data standards.
Has this ever been the case?
Also common data standards in a way restrict innovation when the standard body can't move fast enough.
Stephenson mentions the Pilot G-2 Gel, and it is a great pen, especially for left-handers.
I've found one that improves on it: the Pilot Acroball.
It's a better G-2
and though it might be a bit hard to find at retail it can be found online in all kinds of variations.
I wonder how much of this is handwriting versus simply removing distractions. A notebook doesn't have notifications, tabs, or an autocomplete constantly trying to finish your thoughts. I hope to to see studies comparing handwriting with typing on a distraction-free device
It does feel like a post stating things that are obvious, were someone not blinded by technology.
Curious if others have noticed a trend of going back to "old school" methods, once there is research etc around it. Seems like you can have just not used the new flashy thing.
"Writing by hand is good for your brain", but it does not say the habit or behavior can help you achieve some success, many achievements, especially the more significant ones need a complicated system and long-term hard work (remember 10000 hours theory?)
Anecdotally I find I connect more with what I write by pen as well.
Ultimately I want things to in text documents though (typst for me these days). If there was a non-slopware solution to ocr scanning to a typst doc, I would do it a lot more .
I have been using LLMs for this and they excel and understanding my very poor calligraphy. All I do I take photos of the pages I wrote by hand, and then ask the LLM to convert those notes to markdown and convert any diagrams that I might have to mermaidjs style, and worked wonders for me.
Hmmm - I guess all the "chatbot" web interfaces for LLMs have an option to upload images. And they're really good at this now you say? That's a really useful tip; thanks.
I remember when pretty much everyone knew how to write cursive. Imagine how surprised I was when my 12 year-old nephew didn't even know what cursive was. Makes you realize how much things have changed.
At least in high school I was the opposite. If I had a class with a teacher strict about notes I didn't absorb the material as well because I was more focused on getting the notes correct than engaging with the material
I'd rather learn a language than write with a pen. In my life at least, writing with a pen is now depreceated. Maybe writing left handed would be worth it but I can't think of another good reason to bring it back.
Not sure the intent of the question. Is the pen the car or the bicycle?
To me bicycles are for health and for short distances. Cars are for heavy objects and long distances.
I used to ride bicycles to the train station, then get a train to another city and ride it on the other side. Which kind of alters that.
Essentially for me at least, bicycles and cars have entirely different uses.
A pen on the other hand, is just a worse version of a keyboard. Unless I'm signing a document. Though as the years pass, that is increasingly done digitally and often doesn't even involve hand movements that anywhere near resemble pen use.
I need good handwriting OCR. Like perfect. Because id love to write things like blog posts on a remarkable or something, and then be able to just export it to text and publish
I like writing by hand and now it’s easier than ever to just take a picture and give it to an LLM for a transcription if you need it on your phone/computer. Small local models work well for this too.
I'd like to go back to writing with pen and paper, but my bad handwriting bothers me. So any time I start writing something, part of my concentration is wasted on trying to make it look good.
I find that writing with ai is far superior both in terms of results and for my memory. Writers like Neal won’t be competitive for much longer. It’s time to put the pencils down.
I have always found interesting that we thing as equivalent "different parts of the brain light up" and "good for the brain".
I say this as someone who has an tiny knowledge of neuroscience, but wouldn't you want sometimes to have low brain activity, for certain things?
Having the brain making more connexions and using more resources to do the same thing could be seen, from one point of view, as waste ?
Not that I disagree with the article, of course. Test results speak for themselves, but for example, when I am writing stories, do I need to "better remember" them, or do I need to go faster through my first draft ? (3 years and counting at the moment...wish me luck !)
Probably one of the best interview questions that I've been asked over the years, is to write a script (can't remember the purpose) in bash, using pen and paper.
Is there an online support group for people who have been on the keyboard so long that their penmanship looks more like klingon than english? Is there a way to correct this?
I switched from an Obsidian fanboy to only writing by hand, and I'm never going back.
It seemed preposterous to put notes in something I can't back up or "CTRL+F" search, but I've found that yes, sometimes I spend two minutes looking for a note, but when I do I generally never have to look up that information again... as opposed to things I'd search Obsidian for constantly that seemed to never get stored in my brain.
Hi. Retention is a problem not because there is something wrong with our memory but that’s how the brain works. Science shows that we forget 70% of what you read in 24 hours. I have had the same issue and always left me with the feeling that I am not getting the best out of my reading. So I created LearnBetter. It applies learning science principles to help you retain by converting what you read into short exercises. Re-reading, highlighting or writing it yourself by creating then organizing notes won’t give you the results you are looking for. Atleast not to me. Trust me I have done them all. Try out Learnbetter. See if that helps you. It’s free. I am passionate about this problem and I want to help others who are going through what I did. It’s getlearnbetter.ai. It’s in beta so expect some minor issues here and there. Would love to hear what you think if you decide to try.
In my first job, my supervisor gave me a Day Timer binder and set of pages for it and I very dependent on it within a few weeks. That thing was always with me and I was a little terrified that I would leave it somewhere. If I were hit by a bus and they gave that book to my replacement, they would have no problem picking up where I left off.
Then I got a series of Palm Pilot devices and left the paper behind. It worked pretty well for me and the grafitti handwriting system was ingenious. Aside from my contact list being duplicated a few times a year, I didn't really have any negative experiences.
Then smart phones hit and even though they can do everything any electronic organizer ever did for me, I've never been as happy with them.
I'm seriously considering buying a paper planner again. Shared calendars is the only thing blocking me.
I love Obsidian too, but for me it's just a place where I park notes for future reference. I don't actively use it.
Writing by hand has some advantages and writing by keyboard also has some advantages. Using note-taking app or similar software is very convenient and useful in some situations.
Claude is great at that. I have a custom /skill in obsidian which OCRs and then reads and corrects the output. It gets like 95%+ of my notes right, and my handwriting is rather abhorrent
i've been writing since i was 8 and always felt there must be something special about writing by hand. nice to read this post and see the science behind it.
i recently bought my first fountain pen and some nice ink and paper and it's even nicer that way :) highly recommend it
i like writing by hand, and definitely generate better content / thoughts. I don't like going back through my writing and putting it in electronic form (an no writing on an electronic device (ipad/remarkable etc.) doesn't is not a substitute).
Somewhat apropos... I started re-learning cursive about two years ago. I'm old enough to have been taught cursive when I was young, but my dad preferred block letters (he was trained as an engineer) so I took after him when I entered college. My handwriting was never going to win any awards (either cursive or block) but with attentive practice, my cursive is up to about where it was in 9th grade.
I wonder what my brain would look like writing cursive instead of block two years ago vs. today? If you're comparing type-writing with cursive penmanship in a sample that doesn't control for how much experience individual test subjects have with cursive, I suspect you may not get the results you're looking for.
I don't have any data for this assertion, but was disappointed to see the research not control for this variable. Not to say the research wasn't useful... In fact, were I to have control of the research budget, I would give them more money for a larger study that controls for more variables including age, experience with cursive and (what the heck) socio-economic background.
So... I recommend trying to (re) learn cursive. It's sort of fun to watch the faces of people when they realize you've reverted to jr. high school penmanship.
I had to learn to type early on due to my handwriting, but I can read my own. I definitely process things differently through handwriting. When I write stories, my style changes when I type!
im right-handed and was taught to write by a left-handed parent so i have a goofy technique where i have my hand above the line like a lefty. this causes me to write the letter "s" backwards, from bottom to top
"Sure, doing X the old-fashioned way is slow, inefficient, and inconvenient in a hundred minor and major ways - but haven't you considered that it might, on an incredibly shaky connection with low effect sizes and uncertain causality, be better than your brain?"
Sorry, but no. I trust that "the Old Way is just Better in an invisible, unproven way" about as much as I trust any other "appeal to tradition".
I like Neal Stephenson's writing, but I wouldn't take this advice seriously.
everything by hand is good for the brain!
writing of course, but inducting a younger person working the till, into the dance of correct change, or an aproximation that leaves them with a float, and/or not getting
a pocket full of coin, and watching the light go on as they activly get into the game of useing simple math in a practicle way for the first time, big grins all round, or some few mildly enraged and uncertain as to what just happened, this bieng a common experience as I use cash for most of my personal expendature, which more recently is getting comments from other customers and employees, but I like it, pay and be done.
I also dabble in scrap and precious metals, back woods deals for a wide variety of primary building materials, supplys, feed, manufacturing equipment,etc, which is all done with cash, live, right now, on your feet, make a deal, be good with it, done and on to other things.
I have had, and continue having, way above average use for my handwriting. It works for all sorts of math, quick diagrams on anything from geometric reasoning to electronics, composing tricky fragments of text, taking notes on something I'm doing that requires a myriad of easy-to-forget details, and so on.
But my 1st grade teacher and my 1st to 12st year classes variously agreed on how atrocious my handwriting was. Famously, my 1st grade teacher told my parents, "there's no hope". She was right. And, four decades later, it irks me to no end that every time I grab a pen and start writing, the ghosts come to look over my shoulder and judge. "Look at it, he's at it again. That 'f' looks like anything but... That's not a proper uppercase 'I'... you could summon a demon with it, but it would be a pitiful one. That 'g' is vicious. Is that a '1', a '3' or a '7'? Didn't we fail you enough times in basic arithmetic for that? Also, that line of text is sagging as much as your sitting, boy..."
My thoughts on this is there is a deliberate act going on that is doing more for retention than just the simple act of using a (fountain) pen.
If I am in a lecture and I am writing down everything I hear as fast as possible in one ear, on paper, out the other style I don't think writing is any different than typing the same way.
If I am in lecture and I am trying to stay deliberately between the lines of paper, then I have to take the info in, process it in a way where I analyze and summarize it, and then put it on paper neatly. I have to do that for brevity and to keep up with the lecture. Its not the act of just writing, its the analyzation that occurs before the words hit the paper. This can be achieved with typing as well if you deliberately style your notes.
I think sometimes we correlate this in too simple of terms to use pen = better, the pen forces the deliberate action of analysis easier than typing does.
I <3 Stephenson's earlier works: Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and even the lesser stuff (the university one, In the Beginning There Was the Command Line, etc.) were all incredibly well written, and I'd strongly recommend them.
But Cryptonomicon started to go in the wrong direction (though it was still good), and after that he completely lost me by writing 1000 page books that require you to learn half of an entirely new language he made up! His success seems to have made him completely lose the magic (of writing well) that he once had.
As such, I'd take any advice he gives with a mountain of salt. It's like getting advice from a "has been" former athlete: it might be good advice from their glory days, or it might just be junk they spew in their obsolescence.
I swear, early on he wrote well, which means he wrote 1000 pages and edited them down to a normal book.
Once he got popular I imagine he was like "I'm popular, screw that editing stuff, I'm just publishing every word I write" ... and that is not how you make a good book.
> If the pen’s ink reservoir is partly empty, so that it contains an air bubble, and if it’s positioned nib down, then, when you go up in an airplane, the bubble will expand as the ambient pressure drops, forcing ink out the nib. Once I figured that out, I got in the habit of making sure my pens were positioned nib up when taking off in an airplane. If I have time I’ll also refill the pen before departure, to minimize the size of the air bubble.
Finally! this was one of those things that bothered me for many years, but not enough to spend time to research :) . Thank you!!
Something is seriously wrong with an author when they think they need to invent an entire new language (and force the reader to learn half of it) just for a book. ENGLISH IS A PERFECTLY FINE LANGUAGE, AND EVERY GREAT WORK OF ENGLISH WAS WRITTEN USING IT!
Stephenson was my literally my favorite author, but when I got to Anathem I was like fuck this pompous asshat and his made up language BS: I'm sticking to authors who write in English.
"don't use a pencil" i stopped reading there. That's a completely invalid and stupid thing to say. Pencils are superior to any and all other writing instruments.
> I can say that, when writing by hand, one is continually solving a series of small problems having to do with the spacing of words, how letters are connected, the crossing of the letter t (sometimes more than one in the same word) and the dotting of the letters i and j, and how to accomplish all of those things through coordinated movements not just of the fingers but of the whole arm.
Do you think he needs to be a neuroscientist to make this claim?
Appeal to Authority is a logical fallacy. Perverse incentives exist in every domain, and you cannot discount the human factor. The experts can be wrong.
And in this case, Van der Meer's experiment showing more "elaborate" brain activity during handwriting was correlational. The conclusion that this leads to better learning outcomes does not follow.
More to your point: calling "appeal to authority" does not license argument from ignorance. Furthermore, appeal to authority only refers to an authority who is not authoritative in the domain in question.
I don't think this is appeal to authority (or the reverse, I guess). Neuroscience is complex, being a scientist/doctor is one signal that the observations here would be based on/reflective of a large body of knowledge. Probably GP's unstated point is that the author isn't a scientist/doctor and they also haven't studied/read up on their own either.
The experts in the sciences usually back their claims up using citations, and can be disproven through the normal methods of disproving citations. not through "vibes"
You've been downvoted to oblivion, but I figured I'll use you as a meat shield since there isn't a single other reply of criticality here AFAICT.
The study talks about connections and frequency, but that seems like a very coarse measure for something as complex as the brain.
> Increased connectivity within the theta (3.5–7.5 Hz) and alpha (8–12.5 Hz) frequency bands has been linked to mechanisms underlying sensorimotor integration (). As increased connectivity in the brain was observed only when writing by hand and not when simply pressing keys on the keyboard, our findings can be taken as evidence that handwriting promotes learning.
Can you? The linked paper appears to be stating association, not causation.
The alternative hypothesis is that the brain activates more because writing by hand is harder, and that by writing by hand you just get better at writing by hand.
My thought is, write in whichever medium you feel you work best in. Maybe try them both. And if you're not productive maybe don't use that medium.
This feels like a lot of grasping to try to justify some retroism (why does it need justification?).
This is a fair response and I think would be a good top level comment, you don't need a meat shield. The reason the parent was downvoted was that it isn't criticism, it's just a declaration that they didn't read the article.
There are a lot of citations in the paper backing up the idea that handwriting promotes learning, though (or at least spelling, memory, recall, and letter recognition/understanding). It reads to me like an attempt to explain an observed phenomenon: "given that handwriting appears to promote learning, what could be a mechanism for that?" It isn't in a vacuum just claiming that "these brain signals clearly prove that learning is happening".
The "general discussion" section also covers why the specific connectivity they looked at might be related to learning.
The issue is that the title "Writing by hand is good for your brain" does not follow from the cited study. At all.
The EEG measurement is the only real thing in the study, but there was no actual learning task anywhere at all.
Meanwhile, mr "I’m not an expert on how the brain works, but..." blithely goes on with his non-expert opinion, even talking about fountain pens and the various pen tip qualities in a manner smacking of audiophile.
And so the article reaches #1 on HN (supposedly the place of reason), and stays there for hours as everyone ignores the elephant in the room.
Another article from that substack.com - this website has terrible UI, please stop using it. And I noticed that usually if an author uses substack - the article quality is bad.
Regarding the topic - "more brain activity/connectivity" does not automatically prove better long-term intelligence or brain health.
I think the article offers some good advice, at least advice that the author believes in, and from my own anecdotal experience it seems to hold water. Writing by hand, on physical paper, does indeed seem to offer some advantages over typing or using a tablet/stylus.
Sort of. For most letters, my print strokes are the same motion as cursive (except r and s) but lifting up the pen between letters/strokes. Even when I was practiced in cursive, I never felt like it added any time to lift and lower the pen, any more than the time it already took to move the pen to the right, but doing so improved legibility. Its not like I'm consciously thinking about each letter, unlike caligraphy or drafting block print.
I connect letters that are easy to connect and pick up my pen on others. Anything that flows into the next, cursive. Anything where you have to contort and lead in or out with fiddly little bits and then just write the letter anyhow, I just skip all that and write it plain.
I haven't written cursive in many years, i should try it again but since i'm out of practice i find it takes more time to write than going print. Which of course does lead to hand cramps etc
No, definitely not. Although it depends where you are. If you are near South America etc, then Spanish would be useful to know.
I have used it before when I've lost a phone etc, or if I had no way of contacting someone otherwise. I can think of more dramatic situations too. Technology can be helpful but if you're overreliant on it then that is a potential weakness.
On the gadget front, I really love the paperlike screen protector for the iPad. This combined with the Apple Pencil made a huge difference in the usability of my iPad for writing/drawing. I still prefer to write on paper, but it’s really great for things like my writing group where we generally meet over zoom & I can give the author a marked up manuscript (with multicolor notes).
I’m also opposed to getting too precious about writing tools. So many people have drawers full of fancy notebooks with something on the first few pages and the rest empty. Get something and use it. Don’t matter if it’s a dollar-store spiral notebook or a fancy Leuchturm 1917 notebook, just as long as you use it. Same with the writing utensil. Pencil? Ballpoint pen? Whatever. I find these days I prefer to write using a cheap mechanical pencil (the kind they sell in bags of 20 at the supermarket), but I’ll use whatever.
I used to be really precious about these things. I only used college-ruled 9½×6 150-page spiral bound notebooks and wrote in 0.4mm fine-point felt tip pen. Did all my first drafts by hand. It ended up being an excuse to not finish stuff. I do most of my first drafts typing now, because it lets me get s⸻ done (although I still take notes by hand because that helps me remember what I took notes on better).
I don’t buy the cursive thing, mostly because I write slower in cursive than in print (although I have a handful of ligatures and abbreviations I use to speed up some things).
The cursive thing is almost certainly because he's using fountain pens. Pencils and ballpoint pens lend themselves to printing more easily, because they require pressure to write, and when you let the pressure up between letters, the line stops. The first time I picked up a fountain pen and tried printing with it, I found all my letters were connecting whether I meant them to or not, and I suddenly understood why cursive exists. Everyone who's learned cursive in the ballpoint pen era has been unwittingly taught a performance optimization for a tool they're not using.
Wow I never knew this - what a useful bit of information. Makes me want to try a fountain pen, I do like writing in cursive but I often get hand cramps doing it for extended periods.
This is likely because you're writing by moving your wrist, as opposed to "arm writing". Learning to use your arm muscles to move the pencil will slow your writing down initially, but will give you more control and reduce strain over the long run.
See, for example,
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrMvJfuADfNUx6s3PEFaraQP7...
From the OP:
> "I learned cursive as a child. Then I went for many years without using it much, and forgot some of it."
While fountain pens may be nicer for cursive, they were very late in the games only coming into the scene in the late 1800s, long after fashion had been set.
In the US we were taught either the Zaner-Bloser or the D'Nealian alphabet, and while most of the claims of cursive over manuscript are typically overblown and fall under scrutiny, with common use it may not be faster, but is easer for (the small sample of friends I have asked) to write while not looking at the paper. Not faster, but easier to write in strait lines without looking (in my experience).
Manuscript (now called printing) wasn't common when Zaner-Bloser printed the book "The arm movement method of rapid writing"[0] IIRC.
But for business writing (which both Zaner-Bloser and D'Nealian were targeting) it is not so much the fact that you aren't lifting the point, but that you are using your whole arm.
The scientific claims of Zaner-Bloser are almost certainly suspect, but before word-processors, taking notes while not watching your writing was a critical skill, or was in my experience.
That is a very different world that the scribes of old, or even Roman cursive, which would have only had quills, and which did not really connect letters.
If you look into secretary hand, italic hand, and court hand, a lot of it had to to with style and preferences, with the US Declaration of Independence being in Secretary Hand, which had been in fashion for official docs for centuries at that point. Shakespeare also wrote his plays Secretary Hand, while ladies of the era would have used 'Italian style' italics.
So unfortunately it seems there are many back explanations, the real history is clear as mud in the absence of direct evidence, or more correctly, claims like in Zaner-Bloser.
[0] https://archive.org/details/armmovementmetho00zane/page/n3/m...
To clarify my point, I am fairly sure the issue is not fountain pens requiring less pressure to write with than everything else, but rather ballpoint pens requiring more pressure than all earlier pen technology. I have not used a dip pen myself, but I can't imagine it would require pressure to write.
In other words, all of the writing tools in common use since ~1950 make it easy to separate your letters, but before the ballpoint pen became commonplace, every writer had had the experience of using a pen that makes connecting letters easier than separating them. That's the experience most of us today are missing.
Dip pens do not require more pressure than fountain pens.
However, most nibs for dip pens cause more friction on the paper, because they do not have the balls that are typically welded on the ends of the nibs for fountain pens, so writing with a dip pen usually feels scratchy.
So there is an extra force from friction, but it is lateral, not a vertical pressure.
Gel pens require less pressure than classic ballpoint pens. Classic rollerball pens with an absorptive reservoir usually require even less pressure. Liquid-ink rollerball pens together with fountain pens require the least pressure.
I agree that with a high-pressure writing tool like a ballpoint pen it feels more natural to write disconnected letters, while with a low pressure tool like a fountain pen it feels better to write with connected cursive letters, without raising the nip from the paper.
Despite this, while I was still in high school, I transitioned my handwriting from the cursive style that I was taught as a small child to printed-like letters, even if I was using a fountain pen and I have always preferred the writing tools that require the least pressure, so fountain pens and liquid-ink rollerball pens are at the top of my preferences, while ballpoint pens with viscous ink are at the bottom.
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Not a sarcastic response, instead, to double down on your point. If you show this to 99.9% of the world and require the spend of $50 for the screen protector on the $500 iPad to get the "paper feel", they will tell you might as well just get that Leuchtturm or Moleskin notebook.
That’s what kept me from going iPad. At the price of a 1000 setup you can buy about 25 Moleskins with, 280 pages each, + pens. If you fill 10 pages a day, that’s two years of high quality paper. My rate is more like 3-4 pages a day. So, I’m just so far out. My sense is that an iPad would last 3-4 years then it needs a battery replacement.
Yes but you can’t watch Netflix on a Moleskin.
If all you’re doing is writing then it’s not worth it, but for me the iPad is a fantastic piece of kit that can consume media, create media, and of all types, writing to fully mastered music albums.
Most people I know that make music on an iPad only use it for specific plugins or MIDI apps. They bounce the stems out to WAV and then mix/master it in a full desktop DAW.
You'd go through a lot of unnecessary suffering trying to do a professional mixdown and master on iPad.
A musician friend used to actually do recording with garageband on an iPad. I use mine for sheet music a lot and even sprang for the external foot pedal for page turns. There was one rehearsal where I didn’t have a chance to scan everything in advance and was playing from printed music for one song and I kept stepping on the pedal to turn the page and nothing happened.
I’ve not done it, but it seems it could be a good alternative to a laptop for digital synth stuff.
Personally found newest paperlike to be a lot like glass still, you barely get that paper feel at all and I hated it. They tried to keep clarity of the screen near glass level, but that affects the feeling a lot. Eventually I did some research and found that Japanese screen protectors that give you a feel of Kent paper are excellent for writing, so I wholeheartedly recommend those. You can find best rated ones by looking at top rated ones on jp websites, I have bellemond one.
I think you're right. It's very easy in any hobby to make the gear side of the hobby be disproportionate to how much you actually do the hobby. Think someone who's spent $3k on camping gear and constantly researches gear, but rarely camps. On the other hand, if you do actually camp a lot, it is nice to have the lighter weight higher performance gear, up to a certain point. So, Stephenson, as someone who does actually write a massive amount, is right to be using high performance gear, but for someone just getting started, getting into fancy pens/paper is a distraction from actually writing.
If you are writing a lot and have dysgraphia, a cheap fountain pen like pilot varsity ($2) or platinum preppy ($7) can help you fight the excessive pressure we tend to use leading to less hand cramping. Using tools that make you write more because it is more enjoyable is good, using tools that make you spend time thinking about tools is bad. I really liked those tiny comp pads cvs sold, but I haven't seen them in a while and I don't like the dollar store ones. I just grab random pads that aren't bigger than my phone so they sit nice in my pocket.
I used ballpoint pens in school but I don't like the process: my hand often feels too tense, and getting handwriting legible is a lot of effort. Once I switched to fountain pens I enjoy the process a lot more, and the result generally look better without much effort.
I'm sure many people are OK with ballpoint pens and might even prefer the feel.
Fountain pen (+ ink and paper) doesn't really cost more than a paperlike screen protector. So it can be entirely functional. But many people also enjoy it as a hobby, collecting pens and whatnot.
> I find these days I prefer to write using a cheap mechanical pencil
I know this is contrary to your advice but mechanical pencil, get a Kuru Toga, it's a really nice improvement and not very expensive. It auto-rotates the pencil tip, so you don't have the sharp end at some point.
For permanent writing get a Uni ball gel writer, it's supremely smooth to write with. Also not hugely expensive.
They're both not the cheapest option, but an amazing writing experience without being the fancy kind of expensive.
I think people send too much time optimizing the notebook instead of optimizing what goes into it. I've seen beautifully organized notebooks that were never opened again and messy scraps of paper that someone referred back to after years.
There was a post about something similar here a few days ago, it called it a "dirt notebook" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48954149
Paperlike is indeed nice for handwriting, but it has drawbacks. The increased friction makes it uncomfortable to use your fingers to navigate the iPad for long, and since it makes the finger motion along the screen less smooth, it sometimes prevents the iPad from correctly interpreting drag-and-drop or multi-finger gestures in my experience. It also makes writing very noisy compared to the stock iPad, and also compared to paper, so if you have a shared office you might want to reconsider. I ended up removing it again from my iPad. But to be fair, this was on a $400 iPad ~5 years ago, so perhaps high-end iPads with newer Paperlike versions work better.
Across a decade, I’ve used a Paperlike on five different iPads ranging from the iPad Mini, standard iPad, iPad Pro, both Gen 1 and Gen 2 Apple Pencils plus other styluses and never once experienced the problems you suggest. I’m making this comment on an iPad wth aPaperlike protector in fact.
To the contrary, the noise levels when writing are dramatically lower and I simply cannot imagine anyone becoming fatigued because of a paperlike protector.
Interesting. I wonder what’s the difference in our usage, perhaps the amount of force we normally use when swiping and writing?
Regarding noise, one of the main reasons I stopped using it was because my partner complained about the «scratching» noises when we were home officing together during Covid lockdown, and I personally also found it loud. I didn’t get complaints on the iPad before getting the screen protector.
Regarding the friction, I personally found swiping uncomfortable over time, but I guess that might depend on a lot of factors, including force used when swiping and skin type (oily vs dry skin, skin thickness and sensitivity, etc.)?
I don’t know why the difference. But if noise is a problem I would suggest buying different nib types and experimenting with those. Amazon has a wide selection, including rubberized ones that will make writing on the iPad nearly silent.
Indeed, I did switch to a rubber-like PenTips nib after that, and it made the writing experience really silent. Unfortunately it also felt somehow clumsy to write with – worse than just plastic-on-glass writing. It’s hard to describe, but it somehow made the «turns» in my handwriting feel awkward, and despite sticking with it for months I couldn’t get used to it. There’s perhaps other brands out there that make better ones, haven’t looked around further.
In my case, I eventually went back to a mixture of laptop and paper for most tasks, and now just use the iPad for highlighting (Zotero), lecturing (using Notability on projector as a blackboard/whiteboard), and occasionally to make figures and slides. But I stopped using it for note taking or drafting.
Pro Tip: In addition to the Paperlike protector, one can buy a range of different nib types from Amazon and experiment to find a one that suits you best.
Seriously, just do it with what you have and what you can, like cameras, the best pen/paper is the one you have with you
> I really love the paperlike screen protector for the iPad
Let me purposely be a little provocative here, and I don't mean any disrespect:
This is missing the point. It's not just about using the hand for a writing motion. It's about the physical sensation of actual pen on actual paper. It's about turning pages, arranging them, organizing them. It's about the serialization and finality of the words you put down. The offline character that forces a different mental discipline and requires (and enables) focus. You get a lot out of leaving your electronic gadgets behind and that's why trying to emulate that on an iPad misses the point.
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Always found that writing stuff down helps me to remember things better, whether studying something, prepping for an exam, or in general. Didn't even matter if I didn't look at those notes again, it just got "stored" better.
Didn't know he is a lefty too! Fountain pens + lefty is a tough combo; we had to use fountain pens in the 1st grade and my wrist was always stained on the side. Agree with the rollerball angle, Pilot V5 is my go to now...
I noticed this as well and the question caused me to go pretty deep into writing in general.
Switched to a 36 key ergo split with a tweaked alpha-thumb layout (R is on my left thumb, Space is on the right, base layout is Hands Down Vibranium V). Started learning Pitman shorthand (again) then switched to Noory Simplex and stuck with it. Became fascinated with Zaner's Method of cursive where the writing is done entirely through arm movement and using the rhythm of the muscle movement instead of by conscious control over the pen position. At the moment I can write at about 100wpm on a keyboard, 70wpm in shorthand, and 26wpm longhand.
I believe that the improved ability to learn comes from the need to focus on a concept for longer while writing and not on the motion of the writing itself. My ability to retain is better in cursive than in shorthand and I don't notice a significant difference in retention between keyboard and shorthand.
There's absolutely something to this. Writing something down on your phone or computer does not commit it to memory at all.
I am left handed, and my wrist is not stained.
There are a lot of fountain pen inks that dry faster, like the Iroshizuku line. And some specifically built to be water resistant etc. It is a lot different from years ago.
I've thought about how hard it must be to be a lefty fountain pen user. What is one to do? Learn to write without resting your hand on the page?
If you read the linked post, he covers this
I'm glad he posted the video. One thing he didn't mention that is striking to me is how high his hand is on the page, essentially resting above the line he is writing, with his thumb parallel to the line. Whereas as a right-hander, my hand is essentially centered on the line, with my thumb at a 45 degree angle to the line.
Do most left-handers learn to hold their pen/pencil like that? If not I imagine it would be quite a transition to adapt to as all the motions are rotated - the portion of the stroke previously done by moving fingers in and out would instead be done by moving side to side, and vice-versa.
Edit: Or from trying it, I guess you could just write as normal and end up with everything italic/slanted.
From what I've read, lefties are typically classified into "over-writers", "side-writers", and "under-writers". That video caught my attention too, as it shows pretty clearly that he's an over-writer.
I myself am probably somewhere in between an over-writer and a side-writer lefty, edging slightly closer to an over-writer. Maybe a 20 degree angle to the line as my thumb wraps around my other fingers?
I've never found a fountain pen that I've liked because every time I've tried one, I ended up tearing the paper as I go as I'm essentially pushing the nib across the page and so the nib snags on the paper, digs in, and makes little holes. And I left pencils behind as soon as I could in school because every day I'd come home with the side of my left hand silvered with graphite.
These days, my preference is a Pentel EnerGel, a Uniball Signo, or a Pilot G-2 (i.e., gel pens like the article mentions). They can write easily without much force and dry quickly enough so that my hand doesn't smudge. For my daily pocket carry, I've also learned that I always want the capped variants rather the click kind, or else I'll end up with stained inner pockets and scribbles on my thigh. This makes the G-2s nice for home and desk use, but not for daily carry.
(And though the article suggests using cursive and not getting hung up on legibility, somewhere back in grade or middle school I switched to using either print style, or an engineering-hand-like small caps style, depending on mood. Both in the interest of legibility, despite my left-handedness.)
Actually, paper orientation was a big help too. Used to tilt the sheet so you write almost bottom-to-top, that way you at least don't smuge the writing right away, and hopefully the ink dries quick enough for the next line
I'm left-handed and always tilt paper at least 45° clockwise, effectively writing from below. Never had any smudging issues, even with fountain pens, as my hand simply never goes over any ink. Left-handed people who write from above by bending their wrist have always confused me, as it's both less comfortable and does not completely avoid smudges.
You meant counterclockwise, I guess? Because clockwise would mean to write from above, not below?
Interested because my son is learning to write and is the only leftie in the family, so I struggle to help him.
You had me triple check but it's definitely clockwise, i.e. the top of the sheet is actually facing top-right from my perspective:
The arrow below the o of hello being the pen, and the thing below being my left hand and arm (I actually have fingers IRL, ASCII art is difficult)Counterclockwise, correct.
I think I would write mirrored. Especially in this day and age, there is no reason to write LTR over RTL by hand. You basically never have to write legibly for official reasons.
A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them. Destroy the spine so it’s easier to read, fold pages, write the important stuff inside the front cover of the book. Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates.
Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding.
Don’t get caught up trying to figure out the right notation or highlighter color for a line. Just mark them up and later it’ll make sense.
Edit: I think the broader point that some of you may be missing is that I’m not prescribing a particular form of notetaking. I’m saying that reading is made more rewarding with active engagement. How you best engage is up to you.
I buy used books: it sucks to see someone else's notes scribbled all over the page. It's like a really annoying guy whispering at you with vapid explanations while you're trying to pay attention to a lecture.
"Cross out stuff you disagree with" actually makes me sick.
It also seems useless for understanding and retention, since highlighting is almost always misleading and margin notes are almost always empty. If you want to write notes, get a notebook, which gives you space to write real thoughts down. I use a trapper-keeper.
I disagree. I love buying used books and seeing what other people found interesting, whether it's by way of notes in the margins, highlights, etc. I also love it when people write their name in the front of the book and when they read it. I like the idea of a single copy of a book making its way among many people, all adding their own thoughts.
Same reason I miss those library cards found in the back of books. I enjoyed seeing the history a book had, how years could pass without anyone checking it out or seeing a flurry of checkouts.
wow I hadn't thought of those in a while and I also used to love seeing that history and thinking about where the book had been. Thanks!!
Me too! Those library card were more interesting than the book sometimes.
If only people did this with care. I have seen too many books where people just highlight everything.
The same is true in every realm: taste matters. But that's not a reason to blanket-discourage expression.
(I do wonder if the people here who hate it are picturing students who blindly highlight pages, and the people who like it are remembering the times they've seen a few pencilled sentences in margins of an old book)
>But that's not a reason to blanket-discourage expression
nor was there a reason to blanket discourage treating books as precious and worth preserving. i'm interested in the part where you note what you noted and let the other glaring transgression pass. That was a choice.
Knowledge is precious and worth preserving, sure, but a specific copy of a book? Unless they're doodling in the margins of historical documents or rare manuscripts, I personally can't see any reason why it should matter.
Books as objects are also precious, they aren't just packaged information.
Not all books, of course. If you're reading a self help book or some technical one, scribble away at your heart's content.
I once picked up an old copy of Bartlett’s Quotations and found that the prior highlighting owner found it nearly 100% profound.
Yeah, I am always reminded of the "property of the Half-Blood Prince".
There is nothing wrong with scribbling in your own books.
There is also nothing wrong with donating such books with clearly written disclaimer on the front page about the condition of the book.
Repackaging as 99% likenew and selling them should be a crime though.
it was funny seeing this right below the comment saying "I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest.".
different strokes. if you want to ensure you don't get sick from a line being crossed out, buy new.
I have a book (not authored by Edison) that Thomas Edison scribbled his comments in the margin and I was quite happy to read them! Changing my own nearly-religious belief to never write in a book,I found that it totally changed my experience with the book and the author. There are thousands of copies of any particular modern book and it's no longer my task to preserve that unique copy for after the apocalypse. I would like to imagine my children one day being able to see their father's thoughts and dialogue with authors.
That's incredibly cool actually, what was the book? Could you share anything he wrote which you found especially interesting?
The book is "Making Good in Business" by Roger W. Babson. Babson gifted the book to Edison in 1921. Here is a link to a scan of another copy of the book in the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bwb_P9-DAU-349/mode/2up
Here is my github repo with scans of the marginalia from Edison: https://github.com/RRWagner/Making-Good-in-Business-Babson-E...
These were interesting:
"History proves that religion is a curse and is the master scheme for Exploitation of man" - p47
"God helps nobody. 20 million perished in the late war — for no fault of theirs Why did God permit this" - p48
Got excited to check it out. fyi the same image (inscription) somehow got uploaded for all the images.
Thank you for the heads up! There was an error in the conversion process. All the images are there now.
This is so condescending. The reason I buy used is that the overwhelming majority of books are out of print and not available digitally. Which makes the vandalism especially egregious!
It's not vandalism. Calling it that is condescending.
You can buy unmarked used books. Just check. (And if you're buying online the state of the book is expected to be in the description.)
vandalism is destruction of someone else's property. that's not what is happening when someone chooses to write in a book that they own.
You noted elsewhere I said "vandalize that wisdom." Perhaps you should think a little more about why I am using the word "vandalize" provocatively and figuratively.
yes, you are using it to emotionally bolster your argument, despite it being an incorrect characterization. it reveals that your argument is not very strong.
Learn what words mean. That comment is not remotely condescending, and scribbling in one's own book (with no indication here that the owner intends to sell it) is not vandalism.
Oh, I recognize your name ... wrong about so many things.
From another one of your comments here:
> No, my argument is that it's totally obnoxious to lend or resell a book that you've written in
But the person who advocated for writing in one's books if desired said nothing about lending or reselling them ... YOU were the first person here, in your response to them, to whine about BUYING such books. Talk about obnoxious!
Responding to you again to tell you to stop making personal attacks. I flagged your other comment. Stuff like this is why people leave HN.
It seems like me insisting that LLMs are stochastic parrots [presumably that's what you're mad about] is beginning to draw personal attacks on totally unrelated threads. Happens a lot. I used to have an account here with my name on it. HN is simply not a safe place to disagree with prevailing tech ideology.
The guy who dishonestly said "This is so condescending" and is making swipes at whole classes of people, accusing them of being obnoxious, is complaining about personal attacks. Someone who has been here less than a month and in that time has rubbed many people the wrong way is talking about why people leave HN. He flags a comment referring to some narcissistic rando resenting people for what they have done with their own property as a personal attack -- who did I attack with such generic phrasing?
And his "presumption" is erroneous, absurd, and misrepresents previous commentary.
Whatever. My HN front end has a mute function and I use it for people acting in bad faith. Ta ta.
It was extremely common back in the 1500/1600s, when books were far more rare and valuable to write in them. Almost every copy of these truly old books has something written in them, often by multiple people as the owners changed. That's part of the history of the book.
they also would get all the words scraped off and get a new book written on the pages, often some religious text.
and so now, some ancient math tehcniques can be unearthed by finding all the layers of writing in a book
If the notes are good it can be a gem. If not, then it also really bothers me.
Another way of saying it is discussing a book with some people will be really rewarding. But others you will rather prefer not to. This is just an instance of a more generalizable rule: people develop preferences regarding who they want to spend their time with.
FWIW, I switched over to the post-it note method (mostly) in the 90s for real live books. Grab a few colors and shapes. Easy to remove if you don't want to share your thoughts with someone else if the book is something you later choose to get rid of.
Well not everyone has the privilege to buy new books, especially course-mandated books that the professor "coincidentally" wrote and costs hundreds of dollars.
I would even say that "crossing out lines you disagree with" is vandalism because a book can always be read by others and come to a different conclusion and debate in their mind from there.
Why treat books as disposable mind scaffolds when they can be used again by others productively and even preserved for later generations? If you found a book to be at least somewhat useful to write notes on, then why would others not also find it useful?
Margin notes are fine though as long as they do not make the main contents of the book unreadable like "crossing out lines".
This is why "condition" exists for secondhand books. People can choose a written-in one or not. If you can't afford new, note that written-in ones are often even cheaper!
I have been delighted by the writing I've seen in books, especially if it's a copy of a friend or family member, as you feel you are connecting to another reader years later, and the item is no longer identically mass-produced. But maybe it depends on the taste of the person writing in the book.
>I would even say that "crossing out lines you disagree with" is vandalism
if you cross out words in a book you borrowed, that is vandalism. if you cross out words in a book you own, by definition, that is not vandalism.
it would be uncool to mark up a textbook you planned to resell at the end of the semester, but it still would not be vandalism assuming you bought the textbook.
Again, depends… I have appreciated my seniors’ notes in some textbooks - especially where the book itself isn’t clear.
I think the truth is most printed copies of books are rarely read even once, so the idea of preserving them is noble but realistically not that important. And may be outweighed by benefits accrued to the person currently owning and reading it making the most of it and marking to their hearts content.
I admit I don’t mark up my books but I feel tempted to try
> Well not everyone has the privilege to buy new books, especially course-mandated books that the professor "coincidentally" wrote and costs hundreds of dollars.
Do you even understand what you sound like? "Writing in something you own is vandalism because poor people".
I’ll never forget seeing a girl in a cafe highlight, line by line, nearly an entire page of a textbook. Watching the page curl from the wetness, almost as if writhing in pain.
I'll (lightheartedly) come to their defense to say that this is how I and a lot of my peers made it through med school. The wetness of the page indeed unlocked some supressed memories.
I think it's a combination of a ritual and some sort of somewhat-more-elevated engagement (or wishing thereof) with the material. Somewhere between meditative ritual and attention aid. I doubt it helped much, if at all - except for Stabilo; they were the true winners.
I remember as an undergrad watching some philosophy majors do this with their reading and their explanation was that it helps them track reading progress. And to your point, that tactile act probably helps a lot with engagement!
The unfortunate part is that you can't then unhighlight a passage.
Yeah... There was no "reading" in our ancestral environment, it's rather unnatural for a human brain to focus on the page where nothing happens. Some people can adapt to that, other people need stimulation of some kind.
And it's not like some ADHD thing which is new. E.g. Stanisław Lem as a kid: "But because the act of reading was too passive, too simple, I would rest a chair leg on my calf or knee or foot and with little movements keep the chair at the very brink of falling."
Your argument is that in order for you to have a better experience the previous owner should not “ruin” the book for you. I’ve read better arguments on bathroom stalls.
No, my argument is that it's totally obnoxious to lend or resell a book that you've written in, and it's a shallow way of taking notes to begin with. It is precisely what Socrates warned us about.
I'd say this is a problem with the seller's communication, not the use of the book. If the seller didn't specify that the book was marked up, I agree with your sentiment. The act of writing in a book and selling it isn't the issue, but setting false expectations to whoever you're selling it to is.
> and it's a shallow way of taking notes to begin with
Are we really going to speak down to how someone uses a bunch of paper bound together? That's how they wanted to use it, which is cool, it's just not how you like it.
My intention is less "talk down" and more "Socrates was right." Too much of note-taking is a ritualistic behavior that actually hinders understanding and retention. I think highlighting / circling / crossing out / etc is by far the worst, but margin notes are also bad.
It is very frustrating the number of people who say "it's their property, they can do whatever they want" and similar comments, all of which are missing the point. Yes. It is legal to write on your own property. I know thay. It's my opinion that they're doing something that is guaranteed to harm overall human knowledge: whoever purchases/inherits/digitzes the book has to deal with it. And it almost certainly harms their own understanding of the book.
I printed this out just so I could cross out every line except for one. And now, with renewed mental confusion, I wrestle with my sins against humanity.
We don't even know if Socrates not writing his teachings was a principled stance to begin with, so "Socrates was right" is a shaky place to start your argument. Also "Socrates said writing is bad, so don't write in this piece of writing that you didn't force me to buy" is one of the weirdest pieces of circular logic I've ever come across.
Even if we take for granted that it was principled, it almost certainly wasn't pointed at marginalia. The argument (that Plato put in his mouth, through written text, no less) is that writing that substitutes for internal recollection can't answer back. It's an argument against outsourcing a thought to fixed text. A margin note is the opposite: it's the reader talking back to the text.
You have a personal preference about buying unmarked books, and you retreat to a Grand Unifying Socratic Theory whenever someone challenges it.
> it almost certainly harms their own understanding of the book
What? For all people who ever mark up a book in the margins or highlight passages? How could you possibly know that?
> they're doing something that is guaranteed to harm overall human knowledge
Also what? Human knowledge is necessarily a collaborative effort. Reading a text with another person's notes alongside it is just another way to engage with it. I'll maybe grant you highlighting since it's been shown to not help with retention all that much.
We have a deeper understanding of some of the most famous thinkers in history because we have books that they marked up to help us understand how they engaged with specific texts. This is invaluable for "overall human knowledge."
Herman Melville marked up his copies of Shakespeare's works and that shaped how scholars read Moby-Dick. Did he "harm overall human knowledge" by doing that?
Ok then please explain why Socrates is better than margin notes for an assumed purpose, because that is not reasonable common knowledge.
If by that you meant to suggest that for formal study, some kind of self-review process combined with cold written practice/rehearsal sustained under interleaved spacing, then that is likely the gold standard for comprehension and memorization. But most people don't even know that, either.
But the main premise is we should not assume all book reading is for rigorous self study. Margin notes can be useful for other purposes than direct understanding/retention (I admittedly don't know the psychology evidence for it but many academics routinely write margin notes here and there on (poorly written/edited) papers for purposes of idea generation, scientific criticism, etc. Presumably the Edison example mentioned above would have been more like that.).
You are correct that the reference is a little obscure -- if my memory serves it's Plato's Phaedrus.
Plato argues, in a book, in the voice of his mentor Socrates, that books will destroy knowledge. And the reason is precisely to do with the thing that Socrates is famous for, his Socratic Method of asking his students (or rival politicians or anyone) questions about what they claimed to know, engaging them in a real discussion where we come to things that we agree about and then build that agreed knowledge-base incrementally. For Socrates, a book could never provide that experience; you cannot ask the book a question.
That's actually kind of very similar to a passage in Zhuang Zi (ancient Chinese philosopher). He recounts this tale about a king and a wheel maker. The wheel maker asks what the king is doing, and the king proclaims he is reading. The wheel maker then goes on to inform the king how those books are just the trash of the ancients, and how he could not teach his son how to make a proper wheel, and the art "comes from the hand and is met by the heart". So anything that can be put down in books is certainly not true wisdom.
It also coincides with the Taoist philosophy (and actually somewhat Buddhist) of learning through actions and not speech. The most famous (if I recall the story correctly) of the Buddha teaching his disciples by smiling and twirling around a flower.
Kind of fascinating that these faraway places kind of arrived at the same ideas. Independently or not I think nobody would know but it does not matter.
They weren't though. Socratic method was a singular argument and should not be confused with the argument in Chinese culture. As a Chinese American I literally hear the Zhuang Zi type argument in lay discourse and I would argue its legacy has been a strain of antiintellectualism in secular Chinese culture, e.g. whenever people say books are not necessary or book knowledge is not "real life" knowledge is a sentiment you hear from older Chinese, Hong Kong or Taiwan parents. It is very damaging and anti-intellectual. The Socratic idea is a very different argument because in Phaedrus the argument (as I recall from my undergrad critical theory class reading this text) is that through dialectic comes truth which is a discursive argument, not an argument that truth is learned from hands-on or religious experience.
Yeah but Phaedrus was an implicit critique of Socrates so I don't buy the idea of taking Socratic approach at face value (and then in the 20th century many critical interpetations of Phaedrus in turn). A lot has happened since that time that has complexified notions of learning, and it strikes me as idiosyncratic to of the OP to cite Socrates as the solution instead. It is like ignoring the rest of the extant literature, including scientific literature on pedagogy and cognition, why do that? It is not justifiable from a STEM pov.
thanks to LLMs we can now ask books questions :)
How dare you gatekeep how people interact with literary material? Who(M)ever purchases/inherits/ditigizes/burns a book has to deal with it, and that dealing with could include ignoring it like a grown up, using some whiteout, or if digitizing, using any of the myriad photo editing software available. Sure, maybe don't put your grocery list on a first edition of some rare Chaucer book, but Chicken Soup for the Teenager's Soul? Study guides? Infinte Jest?
A book with notes is a guarantee that the book didn't spend its life sitting on a bookshelf not being read. If people are reading it is a net positive for overall human knowledge.
Lastly, your usage of Socratic teachings is a hollow appeal to authority. Socrates is dead and a modest library in an elementary school would surely have brought him to tears had he known how far we've come as a species, much less the remainder of books currently available.
if youre buying a used book, why not open it and see for yourself before buying it?
Probably the most treasured item I own is a novel a good friend of mine gave me as a gift. It was one of their favourite books, and they'd highlight lines and sections that resonated with them by putting brackets around them using a pen. Coming across those sections, and learning a bit more about them in the process, is like finding little nuggets of gold.
But I get where you're coming from as well. I guess it just really depends on the context of who/what/why when it comes to reading.
it's totally obnoxious to buy a copy of a book with notes in it and complain about those notes. 2¢
how are you supposed to know the book has been scribbled on if you buy it online, as you must do for the great majority of used books you might want to acquire?
read the description of the ad when buying.
if it doesn't clarify in the description, ask or don't buy.
[dead]
GP makes no mention of re-selling. They explicitly talk about revisiting. Your comment would have done better as a standalone as opposed to a response to them.
And not that it matters, but "cross out" doesn't imply "destroy beyond recognition." A simple strike-through is sufficient to keep the text legible (so you remember what it is you disagree with).
This is why used books are graded. Marks lower the grade of the book. Buy a higher grade of used book.
Aside from shallow, uncritical notes, consider that annotating in a margin is evidence that a reader is actively engaging with a text.
Very often when I write in margins it's to question or argue against what's written (e.g. "really? what about ...", or "no, contradicts ...") which, to me, seems in line with the dialectic process Socrates promoted. Multiple sides, truth-seeking.
Sure, having a spacious notebook on the side is even better. But it's the same goal, isn't it? Engage more deeply with a text and encourage questioning as you read it, while it's still fresh.
Sometimes you have the drastic misfortune of someone totally off the rails writing crazy crap in it though, or a 3 year old experimenting with crayons. Not what the Stephenson article is about, but that sucks.
Amazon's used prices are usually set by booksellers that base their prices on stuff like this for some books... When you get to like old cheap paperback romances though, or that .01 plus shipping, you might or might not.
I would be pissed if I expected a clean, un-scribbled-on book I wanted and it was represented as such, but got that.
Buying a used book sight unseen from Amazon or from a reseller who doesn’t have a reputation for reporting used condition reliably … that’s a buyer’s choice. It’s not left to (mis)fortune.
Anyways, my point was to counter the parent post’s claim that notes in margins are shallow or unsocratic. Some are, some aren’t IME.
> bathroom stalls
That's like, elite literary territory though. Let's stick to the discussion on books.
The first time I read "this sentence is false" it was scrawled in a bathroom stall in the philosophy department. Seemed appropriate. Left me wondering how many other people had also sat there pondering it for a few moments, certainly more than that had called that number for a good time.
Perhaps "this sentence is false" was actually the precursor to "Jeopardy", though.
Some come here to sit and think, but I come here to...
(if you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie, wipe the seatie)
As an analogy, imagine buying a movie you've always wanted to see, and when you start watching it you find the previous owner added a voice over on top of the audio containing their off the cuff thoughts about the movie.
The owner of a book doesn't owe anything to a random future person who picks it up from their estate sale or whatever. Vanishingly few books are irreplaceable enough to need to be treated as special relics to carefully preserve for posterity, and those that are tend to be already in a museum, library, or the collection of someone fastidious.
> sucks to see someone else's notes
You don't have to buy books with notes in them.
> Vanishingly few books are irreplaceable enough to need to be treated as special relics to carefully preserve for posterity
I wouldn't be so sure of that.
I always make an effort to buy books I really like (or expect to really like) in hardcover. This is because, around 20 years ago, I found some shelves full of books in a house belonging to some ancestors of mine. The books ranged from maybe 60 to 120 years old and had been unattended maybe for 40 or 50 years. At a first glance, all the books looked fine, but when picking them up, the paperback books literally crumbled in my hands and were unsalvageable. The hardcover ones were fine and I still have some with me now.
The thing is, lately hardcover runs of most books seem to be pitifully small. They print a few at the beginning and then they switch to paperback only. Often I want to buy a book that is only 5 or 10 years old, and almost no one has the hardcover. Those who do often demand extortionate prices. It's not uncommon to see regular hardcover editions of regular books with nothing special from 10 years ago, with retail price around €20, sell second hand for €100.
So if you consider that paperbacks aren't valid for preservation because they will crumble sooner than later, there will be many books with a rather small number of copies available.
> You don't have to buy books with notes in them
Although tbf its kinda hard to check without reading the whole book, no? A bit like saying "you don't have to buy a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing"
Totally agreed. I find it distracting working through a book that's been marked up by someone else. In fact, I get the same feeling even if I marked it up myself, which is why I stopped writing in books. I would prefer to keep my thoughts and the author's thoughts separate. When I want to know what the author thinks, I'll go to the book; when I want to remember what I thought, I'll go to my notes.
You can totally mark up your books. No issue with that, if you like it. I don't personally, but I don't see why someone shouldn't do it. Now should you sell those books? Probably not.
Obviously (I hope), once you've grafittied your book, you shouldn't sell it as unaltered!
That doesn't mean scribbling in your own book is wrong.
I agree, and the very low price of used books that have writing in them, suggests that this is how people feel in general.
I have begun to write a page (by hand) summarizing my thoughts after reading a book, and put it in the start of it. That was a tip I saw on HN some time ago.
Or use sticky notes! My friend annotated her favorite book with notes for me and it was awesome.
This is like saying that because some (or many) people are bad at taking notes and highlighting, taking notes and highlighting is a bad idea. It's a skill like anything else. You get better at it the more you do it.
I don't know about you, but when I re-read a book 20 years later it's unlikely I'll have that trapper keeper handy. Re-reading something later and seeing my younger thoughts is magical.
Crossing out things you disagree with is the most insane part of this. You should highlight or comment those if you’re going to mark the book up at all.
Nah I got this used text book once and it had all sorts of ridiculous stuff written in the margins. Some of the authors instructions were crossed out and replaced with their own instructions. I was really annoyed at first but then I tried some of the instructions and they were actually better than the author. I'm doing really well in potions class now.
I would never sell my marked up books. They're too precious.
Why do you buy used books? You sound like the person who would prefer new books.
I answered this several times in the thread: almost every book is out of print, including some of my favorites. I would be much more stupid and boring if I only read new books. And of course indicates why scribbling in a book is so terrible: if it's Tolkein or Susan Rice or Chem 101 7th edition then sure, whatever. But a lot of the worst scribbling comes from graduate students who don't value the text they're bloodlessly working through.
Some books and some editions in particular can be hard to find new.
Then don't buy used books? They are _used_. If you want a new book, buy a new book?
I read two books recently that are out of print. One of them (Georges Rey's Contemporary Philosophy of Mind) is $150 on Amazon, and out of stock. The other (Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, and Ends) isn't on Amazon at all. Used bookstores are the only viable option.
Books are treasures. The second book is an enormously valuable source of wisdom. I am glad nobody vandalized that wisdom with marginalia and highlighting.
>vandalized
for someone so concerned about knowledge, you don't seem to be too worried about continually using this word incorrectly.
If they're so valuable, maybe you could spare a thought of thanks that the previous owners passed them onto posterity, whatever the condition. If you don't like the condition, feel free to continue your search. Getting heated over their use of their own property isn't very philosophical of you.
You do realize that in the 1500/1600s when books were incredibly rare and valuable it was extremely common to write in the margins and that such writing is now usually treasured?
Also it seems like you can buy the George Rey one for $54 new here https://www.wiley.com/en-us/shop/general-philosophy/contempo...
unless you also don't believe in paperbacks.
And the other is on amazon _new_ here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198244649?lv=shuf&channelId=500&p...
It's 100% okay for people to write in their own books, and it's okay for them to donate or sell them after the fact as long as they don't hide the fact they are written in.
No one is forcing you to buy used books with writing in them.
I used to go to a shop in a student area and pick up old Norton's Anthologies. Many of the notes were unintentionally funny. Some are occasionally insightful.
As I say elsewhere, it depends on the edition or book, and how common they are.
different people work in different ways. just because you hate it doesn't mean it won't be helpful for others.
also if you're buying used books, expect them to be used!
"expect them to be used!"
I would expect them to be in the condition they were graded as. I'll avoid poor or fair condition books that have lots of marking in them. Good books that have minimal marking should be fine to me.
Writing on a book is a bad way to treat a book. I hate it.
Or maybe just use a pencil to make notes. The buyer of the second hand book can still enjoy your opinions while being able to erase them at will.
Suit yourself, my family ended up with two used copies of "The Hobbit" and we kept the one that some kid had marked up.
Had to google "trapper-keeper". Never heard that one before, gave me a bit of a chuckle.
No one is forcing you to buy books that have been scribbled in.
If someone buys a book then they own it and can do what they want with it, without concern that maybe some day they will sell it and some narcissistic rando will resent them for what they have done with their own property.
"narcissistic rando" half of these replies are making personal attacks. Knock it off.
FWIW, I'm picking up a very aggressive tone from the majority of your responses here. I'm not at all justifying the personal attacks, but I would posit that the tone perhaps invites them to a degree.
If there's no aggression intended, that's great, but I'm struggling to not see it when I read them.
I would hate reading a censored book. But a second had book with side notes and highlights is a chief reason for me to buy second hand book. Call it a time traveling mail box.
then dont buy used books pay for the new books
I mean, that sounds like a you problem. Buy a new book or check to make sure the used book is not marked up before buying it.
You may dislike buying used books like that, but the purpose of the previous owner wasn't to satisfy your future desire for a pristine copy. The purpose was his own knowledge. If that's what works for him, so be it. It's his book.
So it's a little self-centered to make this about you. It's not.
I _love_ buying a used book and finding a previous reader's notes in the margins. It's the greatest.
A tiny glimpse into a stranger's thinking as they processed the same pages I just did.
Thoughts they may never have shared anywhere else, that may not have made sense to anyone anywhere else. A secret code only for people who just read the last few pages. Shockingly intimate.
I once borrowed a technical book from my school library, and the previous owner who donated that book in the 90s circled the phrase "proof is left to the readers" commonly found grad math book and wrote a big "W.T.F?". It made me laugh so much hha
You might appreciate this one :) https://allpoetry.com/Marginalia
TANGENT One of my all-time favorite websites:
https://www.themarginalian.org/
Highest possible recommendation for its thoughtful, intelligent, entirely human, poetic writing about various interconnected topics. Maria Popova is a treasure.
Nothing quite the same as making scientific conjectures in your marginalia or jotting down ideas in books and then having strangers find them and reinterpret them their own way.
These were fun to find in college bookstores every semester. Not a fan of "highlight it all" but the occasional enlightened soul with a scientific bent.
Maybe I'm cynical, but I always get excited, only to be really disappointed by the other person's thoughts :/ They never feel like they're contributing much.
I abhor highlighting, underlining or writing in books by some previous "reader" as well as by myself. Why? It adds emphasis or de-emphasis which impedes and usually eliminates the process of rediscovery and potentially seeing something in a different light. I prefer my reading to be dynamic and unbiased by other people as well as by myself, whether that's from a few minutes ago or a few years in the past. Commentary, which is often situational and ephemeral, should be separate from the original. When a book is marked up, your choice to ignore or seek commentary is taken away.
Skill issue. I write in all my books and routinely revisit them. There are times where I can answer questions I’ve written in the margins after another read. Likewise, I also erase things and write other things as I gain more insight.
Hard agree on highlighting. I never understood it. Well highlighting and also the post-it notes marking of pages. It's just too much. Never worked for me. I only did it when I was forced to by teachers!
But not for the reasons you're stating. It was just more like "unreadable". There would've been essentially a post-it note on every single page. Or I'd highlight like half the page.
It's a bit like bookmarks in browser for me. I started out trying it. Neatly categorizing things in a hierarchy. It just doesn't scale. And I see people like your parent, with elaborate systems of bookmarks and they navigate the hierarchy, failing to find what they need, often giving up on it in the moment, saying they'll "find it later". Dude, guess what we're in a call together right now discussing a topic, either you find it now or never!
On the other hand, I don't bookmark anything at all any longer. But I'd die if I lost my history ;)
As in, I somehow remember the terms to write to find what I need and the browser finds it in the location bar history (made up of actual browser history and bookmarks if I had any of course) but it also applies recency/number of times I used it (I never bothered to look at which of these they actually apply). But I just know all I need to type is `n` and hit enter and based on how often I come here, that's gonna get me to hackernews!
Similarly at work, I remember phrases, parts of ticket summaries or even just the current epic everyone's talking about and I type in the number/summary parts and find what I need.
I could probably spend hours "organizing my bookmarks" (i.e. post-it notes and annotations) but I don't. Never needed it, never made sense, never worked. But it does need to be digital. I'd die if I had to be a 50 years ago librarian!
---
On the actual article though: writing by hand definitely is awesome in general. Learning other languages in school we had to learn the vocabulary by writing translations of terms into books. Often I could tell you that "this is the third word on the second page" but not the actual translation :)
> Hard agree on highlighting. I never understood it. […] It's just too much. Never worked for me. I only did it when I was forced to by teachers!
> There would've been essentially a post-it note on every single page. Or I'd highlight like half the page.
That just means you are not good at highlighting. Which is likely why your teachers wanted you to practice it.
If you highlight half the page, I totally understand why it never worked for you and you did not get it.
They didn't want me to highlight. They just wanted everyone to do highlighting and post-it-noting.
And it's not like there was some sort of actual objective or teaching. Who knows, maybe I would've "gotten it" :shrug:
Many of the things you mention, crossing out, circling, I do not think of as actively engaging with the material, which a quick skim of the underlying research pointed out in the TFA (or maybe an earlier 2017 paper of theirs) requires using the fine motor control of actually writing. Writing marginalia is good for the brain; if you disagree, write out why, if you agree, write your reaction. Highlighting, circling, crossing out are mere consumption and only useful for finding passages later, not engaging your brain.
Wow, I'd just like to say I'd never heard of the word "marginalia" before, but I love it :)
Oh boy do I have a website for you!
I love browsing https://www.themarginalian.org whenever I have a few hours to kill. It's a bit like TVTropes, but much more "literary" for lack of a better word.
The author has spent decades building a digital commonplace book of everything she's ever read, and hyperlinked everything together in a way that you can get lost in her notes for hours on end and never surface. It's one of my favorite websites on the internet, and the best example of the power of marginalia and hypertext.
No. Carry a notebook. Long after you’ve given the book away, you’ll always have your notes.
why not both? mark up the book while you're reading, reflect in your notebook on what you read
Exactly. Personally, I gravitate toward book and topic-specific notes and highlights in the book itself and use the notebook for bigger-picture things for which book references play some role. I do a lot of highlighting in ebooks and lately I've started using LogSeq. I'll pull quotes from books into LogSeq and then tag them with whatever #bigger-picture topic I deem relevant, mimicking what I do on paper.
The notes only make sense with context. I'm not interested in copying three or so sentences for every small comment or even just a highlight.
Do you have tips to start using notebooks instead of marking books? I personally like to underline stuff in my books, when I start a new novel it's often people, places and events. I'm not sure what would be the notebook equivalent of that. Writing down what I would underline? It seems tedious and you loose context and the sense of proximity between words.
For my textbooks, I use little record cards. I write the book reference on the top line, then whatever notes or quotations etc. If it's a heavily referred to book, I sometimes use different colour cards to mean different things.
When I return the book to the library etc., I take all my record cards out and put them in a little perspex index box.
Sometimes I use the record cards to then start some more detailed notes in a notebook; sometimes the record cards refer to a page in my notebooks where I've attempted a derivation etc.
Or index cards. Zettelkasten.
Whilst reading, they double as bookmarks.
Who said anything about throwing the book away?
Totally agreed. I've never understood why people are so opposed to marginal annotations - it's part of why the book format succeeded as a technology! (i.e you can't marginally annotate a clay tablet). Incidentally, I always loved how Tolkien's maps had these pointing hands to indicate significant bits, and only after reading a lot of old manuscripts and incunabula in grad school did I realize that he was copying the favorite annotation of medieval writers, the manicule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicule
"Write by hand and mark up your books" is excellent advice... that I no longer follow.
Marking up books didn't come naturally to me, but I did it for a while. Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral. The illusion of permanence must be confronted and reckoned with.
But for the last 15-20 years, I have been taking notes in text files that are saved to version control, which I find suits me better.
* Notes are not space-constrained by the space of the page margins, nor by the initial form they take on the paper page.
* Notes can be revised at will without requiring complete duplication to maintain optimal appearance and organization. There is no reason to resist revising notes — the history is completely preserved in old versions, so nothing will ever be destroyed even if deleted. Even though those old versions will almost certainly never be revisited, knowing that they exist frees the mind.
* I can indulge my perfectionism and write math notes in LaTeX, music notes in Lilypond, diagrams using SVG... The act of typesetting is itself a form of active engagement the source material, although it does not have all the advantages of hand-copying and can be time-consuming.
* Digital notes take up no physical space, compatible with a minimalist lifestyle. They can expand infinitely without needing to be stored or carted around.
* Digital notes don't need to be defended against physical threats such as fire, flood, or vermin. However digital notes still require precautions to preserve them in the form of a backup regime, so this is something of a wash.
* Ultimately, I don't expect anyone but me to be interested in my notes, and I don't owe anyone my notes. When I'm gone, the notes will vanish into nothingness — and since they are not constrained by being part of a legacy for heirs to pick through, they can take whatever form suits me best during my life.
I think the main point being conveyed is that writing by hand improves recollection. Whether it comes naturally or not, or whether it is a better system or not, of course is subjective. However there is truth in the notion.
When I draw something I can remember the shapes better than if I simply sit there and stare at it. Something with the hand-eye coordination triggers the brain into remembering.
Typing in contrast, one is not tracing the shapes of the letters (the thing to remember), but pushing buttons that are not physically related.
It’s the same thing as if you can touch and hold an object it becomes much more real than if you can see it in a picture or on a screen. Remembering is connected better to touch.
Yes, writing by hand is an experience that offers unique benefits. The physical act helps to consolidate and integrate knowledge — improving recollection is one benefit, although I'd emphasize improving intuition as more valuable.
The primary activity of note-taking is forming words and grappling with ideas, though — it's not like all benefits are lost when using a keyboard. To a certain extent other activities like typesetting achieve similar ends.
My brother writes novels longhand, and I've thought hard about this topic. Ultimately, certain personality quirks held me back and I never felt carefree when hand-writing notes. Version control liberated me.
One of the benefits I've found is that it forces me to be brief. I've almost always kept notes and journals in a text format that I store in VCS, but I've found that journaling by hand is a vastly superior experience. It isn't simply about writing. It's about thinking of ways to write what I want more tersely (I'm prone to being verbose), and it's helped me process things ex post facto in ways that writing out the way I used to do simply couldn't accomplish.
I've also started collecting fountain pens, so it's linked to a related hobby. It's difficult to express that it is the entire experience, from the ink, to the feel of the pen, to what words are being written onto paper, that feels the most rewarding. I've also rather deliberately avoided document inks after much contemplation. I figure that the majority of inks I have aren't waterproof; if the journals ever get wet, everything in them will be destroyed.
That's how I've grappled with the ephemeral nature of the physical. Rather than aiming for optimizing permanence, as best as can be done on tangible, material books, I've preferred to embrace its weaknesses with full acceptance of what can (and will) go wrong. I suspect this is also because I have very little intent to ever go back and read what I've written. That could change, of course.
> Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber
Enjoy notes the way you want!
But when I re-read a book I’ve previously annotated, I get a rush of the time and place it happened, 20 years later. It’s crazy.
We are tactile beings who exist and connect in 3D space and brains remember ideas in locations.
I love files. But I think strong entities are trying to rip control away, with stupid consequences like making .txt obsolete.
Books have a good chance outlast a)mediums and b)formats. They have a good track record. Check back in 5000 years.
> Paper books are just decaying bundles of plant fiber — and the ideas within them are likewise ephemeral.
We still have 1000 year old codex in quite good conditions. A paper book will still be readable 500 and 1000 years into the future, if properly stored. A digital file will be effectively lost in decades, if not mere years.
Most likely though is your kids, or a company paid for from your estate, will chuck it all in a skip (dumpster) and it will be dumped somewhere to rot, or be burnt to make electricity.
Millennia old codices are extremely rare, and they've survived either by dumb luck or because they were treasured.
Maybe OP is a famed thinker, whose disciples will carefully preserve their notes; or their house is in a cave that will be at sealed in a landslide; or they will die in a peat bog clutching their notes to their pallid breast as the life force seeps from their body, submerging them in preserving ooze...
The current generation cannot bear the accumulated weight of all past generations. Loss and compression are inevitable.
99% of an individual's life experiences are lost when they pass. 99.99% of what's left moves from distinct memory to amalgamated collective experience within a generation.
Even for those of us who are blessed with loving friends and family, nearly everything will fade away. The adolescent me harbored mild delusions that history might care about my notes. The mature me is no longer burdened by those expectations, and my notes are better for only having a single audience.
When I was a child, I imagined that books and the ideas within them lasted forever. The shock is not in how quickly the written word dissipates, it's that it dissipates at all.
Imagine taking a pause from your book to type out notes and run git commit LMAO. But seriously though, studies have shown handwritten notes to be more effective/memorable than typed
I love nothing more than going through my mom’s cookbooks and seeing all her notes. It connects me with her even though she’s gone.
Also, most cookbooks desperately need notes as everyone's kitchen equipment is different.
Michael Stevens (of Vsause fame) copies long quotes into notebooks, and he claims the act of writing it helps him remember. And if it's not worth writing, it's not a good enough quote.
Those are called commonplace books.
> Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates. > Not only does it make consumption a lot more engaging, it makes a revisit of that book extremely rewarding
This is actually the biggest reason I own a Remarkable 2/Kindle Scribe, let's me "destroy" the book while also not having to worry about losing my notes.
Honest question: How confident are you that you'll have access to those notes on your Remarkable/Kindle 20 years from now?
I love my Kobo. I highlight stuff with it. But for anything really important, I then go to my computer, go through each highlight, and make notes in my org file.
(I probably should automate it - I know tools exist to extract all that metadata from the Kobo).
So, this is kind of not directly related, but sort of is.
I teach an adult Bible study class, and I use Logos for all of my notes and highlights. Your question touches on one of my specific concerns, because they use a proprietary format for their datasets. The best solution I have is that I export the notes and format them in Markdown, and I distribute them to the class via one of my blogs. Obviously, I can't include verbatim copies or quotes from the sources I use, but it's better than leaving the notes inside a platform that could (potentially) disappear in 20 years.
I cite all sources used in the footnotes of every session, so at the very least, it should be possible (theoretically) to obtain the source material in printed form and find the exact page number (Logos stores page number metadata in the digital copies). It's probably not ideal, but it's the best thing I've come up with so far that doesn't require a lot of duplication of effort.
I'm personally extremely confident. Those Remarkable tablets are very hackable. I pay for their sub, but I've also whipped up my own app for syncing content between my RM2 and my home server so that I can send news articles to it, mark them up as I see fit and archive them.
It's possible to download a marked-up PDF as a PDF from a Remarkable -- I can't speak for the others.
That's a decent enough solution if they let you automate somehow (e.g. sync to PC once a week without me thinking about it). I could then build further automations to parse those PDFs.
The Remarkable can spin up a web server if you connect it to your computer via USB. You can then access the files through a web browser by entering a dedicated IP address, which the Remarkable will give you. This features is disabled by default for obvious security reasons, but it's trivial to enable in the Remarkable's settings.
Point being: as this feature works perfectly fine in Airplane Mode, you don't need an internet connection to use your Remarkable.
> This is actually the biggest reason I own a Remarkable 2/Kindle Scribe, let's me "destroy" the book while also not having to worry about losing my notes.
Well... I'm mostly back to paper after losing most of the notes I had taken on my own Remarkable 2.
I buy paperbacks, chop and scan them [1] then use a reMarkable tablet + RCU [2] to do the reading.
Digitizing paper books and writing on them with digital ink is 100% the best way to have marginalia. I've tried special dotcode pens, portable scanners...writing digitally with a stylus is the best. Yes, it destroys the paper book, but it more than makes up for it with the freedom, flexibility, and durability of the digital copy.
[1]: https://www.davisr.me/projects/books/ [2]: https://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/
I so don't have time to revisit books that I've already read. I'd probably be embarrassed by my earlier naiveté.
Yeah I don’t understand highlighting/marking up books
Who actually has time to go back and look at that?
It’s like taking photos of fireworks
For many, the act of note taking, highlighting and marking up enhances the value of the reading. Revisiting is secondary.
This is eminently true for me. I rarely revisit notes, but if I take notes I have a much better recall and understanding than if I just consume the content.
Yep, and if I did there's no way I'd understand my previous notes.
Be proud of how you've developed.
I need to remember that this is okay. I didn't do it because of concerns about resale value... but recently I sold books for the first time in a while and got so little money that I realize this is not worth worrying about.
I also gave up reselling books I'm done with. I donate them to the little free libraries, friends of the library, thrift shops, and even give them to used bookstores.
There used to be bins where you could toss them all in, but those have disappeared.
I was once telling a friend about a book I had just finished. They were curious about it and asked me to borrow it. I politely accepted knowing very well they could never read my copy for it was embarrassingly covered in the messy marks I had enjoyed making during my read. Fortunately neither of us ever brought the subject again and I now think twice before messing up my books!
I wouldn't consider those things embarrassing. You may even consider it an opportunity to discuss the book at a later date?
Unless it's from the library. I've had to keep an eraser handy to undo some rando's bizarre markups.
I have a better way. Make a notebook and write stuff down there.
Mortimer Adler (of how to read a book fame) has notes on this https://socrates.acadiau.ca/courses/engl/rcunningham/2022-23...
MAny a times, the books I read don't have enough place to scribble so I keep a A5 half folded as a bookmark and write notes on that with page numbers. Once the book is over, I read through the points and try to reconstruct.
I use a mechanical pencil myself since I like the teeth and my handwriting is better when I use it. Also, ability to erase (not for cleanliness but more to avoid wastage of space) is useful.
Grandparent and parents always taught me books were sacred and shouldn’t be marked or damaged, not gonna side with either side as I do like finding small notes, etc. in 2nd books from time to time. I tackle it with a cheap little Canon Selphy photo printer I use for spitting out random hard copies of photos periodically from my phone. I always make sure to print an extra of any photo I really like. I then use these as my bookmarks in any book I read… I always have 20 to 30 odd non-fictions on the go at once in various states of reading.
This acts as a note keeper, bookmark and sort of time capsule for me. When I finish a book, i’ll always leave it in there. I don’t know why… but I just like the idea of random people (and my kids!) finding these random photos and notes in my books long after i’m gone! The photo in the book also links it to that period of my life.
I found a strange polaroid in a 2nd hand book when I was a little kid, then some years back I used a photo of my own as a bookmark, the memory bubbled back up, and here I am now. Wife and I kept saying we don’t print enough hard copies of photos, so this helps fix that a little bit as well - you could say I now print too many!
That physical books age and retain pieces of their history is one of my favourite things about them.
I found a used book that was given to someone when he graduated top of his class in the early 1900s. There was an inscription from the principal of his college, signed and with a seal from the college. I stood there gazing at it and couldn't help imagining how he finished reading it, left it here and there in his house and finally, after his time, in the attic of the ancestral home. It was later discovered by his daughter or granddaughter and then when they were cleaning up, sold to a second hand book seller rather than just destroyed.
Contrast that to a PDF which is just as crisp and clean as it was when it was created (and which could, become a format for which we don't have a reader anymore).
My grandad had a big library of books, but in his obsession of preservation, he wrapped all of their covers in gift wrap paper. It kind of defeated the purpose of having so many books in a library. You weren't able to browse them easily. I should go dive into them to take some some.
In middle school we had to make covers for all our textbooks on the first day of school (it was a school requirement, I guess to get a bit more lifespan out of the books). We used brown paper from old grocery bags.
Of course a lot of kids would then personalize their books with artwork and stickers. I guess it was that generation's equivalent of covering a laptop with stickers.
I did the same but had forgotten all about it until just now. I still put all the random stickers that accumulate throughout the year on my journal, it's a fun visual reminder of entirely random little things that happened during the year.
Marginalia is the best! I have a handwritten note about Ayn Rand in my 27 year old copy of Enchridion, a great reminder that she is like chicken pox, better catch her as early as possible. And several books such as I Claudius held together with duct tape. And soy sauce stains in Gargantua and Pantagruel from the place my grad school gf worked. Those count.
A bit of irony, going through old stuff I found a copy of Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line on top of handwritten running logs from sr yr of college. In that book, there was a ticket stub from the time I was 86ed from an amusement park. (I did not eat enough after training that morning.) I was escorted on a golf cart back to our car where I finished Neal's now charmingly quaint essay with the plastic handle listening to Nirvana.
This was August 2001 and Mac OS X had barely come out. Maybe AI rhymes where Chinese free open-models clean up but someone proprietary figures it out. Which is sad as someone dominant in the ecosystem right now is the equivalent of Gary Kildall.
Geez, if she is like chicken pox, what do we get that is like shingles later? :/
The current administration
+1 I have read most of Rand's works. She grew up in the Soviet Union and hated collectivism and carried it very much too far. Still I find value in her work, and if she were here today I would bet $100 that she would disapprove of the current administration.
The Trump one, the NY or CA ones, or all three?
I liked some of Rand's insights, especially about quality, and encouraging the act of deliberately trying to learn, analyze, and reason for oneself.
It is weird how a lot of Rand's stuff encouraged a calming environment while at the same time her books were so packed full of interpersonal drama, though. Not sure at what point her writing became less a warning against something and more 'for' something. It didn't originally read as the selfish crazy stuff a lot of the more vociferous "profit only" types seem to think. I have no clue how they ever read her stuff that way.
I suspect I read both Rand and Pirsig differently than most people, though. Rand was less of a hardass than people think, Pirsig much more of a stickler for; more in common than maybe at first or second read.
it is fun to get a reminder not regretting being obsessed with Ayn at 18 alongside my duct-taped copy of Foucault's Pendulum (note: the actual pendulum is at Musée des Arts et Métiers which was by far my favorite such place after a couple multiday trips to Paris). i still feel The Fountainhead is pretty far from Atlas Shrugged
Since this morning I happened to grab Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by DeLeuze & Guattari and inside (17 years ago, with a Pilot v5) i wrote:
"I have a feeling this needs to be revisited after another 30 years of production, process and consumption"
well, that time is now and AI is the body without organs du jour
(i am a weirdo really enjoying this thread of conversation right now)
No worries, there is even a Radiohead song about that (the weirdo part). ;)
Depends on the edition. I lent a book years ago to someone that was destroyed by damp on a window sill. I've never been able to get another copy of it.
A less rare book in a mass market edition would be another thing.
If I'm really studying a book I'll have an office supply store cut the spine out and make the book spiral bound. It's pretty cheap to do it too, like $10 or something.
I use high-quality tape on the spine after flattening it for easy reading; still flattens well, but holds together longer.
With mild (self-diagnosed) OCD, I can't even read a book with a single dog ear on it, let alone markings and writing.
This may not be you aim, but there is research out there indicating that highlighting text does not help with retention.
If you want to write in your books go right ahead, but the claim that marginalia and annotations have any benefit is dubious at best. A separate notebook is required. Nothing worth saying can fit in a margin.
I've come to using a pencil (usually mechanical) for this. I can write lightly (so that annotations don't dominate the printed text) and erase stray marks or correct erroneous ones. I've developed a notation convention which tends to make my intent clear without visually dominating the text. A light vertical line along sections I want to highlight, stars, question marks, or bangs, occasional comments of my own.
I recently overcame this as I've been reading more of the unread books populating my shelves. I always wanted to keep my books in pristine condition and never wanted to mark them up. Now, I realize they are part of MY collection and marking them up with highlights, underlines, notes, etc., only make them more valued since they contain their intrinsic knowledge from the author as well as my own views. Even if I want to give them to friends to read, they'll see areas that jumped out to me and maybe appreciate some of the additional context or focus I noted as well.
Aside from my college books, I rarely marked any physical books up. When I went to ebooks on tablets from hardcopy, briefly, I got into notes and whatnot with MoonReader for a couple years (like 2013-2015). Don't see any point in it now. Mostly just questions, and always about non-fiction.
What's annoying are people who want other people to find their notes in books (and even sell them for the ego aspect).
For sure. The literal first two pages of any book, essentially the back of the cover and the title page, always host a huge list of pages plus summary of something interesting i saw in the book. For instance, it will say something like:
* p85, interesting semaphore usage
or some such. This also condenses the books to important things so I can do a speed read to recall the most important parts.
You don't need to "destroy the spine" and severely shorten the book's life; you can and should break books in[0].
0. https://www.museumbookstore.com/blogs/blog/how-to-open-a-new...
Know what's way easier? Writing in a companion notebook next your book, with as much space as you need.
> A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up! Don’t be precious with them
I do all that, all the time these days... :-) I thoroughly enjoy it! Sometimes I feel like having discussions (disagreeing or agreeing) with the author and will write entire pro/cons examples and/or arguments.
Better yet, take actual notes abd give yourself space to think: https://www.dsebastien.net/2022-02-17-how-to-capture-book-no...
I don't mean this with any disrespect, but people love to find ways to overcomplicate things that work perfectly well. And maybe for some reason that overcomplicated version works better, but for many it's at best a waste of time, at worst an active distraction from the thing your trying to do.
Agreed. The important thing is to find something that works perfectly for you. Oftentimes I think people find their own perfect system and conflate it with being the perfect system.
True :)
Eep, I guess it depends on what kind of learner you are. For me, the notes being in the book, and the book being somewhere on my shelf spatially encodes it into my mind.
Offloading things into a centralized store according to a system not only causes me anxiety but it doesn’t have the same spatial kick.
I used to take notes on loose sheets of paper, fold them, and stuff them into the book between pages. I guess there are lots of ways to build a system.
A few books I've taken enough notes to collect them in a folder. I put section tabs in the book and tabbed dividers into the folder with matching colors. I note the page numbers for each note. Then I shelve that folder to the right of the book it was noting.
Reminds me how the original Mac Finder took spatial memory very seriously. Wherever you moved something on the desktop or within a particular folder, it stayed there.
That’s definitely a design principle that’s been long since lost.
I agree with the spatial memory and the many possible and valid ways to approach reading and learning. But it's much harder to recall, connect and leverage ideas that way
not as much as I used to but I still take handwritten notes when reading something I deem worth doing so by some personal semi-rational algorithm. my favorite exercise ~15 years ago was reading People's History of the US and Kissinger's Diplomacy at the same time, and taking notes in the same notebook in parallel columns. Naturally I went into product
I do this, but with Post-it notes. Something to do with the deification of books in the culture I was brought up in, which makes writing on the margins of books a sin.
Yes! 100x this. I do this all the time with my print technical books.
I recently lent a book with some scribbled notes of mine to a friend and they were all like "oh we love scribbles in books". Another way to connect.
I've found I don't like marking up books, because what was highly insightful and revelatory on the first read, seems obvious and boring on the second read
I use a folded computer paper as a book mark and take notes on that with a page number for reference. It preserves the book and makes it easier to find what I want.
for situations like this - I feel like e-readers are beneficial - the one's with a pen.
since u can always create copies of documents. u can make it up as many times as u want.
or the old school way - using a photocopy for the pages u want to markup / print 2-4 pages in a sheet of what you want to read. & throw away.
I started doing this in cookbooks, less of this, this needs longer time in the oven, etc.
The first time it felt like a crime.
> A corollary to this is, when reading books, mark them up!
Not library books though.
Every so often I get one with stuff underlined with pen or highlighter, and it's one of things that really makes me angry. (Lightly in pencil I'm okay with.)
Advice from an inexperienced reader, please disregard (and don’t do this to library books!)
No. Books are not to be massacred that way, if you need take notes you can still write that down on a piece of paper and leave in the relevant page inside the book. If you need to write that much have a notebook and put your book notes there, no need to destroy a book.
The way people take care of their property says a lot about them. Destroying and defacing one's own property is not someone I would trust. I'd prefer to work with people who treat their possessions with proper respect.
I would not be so quick to judge. Book are better consumed actively than passively. To me it hints on a desire to absorb what's being read. i.e. a thirst for knowledge that is weighed above material possession.
A lot of books being read and not done so for knowledge. And there are other ways to actively consume without mistreating the book itself.
Post it notes tho...
I hear you, some books are precious on a personal level but most books are made to be used, worn, enjoyed, thrown in backpacks etc.
I can understand the used book experience gets ruined a bit, but to be frank I didn't buy the book for someone else, and they made tens of thousands of copies. I'm going to dogear the pages, write notes where I want and generally utilize the book.
I feel the same about most things to be fair, I love seeing the wear marks and signs of life and use on items. Nothing lasts forever, and it's nice when you can see the stories told by an object by it's scars.
> Cross out stuff you disagree with, draw a big circles around the stuff that resonates.
I hate it when people do this. Please don't. If you must, do it sparingly and for the love of all that's good please do not cross out words or sentences.
The only thing I can forgive is people who quote a particular paragraph they liked about the book in one of the first pages where there's enough blank space. It's a personal touch that doesn't taint the rest of the book.
Some mark that this belonged to someone, maybe from decades ago, can be charming; but please, do not ruin the book for me by scribbling all over it.
> please, do not ruin the book for me
It all boils down to this: if it's a personal book that I don't intend to share with anyone ever, then I'll scribble all I want¹.
If I think it could be read by others in the future or it's obviously meant to be read by others (library loan) then don't.
And instead take notes on the side, with page reference if you really want to refer back to a specific page at some point.
---
¹ There's always a risk that a nosy kid finds my scribbled advanced-potion-making book in the future, but what's the worst that could happen?
Fair enough.
I always assume someone will inherit my books, either when I die, or because I gave them away as gifts or exchanged them for other books at a used books shop.
This is my stance by default, but let's say there's a book I love which I never intend to part with, even then I would feel bad about crossing words out. After all, if I love the book, what's this "violent" disagreement/scribbling about?
> But please, do not ruin the book for me by scribbling all over it.
How would someone writing in their copy of a book impact your ability to enjoy your own copy? Relax, it's their property and it's not criminal, so let them do what they want instead of trying to dictate rules.
Because I inherited the copy, maybe as a gift or bought at a used books shop? It's obvious from context I'm speaking of books that ended up with me, otherwise how would I even know they scribbled all over them?
> Because I inherited the copy, maybe as a gift or bought at a used books shop?
If it's from a book shop, you can thumb through it and choose to not buy it. If it's inherited or a gift, then what's the harm? Just discard it if it's been "ruined" or shelve it if there's some sentimental reason to keep it, and get a clean copy to read.
> It's obvious from context I'm speaking of books that ended up with me,
I doubt any of my books will end up with you nor will the books of the vast majority of HN readers and commenters, so why should any of us care about your peculiarities and avoid doing something that works for us and that we want to do?
> If it's from a book shop, you can thumb through it and choose to not buy it. If it's inherited or a gift, then what's the harm? Just discard it if it's been "ruined" or shelve it if there's some sentimental reason to keep it, and get a clean copy to read.
Sometimes you can thumb through and discover flaws, sometimes you cannot. Sometimes you can get that exact edition in better conditions, sometimes you cannot. Sometimes you buy a lot of used books, and cannot check every one of them. It's always a disappointment to find a book with pages all scribbled over.
> I doubt any of my books will end up with you
You're being too literal here.
If you don't care about my "peculiarities", just don't engage with me. Someone mentioned their attitude towards scribbling, and I cared enough to offer a counterargument on why I dislike it.
No.
> Destroy the spine
That's why I got an e-reader in the first place all those years ago, fucking books closing themselves all the time. Terrible UX, smh.
no, I'd rather use sticky notes or washi tape
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Wow, I can't believe Neal Stephenson of all people writes exclusively by hand. His books are tomes.
I totally buy that this is the case for him. I wonder how much is just what he's used to vs what's actually better. I feel like I write so slow compared to how fast I type that I struggle to put the words together on the paper. I can spurt out something with a keyboard 10x as fast, and then re-review and re-organize and all that.
Knowing that makes a lot of sense. Sometimes his prose can read like a sentence that was started but he’s too much effort in to give up on. It probably helps his writing to do it by hand - you can’t edit quickly on the fly with paper (unless you’re cutting stuff out). I could see this as being part of his process - just write and let the editing happen later.
Whatever the process it is, long as his books may be, it works.
This actually explains why I've never been able to get into his writing despite rave reviews and countless recommendations by people I know. Something about his writing always just felt tedious to me. Im an avid reader btw.
His earlier stuff was much better. If you tried Snow Crash or Diamond Age and didn't like them, he's not the author for you, but if you tried his more recent crap like Anathem I would strongly advise you not to judge him based on it.
Give his earlier works a try and you may find he used to be able to write well (ie. he used to actually edit his work), before he stopped caring and just wrote 1000 pages of unfiltered garbage.
I find his earlier works a bit too bizarre and quirky. Although Snow Crash is the essence of cool.
Seveneves is probably my favourite, I guess I prefer harder scifi. Fall; or, Dodge in Hell and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. were pretty good too, although less so. I want to like the Baroque Cycle but I haven't managed to get into it so far.
If writing by hand is good for your brain (and I suspect it is), the slowness may be part of the reason for that.
I wonder if fiction writing at that level is like coding. You can learn to type and navigate really fast, but unless you're working on blub software, if you're doing something interesting and novel, you won't actually get to the goal faster. The bottleneck is the ideas, the structure of the story and the development of the characters, amongst many other concerns.
If I was a writer, I wouldn't use paper not because I want to write faster but because my brain works best in iterations. I want to try out an idea and see how it feels and course correct. Doing so after writing a hundred pages would be tedious. But then what do I know, I haven't actually written any books.
David Foster Wallace was a longhand manuscript writer too.
I gave up on the Baroque Cycle, personally, because it felt like it was taking as long to read as it was taking to hand-write.
The point is to write better, not faster.
I wonder if Brandon Sanderson writes by hand :-D
No: https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/what-program...
Speed is the enemy.
I taught Gore Vidal how to use a computer in 1995. After a week worth of trying to use a PowerBook Duo, he went back to pen and paper. When asked how to improve my writing, he said use a pen and transcribe your favorite author. That I would eventually find the rhythm and style and make it my own.
As I understand it, that's more or less what Benjamin Franklin says he did to become a better writer.
https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2017/10/02/how-ben-franklin...
Benjamin Franklin said the same in his autobiography. I wonder if Gore Vidal had read it.
Very interesting. Hunter S. Thompson described the same technique for learning to write. I'll try it even if it only gets applied to technical blog posts...
I always remembered this anecdote. Was he a fan of retyping books? Or writing long hand?
That's really cool. I read Lincoln when I was around 18 and it has always stuck with me. The books you read become a part of you; they grow your view of the world. Books are the only way we have to capture the experience or mind of another person, and directly transfer not only their words but almost a sliver of the authors soul directly to others. Movies, sure.. But books hook into the imagination and mind.
when studying mathematics and computer science i would handwrite algorithms, draw all psuedocode on paper first, and reconstruct steps from published papers, all extremely useful
i've actually had marketed to me on the socials a course on "transcribing" professional writers demonstrating various angles of the craft. I'm sure the course was vibed or something. Pretty easy to identify authors you like, and whose dialog snaps, whose descriptions you identify with, whose doing great character development, etc. And then transcribe them....
EDIT: maybe the term I was looking for is: copywork?
i read half of Troilus and Criseyde out loud to myself one summer in college and i may be a weirdo but it paid dividends. unbowdlerized Chaucer is the tits
Never knew about Ben Franklin. Thanks! After spending a week with him, no doubt he was the smartest and best-read person I'd ever been around.
> "don't use a gadget"
I agree with this but for a different reason than what the author gives.
When you write in a notebook you can see where what you are writing is within the notebook (e.g. ~1/3 of the way through, etc). That seems like a small thing but I think it really helps with anchoring the memory when writing, as well as with referencing it later. And of course you can also add all sorts of tabs and page markers to help even more.
The same is true when reading a book.
As a child I was diagnosed with a condition known as dysgraphia, which makes it difficult for me to make my hand write what my mind wants it to without straining myself. Typing doesn't seem to be as affected for me for some reason.
Sometimes I'll skip whole letters in a word without thinking and need to go back fill it in. Sometimes my baselines will drift as I write a sentence despite the paper _being lined_. Cursive is nearly impossible for me without extraordinary effort, despite me thinking it beautiful and wishing to improve my abilities there.
Dysgraphia for me makes it difficult to write for extended periods of time, and results in very poor handwriting. In fact, the reason I first got a computer as a little kid was so that I could type school assignments, and this was in elementary school in the 90s when everything was still handwritten where I grew up. I even typed my math homework with awkward notation in College (my professors hated me).
All of that said, I still find that I agree with the sentiment of this post, and I do keep notebook. It's laborious for me to write, but I still find that the intentionality and forethought that it demands produces (think about it, you're committing something immutable in the real world with ink and paper) something we're losing: deeper introspection. I know this might sound silly or pretentious like hipsters and vinyl records, but I think there's something in physical writing worth keeping despite its inconveniences.
Yep. Same here. But I don't do notebooks. Any gain I might get from the writing is outweighed by the huge discomfort that writing gives me. I'm well shot of it.
I've always been pretty skeptical of the data which says handwriting is better for learning than typing. Yes, handwriting causes more brain activity, but just because your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing!
For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk. This does not mean it's an efficient way to program, nor that coding on a unicycle is better for learning.
I know lots of people do say they learn better when handwriting, just like some people say they learn better while going for a walk. This does not translate into a universal theory of learning.
When I take notes when typing, I can transcribe the content word-for-word without knowing what I am hearing and without thinking about it.
When I hand write, I am generally forced to either slow down and repeat what I am listening/watching (if an option), or actually think about what is being said, and choose the important parts to write down, or rephrase it in a more efficient-to-write way.
I am taking a course right now and I find repeatedly that I understand the concepts from taking down the notes (many aha moments), and then I remember. I rarely if ever actually look at the notes I take - they are objectively inferior as a product compared to the official course notes or the textbook.
Maybe typing would be efficient for learning if I was bad it - could be an interesting hypothesis to test.
When I hand write taking notes, I am indeed forced to slow down, and it's maddening. I'm busy trying to figure out how to condense the ideas into something I can quickly write, and in the meantime the lecturer is continuing and I've missed something important they've just said.
I genuinely do not understand how people find it helps them to handwrite notes in a lecture. If I type on my laptop, I can do that "mindlessly", which is beneficial because then I have enough of my brain free that I can also understand what the lecturer is saying. Ask a question if I have one, etc.
If I'm hand-writing notes in a notebook, I can't do any of that. I'm so focused on trying to get the stuff down that it's using a lot of my brain that I'd really rather be using to actually think more deeply about what is being said.
I'm genuinely so baffled by people who find that hand-writing notes helps them understand the material better. I used to assume they were terrible typists, but I don't think it's that.
But for example, with your comment, you say that when typing notes, you can transcribe word-for-word without knowing or thinking. But... why not just actually pay attention? Isn't that the whole point? Why do you need slower handwriting to force you to actually pay attention? That's what confuses me so much. I pay attention by default. Writing notes by hand takes away from my attention, because I have to give attention to that.
Writing notes by hand feels like it etches the concepts into my brain in a way that listening alone does not. Typing does not have the same feel.
I have never learned how to do something substantially difficult (math, foreign language, any science, or memorizing a substantial amount of content for a humanities course) without handwriting it. I remember in 8th grade latin, I copied down conjugation charts onto a chalkboard over and over until I had them memorized.
I cannot do university level mathematics without writing it down by hand.
My typing is much better than my penmanship, but it doesn't tend to make topics stick in my brain in the same way that handwriting them does.
I'm very curious what that's like.
Like, handwriting doesn't do a thing for me. It doesn't help me learn at all.
I can't help but wonder if there's some advantage that I'm missing?
But on the other hand, I don't seem to have any problems paying attention or learning. So I'm still just so confused as to how it helps. Like, is my brain already doing the things that some other people need handwriting for? Or is it not, but handwriting doesn't do those things either?
I think I'm extra-baffled because I can't even imagine how it could help. Like, I can't think of any analogy to anything else that would help me understand. I already understand the things and listen to and see, I don't have any issues with concentration or anything... so what does the handwriting add?
I see a lot of people say that it forces you to think more deeply about the material, but I'm kind of always on "maximum thinking mode" already.
It's hard to describe. In upper level math (real analysis and the like) in college I would write every single thing the professor wrote on the chalkboard down in my notebook. I didn't really study or do much homework, but copying down those proofs made the concepts stay in my brain.
Do you write when you do math? Math and handwriting are so intertwined in my experience, I can't imagine doing math past high school without at least jotting some parts of the process down.
Math is different, because most people aren't quick/accurate enough with LaTeX to take notes with a keyboard.
And taking notes in math is different from other subjects anyways, because you are literally just copying verbatim. You're not doing any of the summarization and selection that people talk about being so important to do, because handwriting is slower.
So I think that copying down math notes verbatim is not really what people are talking about at all when they talk about the benefits of taking notes by hand.
It kept me listening. When I was on minute 70 of a boring lecture I started daydreaming. If I was writing even minimal notes, I'd need to briefly consider each idea and decide whether it was worth recording.
But if you're taking notes by typing then you have to be listening as well. You can't daydream and transcribe at the same time. At least I sure can't.
Where does this explanation fall apart? There must be a cutoff point where more difficulty of getting the info down is worse than more ease. Otherwise, wouldn't a better recommendation be to do all your notes more slowly tracing with your big toe in the sand and then taking pictures? Do touch typists get less out of digital note taking than hunt and peck typists?
Give subjects a chopstick for each hand and say you have to hold one end and type with the other, and then test recall/understanding? That could be interesting
If you don't read notes, why waste time making them instead of slowing down even more and spending that extra time/effort on active listening/thinking?
I get distracted and my mind starts to think of better ways to explain the last point... Soon I have no clue what the last ten minutes were about. Taking notes makes me get back on task faster so I can find the next note to write.
I'd like to slow down and just listen but the reality is I won't.
Interesting, so "otherthinking" is bad here. Have you tried other devices to turn yourself back on track without the extra work?
They way the slow down and spend extra effort is by writing notes.
Writing is thinking.
Certain kinds of writing is thinking, but you're not writing in the thinking way, you're transcribing.
Thinking is thinking. Then you can write your thoughts for later use of think more instead
Writing is a distraction from thinking.
This is how it was explained to me by a tutor: handwriting is better for learning because it's slower. The need for brevity forces you to mentally engage the material in ways that are more conducive to understanding and recall.
If you can replicate that mental engagement while typing, you'd probably get similar results.
This makes a lot of sense to me in light of what we know about how learning happens. I have never seen any research on brain activity though, and my tutor didn't cite any.
I've heard this theory too—but I feel it doesn't match how we do anything else in life. For example, you could make typing slow too by forcing people to type with two fingers, or use a really tiny keyboard. Are touch typists worse at learning?
This doesn't really refute the theory—maybe touch typing is worse—but it doesn't match my logical intuition at all.
> Are touch typists worse at learning?
Wish I had a definitive answer. I do know from personal experience that when I'm touch typing notes while reading a book or listening to a lecture, my thoughts drift fairly often. (I'm a fairly fast touch typist though, 140+ wpm.) I'm also more likely to be thinking, "damn, that's a lot of notes!" rather than about the material, lol. Whereas while handwriting, I'm heavily engaged with the material, to the point where I lose sight of the fact that I'm in the middle of taking notes.
Oh and because it's so easy to make quick edits while typing, I find it hard to resist the impulse to correct a typo or add an extra word here and there, which further distracts me from the material.
Also, I can touch type for long stretches without the slightest mental fatigue, but I need a tiny mental break after 30-60 seconds of handwritten note taking.
If the method used for purposeful slow-down results in more cognitive load to type, it should make it worse. With enough practice with the method, the slow-down could remain whereas the cognitive load could go away. I think then it should match the effect seen with handwriting.
Here's my own more detailed article, though it's not saying much more on this.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/handwriting-better-than-typin...
Because it is about learning. You can't learn a hard phrase on an instrument without slowing down. You can't touch type fastly without learning the motions slowly first.
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IME it's not just about slower. It's about forcing you to think about how words go together, where line breaks fall, how you're laying out bullet points, etc.
Since you can change all of this on computers (or it happens automatically), you don't have to give it thought before writing it down.
>your brain is doing more does not mean it's doing the right thing!
the thing it's doing when writing with your hand is fine motor control, one of the most important and distinguishing abilities that humans have.
I tutor in a makerspace and one thing I've observed it's that it's now easier to teach old people how to solder than younger kids, and that in my experience has never been the case before. Due to growing up on impoverished digital interfaces I see lack of dexterity that I've never seen in young people before. Same reason I suspect you see a decline in people picking up tactile musical instruments like the guitar or violin.
I agree that fine motor control is important, I just don't think forcing people (especially kids) to write by hand is necessarily the best way to do it. For example, if the kids went to your makerspace, they could learn fine motor control and probably enjoy themselves more.
Forcing people to handwrite both makes writing more laborious and takes away from what is actually important in writing, which is forming your thoughts. At minimum, when handwriting you can't go back and insert words or rearrange sentences to try out different ideas.
I do still think kids should learn how to write by hand, because it's culturally important. However, I think it could be emphasized somewhat less, and I don't think schools should teach cursive (which, anecdotally, I think is actually having a small resurgence in many schools).
It actually is difficult to find an exercise for developing fine motor control that is as complete and as cheap as practicing handwriting.
All other exercises would need more expensive tools and after inventing a sufficient number of different patterns for other activities, that would be practically equivalent with writing a different alphabet on another medium than paper, e.g. carving wood or stone, etc.
I did not like to use handwriting for things like taking notes at school or at the university, and I switched to typewriting as soon as I could afford a computer. For work purposes I now use only typewriting.
Despite this, I am very grateful that in the first years of school I was forced to practice handwriting, even if I have abandoned decades ago the style of handwriting that I was taught.
The reason is exactly what the previous poster has said, that this practice of handwriting as a child was essential for developing the motor control that I needed later as an electronics engineer for soldering or for assembling and disassembling various miniature devices.
>from what is actually important in writing, which is forming your thoughts
for one it's not clear to that this is what is actually important in writing or unrelated. That's just a bias in a culture that systematically neglects embodied practice.
In Japan there's an increasing phenomenon of Kanji-illiteracy among the young. Turns out there is a close connection between writing them out, the order of strokes and the physical activity and the memorizing of meaning of the Kanji, just passive observation or digital input can't replicate. There's a reason calligraphy is such an important tradition. There's an inherent connection from your hand, to your working memory to the processing of symbolic meaning.
This mirrors the discourse you see in math. "Rote memorization, writing equations, isn't important, you need to be able to think" turns out it really isn't and countries that teach traditionally excel at math. We live in an educational culture of thinking-pilled people who disregard the physical world and practice with abysmal results.
> "Rote memorization isn't important, you need to be able to think" turns out it really isn't and countries that teach traditionally excel at math.
...this is very much not my understanding of the literature on math education, I'm not sure what you're referencing.
Handwriting notes engages your spatial memory, which is incredibly powerful (see: the ancient method of loci/memory palace techniques)
There were times in college where I blanked on important information during an exam, but was able to recall it by visualizing the physical sheets I had written my notes on. I aced several infamously difficult classes like OChem and OChem 2 using that technique.
I’ve never found it possible to do that with typed notes.
I'm curious how many times you end up in the similar situations as an exam after you graduate from college.
I share your experience of remembering written notes while a student, but I also don't have any critical need to perfectly remember any of the notes I'm taking now so comparison points are scarce.
I still remember the code shape of methods, classes or screens I work the most on while programming, so I don't see it as bound to a specific medium. That's one reason why I use figjam or Miro type tools so much as well.
Visual and spacial memory are powerful for many of us, but the relation to handwriting and perfectly memorizing things isn't straightforward, and getting adapted tool will tremendously help IMHO.
Have you tried a virtual board, like Miro?
Not above commenter but I have. I have done OneNote, Miro, and several other canvas style apps. And for me it still just doesn’t click in my brain like writing it down.
I think like many things, it's not universally true. At least for me I'm a really slow writer (and poor spelling), that if I were to hand write notes in a lecture, I'd focus on writing and miss half of what is said, and fall behind to the point that something I was copying from the board gets wiped off.
Maybe typing isn't ideal, but it's the better of the 2 options for me.
When you are writing notes during lectures, you should not write word for word. If you do, you will never catch up with what is said. People often speak faster than they write.
If you want to take notes during lectures, you need to learn how to summarize in your own words. You need to write the stuff down so you can remember what was in the lecture. Something you can summarize the whole sentence with one word. Notes are for you, not for other people to read.
More to the point, even if you type fast enough to transcribe the lecture (or you know steno or pen shorthand or whatever), transcribing simply doesn't do the job of note-taking. (I speak from direct experience -- I did audio transcription work for a few years, and I generally wouldn't have been able to pass a test on something I'd just finished transcribing, even after having gone back through to do proofreading/editing at the end. There was some degree of mental engagement with the substantive meaning of things in the moment, but it was largely a "pass-through" sort of activity, if that makes sense.)
The idea isn't to merely take down a record of what was said, but rather to integrate the concepts into your own understanding: What associations can be made with existing knowledge, can you demonstrate to yourself your understanding of an abstract by contriving examples of it, can you explain it to your grandma, do you have a clear model of its scope/boundaries/limits and of where it fits into its domain, do you know the why as well as the what, etc.
The part where we have to condense what we're hearing into something concise enough that we can keep up is a feature. For that reason I wouldn't really recommend transcribing the lecture and then making notes out of it later, either (ideally we should be reviewing and organizing the notes into a more structured / fleshed-out / pared-down (as needed) form later anyway, so it would just seem to add an extra step). I don't know what everyone's courses are like, though, so maybe that approach could be useful or necessary for someone.
(And of course the takeaway here is that, assuming my understanding of it is well-grounded, and provided there isn't truly something inherent to handwriting that makes it cognitively advantageous, typing should have the potential to be just as workable a medium.)
This doesn’t work well with hard science lectures like physics or math.
Even when just copying what the professor what writing on the blackboard I could barely keep up.
It’s hard to summarize those lectures on the fly, and it might be a mistake as you’ll miss some important steps.
> This doesn’t work well with hard science lectures like physics or math.
I found the exact opposite. My math and physics lecturers were expecting us to write what they wrote on the blackboards or overhead projectors down. So they had prepared the lectures this way, they wrote at a decent speed so you had time, and you could think about the steps as you transposed it to the notebook.
I found many small mistakes the lecturer had made this way, forgotten a sign or forgotten a factor, as I would follow along the whole time and go "wait, how did he get this from that".
I wrote it all down, but I seldom had to study them afterwards. I would often just gloss over and I would recall it all.
This was in stark contrast to other and later classes where the university administration had pushed hard for slideshow-based lectures. There the slides moved so fast I didn't have time to take proper notes, or I had to sacrifice listening to the lecturer. I ended up stop taking notes and just listen, but the memory of that wasn't as good as the handwritten notes, not by a long shot.
Luckily when I was studying for my Organic Chemistry degree it was just pictures and arrows and not a lot of anything else!
You're not really addressing parent's point IMHO. They could totally be taking well summarized notes on their computer, and free more time to properly listen instead of scribing it painfully.
I'm sure people have anecdotes of students furiously typing down every word of a lecture, but that's the same point for people handwriting/half stenographing fast enough to do the same. The attitude isn't bound to the medium.
The only way I could make the system work for me was to study the material before the lecture. Then the lecture helped cement what I'd learnt and clarify any points I struggled on.
Riding a unicycle and coding are not complementary activities - you are multitasking. Writing is aligning different parts of your brain to the same task, perhaps it is just creating additional focus.
There is no logical connection between moving a pencil to construct letterforms and deciding what you want to say. They have traditionally happened together, because before computers (or to some extent before typewriters) there was no better way to do one without the other.
You think about words, those words become physical movements, those physical movements create a mark on paper, the brain reads those physical marks, which causes it to think about words, which become physical movements, which become physical marks, which are read, which causes...
I'm sure if you drove the unicycle through a trough of paint and then used it to make words you'd have a similar experience.
Yes, there is. The act of writing requires you to think about the words, focus on them, think about their shapes and how you must move your hands to form them. You are actively and methodically engaging with the vocabulary as you write the words down.
This is nowhere near the same as doing to completely unrelated activities at the same time.
That's completely the wrong analogy. It's fairly well established through studies that language acquisition in preliterate kids is improved through handwriting (as opposed to typing or tracing letters).
Yes, but that is a different kind of improvement compared to note king during a lecture as an adult. I think hadriting ability is important, I just don't think note taking dutin a lecture is useful in any way.
Anecdotally from only place where I have experienced both. When playing TTRPGs like Dungeon & Dragons when people fill their character sheets by hand they tend to remember their abilities, features, and spells much better than people who use a fillable PDF and print it out. Even same person with fillable sheet will have to read through it constantly versus them writing it up by hand.
Probably chunk of that is copying vs interpreting, meaning just writing the rule as written vs rewording it to make it more concise and fit your brain, but also part of it definitely is it you remembering where you wrote something down instead of having to scan through bunch of stuff just to find the place you need.
When designing a character on a computer, you play around with many options, until you settle on one of them. Since you did exactly the same thing for all those variants, it's difficult to remember which one you ultimately picked. Writing down the final result by hand helps distinguish it from the alternatives in your mind.
That's very different from academic lectures, where you are directly told the facts, and not a multitude of equally valid alternatives.
If you are just copy pasting off of the board then probably. Hard to say since I have not had experience with both methods in this context.
I still think writing by hand makes stuff stick better especially if you are one of those 500 wpm typists where very little thought goes into typing and it is more like a reflex
I definitely got more out of paying full attention to lectures in university compared to wasting effort on hand writing notes. And properly typeset lecture notes written by somebody else are much better for studying than the illegible handwritten notes I produce.
The studies I'm familiar with have tested recall at various intervals, not brain activity.
> I know lots of people do say they learn better when handwriting, just like some people say they learn better while going for a walk. This does not translate into a universal theory of learning.
If lots of people said they code better while riding a unicycle, I'm not sure I'd just dismiss it off hand.
No but I want real evidence. Lots of people say they are more productive with vi than a GUI editor but depending on the task a real study can show one or the other is more productive. You see this all over - expensive audio cables sound better than cheap...
It probably depends on the task. I find that writing things out by hand is extremely helpful for memorizing.
I share the skepticism, I feel you could probably pull up a bunch of random examples like walking being better for you than driving somewhere at a short distance but it's just not practical for long hauls and so they are definitely pointing to tangible benefits but maybe taking them out of context (enthusiasts for handwriting over typing pointing to real benefuts of writing but maybe ignoring how this can slow you down in impractical ways for greater speed and movement, etc.)
The problem is you immediately assume studies haven’t thought of that
Do you know that is how simplistic these studies actually are?
Well, it's not only my criticism. For example, here is one on the very study TFA links: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
A lot of education research is shockingly bad. (And, to be clear, a lot of it is also really good!)
False equivalence, the writing is always closely related to what you are thinking about.
The unicycle and FizzBuzz is (hopefully!!) not related.
A better scenario with FizzBuzz would maybe be writing down a sequence of numbers at the same time.
For myself, a significant difference is that writing a single word longhand "feels like" a single long unified action whereas typing a word "feels like" several short distinct actions. The motor-sensory action of writing matches that of speaking a bit more closely than typing, especially if you're a scribbler. OTOH I suspect typing is better cognitively for transcriptions, meeting minutes, etc., where deep understanding is unnecessary. I am sure you can cook up a study that proves or negates any one of these suspicions.
Sometimes I get benefit taking notes on a computer, e.g. I read Wittgenstein with notes in org-mode, took lots of notes about software/CS directly in the comments of the program implementing the ideas, etc etc.
As a pianist, typing a word kinda feels like playing a phrase on piano, which isn't that different from writing a word by hand. I suspect this is highly dependent on your experience.
This is pretty easy to prove via experiment, no?
1. Pick any topic,
2. purely reading,
3. try to write about it
I find myself "thinking" I understood something a lot more than I want to admit.
> universal theory of learning.
There is no such thing. Presumably there is a person who concentrates on algorithmic problems better while riding a unicycle. To the best of my knowledge the research shows people do not learn in the same way, although our hardware is more or less the same. The trick is to recognise what works for you, and only way to find it out is bu trying different things. Most people who succeed at all in higher education become experts on how they themselves learn best, simply because you won’t learn multivariable calculus, become fluent in Mandarin Chinese, or become an expert in late medieval poetry without trying every trick in the book to ram all that information into your brain.
Saying that, there is things that work for _most people_, active recall being probably the most universal one. Which simply means that if you do something a lot with a lot of repetition, you will eventually get quite good at it.And the probably is something in hand writing that forces you to actively engage with information processed better than typing for most/many people.
Personally, I have also noticed the better I get at touch typing the smaller this gap in enforcing learning by writing by had versus typing comes. That is purely anecdotal of course, but when we forced all the kids to use laptops to learn, did we teach them how to type properly first? Or to use computers in general? Or did we just gave them Chromebooks and said “good luck kiddo”?
I personally hate handwriting. My handwriting is ugly and slow, and I keep making annoying mistakes that I can’t fix. It’s generally a terrible experience.
If given the choice I’ll always type.
> For example, if I asked you to code FizzBuzz while riding a unicycle, I'm pretty sure you would show more brain activity than if you were just sitting at a desk.
This is an astoundingly bad comparison and I think you know how invalid it is. Doing two separate unrelated activities at the same time is not the same as engaging more parts of your brain by focusing on a single task.
You’re right in that what works for one might not work for others, but your argument is dishonest at best.
I mean, be skeptical all you want, but at least TRY it.
I know I retain more if I handwrite notes. It's my lived experience, so that's what I do in meetings, generally. These notes get transcribed back into some orderly data store for later reference, but the initial notes are pen and paper.
Oh, I can tell you for myself that handwriting is awful. I'm focused entirely on the process of writing and can't think about anything else. When I type I feel like I can move at the speed of my brain.
Or... Hear me out... Don't take notes at all. I'm sure I can find supporting material that is just much better than my paltry notes. I find that for me, it detracts from engaging with the material. I just much better prefer to listen and engage and think what is being said.
I only take notes if I am trying to work out some of the things said or as support for this or that or maybe 2 really interesting lines or quips I want to remember just so later and I find particularly surprising or interesting (or mistaken, hah).
When solving math problems, yes, by all means take notes! I find writing with a pen indispensable because it's much more flexible and expressive. And i need the memory caching that writing provides.
Indeed, the research is just laughable on its face, and of course it doesn't address the real issue - proving that all that extra brain involvement is positive, but hey, the author has already invested in the fountain pens, needs to prove it was the right choice!
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I always wrote by hand - probably because I spent over a decade in academia dealing with equations. I always have a pen in my pocket (without a pocket protector!)
About a decade ago I went back to writing with fountain pens after a nearly two decade hiatus. Oh, the joy!
But very sad he has no (real) tips on dealing with hand fatigue - other than to write in cursive. I always had hand fatigue for writing long stretches of prose - even back in my school days. A few years ago, I simply had to change how I grip the pen to reduce the pain, but I still can't write many pages without significant pain and the need for breaks. I can't imagine writing a whole novel that way.
Also, I wish he told us how he gets that handwritten stuff into digital form. Does he just mail handwritten stuff to the publishers?
In the past, I'd write twice: Once by hand, and then I'd type up anything worth saving to get it in digital form. A royal pain!
Then with Whisper and LLMs, life got a lot better. I would simply read what I'd handwritten, and get an LLM to clean it up. I only occasionally needed to fix it up after that.
Now LLMs are so good at it that I simply take a picture and send it to the LLM for transcribing.
I don't care how much people hate AI - for me it has quite literally reduced physical pain in my life.
The muscles in your hand and fingers are small and tire pretty easily. The muscles in your arm and shoulder are bigger and can do a lot more work. Back in the day, folks who were taught "business cursive" like the "Palmer Method" were taught to keep their hand mostly static, and to guide the pen strokes using their arm. The way I do it is by planting my forearm on the desk as a pivot point, and moving my arm and shoulder to make the pen move. It took some getting used to, but my handwriting looks about the same as it did before, but no more hand pain.
That's quite similar to the "start from the shoulder and use your whole arm to strum" concept when playing the guitar.
Yes - I've heard this is the way to go. But will it work for non-cursive?
I almost exclusively write in cursive, so I don't have any personal experience, but I assume the only real difference is in how often you pick up the pen, so my guess is that it should be roughly the same.
> But very sad he has no (real) tips on dealing with hand fatigue
I also spent a good amount of time in academia (math & physics), wrote everything by hand (dozens of pages per day), and I, too, suffered from serious hand fatigue & RSI for years, even when using a fountain pen. My recommendations:
- Use as light and as thick a fountain pen as possible. Also, very thin & hard pen tips may be nice but in my experience they make it harder to write.
- Work on your posture (if you don't do that already). Work out your neck and your back in particular to compensate for sitting all day every day. A stiff neck (even if you don't feel that it is stiff) can seriously impact the nerves in your arms & hands and, thus, muscle tension & recovery.
> Use as light and as thick a fountain pen as possible. Also, very thin & hard pen tips may be nice but in my experience they make it harder to write.
I use Fine-Medium nibs (some fine nibs are too fine, and some medium nibs are too thick).
Amusingly, I've discovered recently that my handwriting is much worse with thick pens. I write better with pens slightly on the thin side (but not too thin). Of course, that doesn't mean it's better for my wrist!
I also write with fountain pens these days. Do you have a favorite model?
It changes every few years.
My first was the Pilot Metropolitan. Still a solid pen I recommend.
My next favorite was/is a PenBBS - perhaps the 309 - I don't have it on me at the moment. I replaced the nib with a Goulet nib, and somehow made it extremely smooth. I've not been able to make any other Goulet nib that smooth - somehow got lucky.
These days I'm heavily using a Platinum Plaisir which is also surprisingly smooth (no modifications).
Every time I've paid more than $50 for a pen, it hasn't been worth it. I can't get the ink in my Opus 88 pen to flow consistently. I'm sick of it.
I'm partial to Faber Castell nibs, but the pen I bought had a grip that I didn't like, and I don't want to spend the money to try their other pens.
Not OP, but Sailor KOP Naganita Togi.
Learn to write with both hands. When one becomes fatigued switch to the other one.
I find his dismissal of iPad writing to be unconvincing. He talks about how we have calibrated our writing utensils over centuries to involve the proper amount of friction, and how that knowledge goes out the window when you're writing on an iPad.
That may be true, but it's not like you can't just re-acclimate to the experience of writing on an iPad. Most people don't handwrite much, period, so if they start handwriting again they're going to have to have an adjustment period either way.
I personally would think that the the benefits of digital writing (searchability, portability, infinite canvas, handwriting cleanup, digitization) would outweigh his friction quibbles. I personally don't find it to be tiring to write on an iPad, even without a screen protector (which some people use to increase friction). Also, e-paper devices tend to have more friction-y feedback, but he doesn't address this at all when dismissing all "gadgets" outright.
I went down the physical-writing-digital-capture system over a 10 month period. Bought the right stylus tips, the paper-like screen cover, etc.
Ultimately went back to my moleskine that fits in my back pants pocket and I don't have to worry about battery life.
Perhaps the biggest reason why my experiment failed was that I found it difficult to look back at digital written notes beyond a week. There is no physical flip...
Equally important though, I didn't retain information quite as well when writing against a screen. I can't explain it. I wanted the system to work, but it didn't. Maybe I tried to write too verbose, more carefully than I would a paper page... hoping my more careful writing would be captured by OCR better. I don't know but it was different. Intended focus matters.
Less effort = more retention to me. Digital writing, at least at that time, was more effort to me it seems
My issue with the iPad is that it just does not have the fine-fidelity or response time of real ink, and it's not something that never fails.
It's so frustrating to be so pregnant with an idea, to open ones iPad, and to find out the battery is low, Procreate isn't working, the Notes app is confusing to navigate, oh no you're writing but your palm has slid on the screen, etc.
I've spent a lot of time searching for a digital alternative, but IMO we're at least a decade away from digital handwriting being even close to on-par with paper, even ignoring friction and feel.
I do find the iPad battery drain to be annoying and inexplicable. When they first came out, iPads held a charge for weeks in standby. New ones drain in a few days, even when background app activity and such are disabled. And you're right that it is frustrating to pick up your iPad and discover that the battery is near-dead, which happens with surprising frequency.
That critique doesn't apply to Remarkables or Kindle Scribes though.
I shut my iPad down when I’m not using it because the passive drain is absurd. I don’t need my iPad to do literally anything when it’s screen off. I have a phone for notifications.
Find my, most likely
Turning that off, or using automatic airplane mode (eg in shortcuts set a schedule to turn on airplane mode daily)
Huh, will give both of these a try. But man, I would not be thrilled if the only way to have decent battery life is to make my iPad not-findable, or to have to turn on wifi whenever I want to use it (I couldn't really set much of a schedule).
Seems like the Find My bit could be taken care of by not updating location until the gyros are triggered. Honestly I'd be happy to have it in airplane mode when not being touched as well. IDK what they could call the setting, maybe an Airplane When Idle Mode?
It got really bad a few years ago: telegram notifications, homekit and find my were the culprits.
Just check battery stats, it will show what drains the most.
But after one point in time I gave up and just set up airplane mode automation every 6 hours
I agree. My iPad 2 could last a month or more in standby. My iPad 8 maybe one to two weeks.
The study he cites is also specifically using digital pens
> Brain electrical activity was recorded in 36 university students as they were handwriting visually presented words using a digital pen and typewriting the words on a keyboard
kinda funny.
It's also not clear from this study that there is actually any benefit to "more brain activity". Of course doing more complex motor tasks requires more brain activity but nobody guarantees that this helps with remembering things.
i had no science, but in college for shorter works i always thought handwriting, typing, and reading it aloud was my allowing my brain to hit a problem in three different (not more, different) ways before / even if ever being in front of another human being (or now their non-union AI equivalent)
i still feel writing something down helps with memory formation, in part because i remember the act of writing it down. cocktail napkins and whiteboards way better than ipads also
i remain obsessed with Pilot v5 rolling ball extra fine; i would say Pilot g2s are for proles but the outcome if you leave it in the dryer is far less severe
I have a "paper-feel" screen protector and a metal nib on my Apple pencil. The combination provides a comfortable amount of friction for me, and the fact that it's matte cuts down on reflections.
Friction is also variable, with pen and paper type. Although the iPad is a bit too slick, it gets very fatiguing (I did most of my HW in college on the iPad)
It may be the case that the iPad is slicker than ideal for some people, but even if that's the case it doesn't relate to his point about centuries of adaptation or whatever. In the past, we were limited by the laws of physics and the materials available in our environment. If people could have had whiteboards 200 years ago instead of chalkboards, they would have taken them (easier to erase, no chalk dust). But they didn't have them, so they didn't use them.
The problem with digital writing is that you loose spatial orientation because of panning and zooming. At least I think this is the reason why I sometimes prefer pen and paper.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees with this statement and it makes your comment seem a bit reductive. It's not so much a dismissal of writing on a particular product (iPad) as much as the article is about optimal writing by hand, the best materials, and some of the reasoning as to why.
While you may be convinced writing on a screen or tablet is objectively superior to doing things the "old way" there is literature on the topic indicating otherwise you might want to consider - that being said, everyone is different in their preferences and anatomy. I for one can't stand to write on a plastic/glass surface with a stylus, the ergonomics feel wrong and my retention for journaling is significantly worse.
iPad is terrible for hand-writing. It's (relatively) heavy, so you can't hold it and write on it. It's slippery, and the friction between the pen and stylus is bad.
The pen itself also produces gigantic strokes.
Not only is it heavy, but it's stiff and rigid. If I lay my notepad over my deskmat and not all of it is on it, that's no big deal, the notepad just conforms to the surface. But the ipad is going to rock back and forth.
It's also that I'll often not have my entire notepad on the desk, I might not have room, might only have the top corner on it, or just quickly jotting something down. An ipad, that's too precarious and unstable, no a notepad, it just works.
I often have like an inch of the notepad hanging off of my desk, when my arm is across it, the notepad just flexes and it's fine, if I do that to an ipad, it's cutting into my arm.
It's not just the ipad, I've also tried a remarkable and a kindle scribe and they all suffer from the same issue. Notepads are just more flexible, both literally and figuratively.
The stroke size is highly customizable. What do you mean "the friction between the pen and stylus is bad"? As others have pointed out, you can get screen protectors and nibs for Apple pencils.
The problem is that the screen surface and the pen are fairly far apart, so the stroke appears "floating". This makes it harder to do fine drawing.
Try to "dot i-s" in a long word and see for yourself. It's just awkward. So people compensate by using thicker strokes that hide that "floating" effect.
I'm studying Chinese, and writing the characters is pretty much the only way to learn them. So far, the only device that semi-worked for me was a reMarkable 2 tablet. But its software is too shitty to be useful.
So I just switched to paper completely.
Agree that it would not be best for fine drawing (although the new Pros have the proximity feature that perhaps helps with this. And I agree that Chinese characters could present similar issues in terms of legibility, given how much precision is required.
But for writing in English and many other languages, it seems like this doesn't present a huge challenge. I am particularly interested in (but have not yet tried) the handwriting cleanup feature. This seems like a nice middle ground between full digitization and leaving chicken scratch as-is.
I loved reading the writing-setup guidance. After a lot of writing myself (mostly throwaway stuff) I've settled on a fountain pen with a small stack of decent printer paper on top a stainless steel clipboard. I skip the clip and use four magnets on corners of the paper to hold it in place. The magnets are either small enough or slide around easily enough to give me the space I need to write but hold enough to keep the paper in place. Importantly, the magnets don't cause any ripples or rising of the paper as the clip does over it's backing. Writing on this setup feels uniformly smooth.
Once I settled on this method, other writing setups felt unsatisfying. Maybe others will enjoy this setup as much as I do :)
I like writing by hand, but I don’t agree with the logic that it’s good because it recruits more areas of the brain. The less effective the medium is, the more of the brain it will recruit; chiseling on a stone tablet is probably a more complex task and it probably gives a more broad stimulus to the brain, but it does not mean it’s such a good idea. I would personally prefer to use a text editor for effective writing and then crochet for fine motor skill.
I agree that “more areas of the brain” does not mean better necessarily, however I do wonder about the chiseling stone thing.
If you chiseled some formula or something into stone you’re unlikely to forget it any time soon. I wonder if forcing yourself to ruminate over something a bit longer than it takes to type it, in a way that can actually hold your attention or repeatedly bring it back to the topic, doesn’t indeed help.
Right, it's a false signal. It doesn't mean that more things are retained.
I think what happens in these types of threads is that the people who like handwritten notes, perhaps even obsessively so, all pour in. But that population of handwriting fans isn't necessarily representative of the population overall.
I've done Julia Cameron's "morning pages" exercise off and on over the years, write three full pages of flow of consciousness by hand first thing in the morning, and it's shocking how good it is for unlocking ideas and working through problems when done consistently.
Totally agree.
To others: The book is called "The Artists Way", and is an excellent guide to become more creative and expressive.
Another recommendation for this.
I've done that for a time, then fell off for the past few years. Today, I'm getting out my journal right after I hit 'send' and I'm doing this. To whoever is reading this and may be in a similar situation, let's start the streak up again today!
EDIT: I did it and am glad I overcame the inertia - it was a little over a whole year since I pulled out the journal, so if whoever out there is still on the fence, give it a shot, it's worth the accomplished dopamine afterwards!
Do you keep a daily journal normally - and for the daily pages, do you have a separate notebook for them, or a folder full of pages, or what?
Thanks for inspiring us!
Not the GP, but my daily journal goes in a proper journal book (though I find the cheapest possible one that has semi-rigid covers) and my freewrites go in cheap wide-ruled composition books.
The only rationale I have for that is the journal form factor holds more words and is easier to pack on trips, when I tend to leave my freewrites behind.
Don't underestimate the importance of a pen, ink, and paper you like. I found my pen a decade ago: Lamy Studio, in British Racing Green, with a medium nib. I found my ink not long after, from J Herbin's collection.
It wasn't until I got a nice notebook from Leuchtturm 1917, though, that the ensemble came together and I started looking for excuses to get my kit out and write things down. Since then, I've moved onto notebooks from de Kempen, but the point stands
A nice pen is... nice. But it's as easy to fall into geeking out about pens and paper as it is keyboards, knives and other kitchen utensils, tools, etc. In most cases, any pen is as good as any other. Or just find a cheap mass produced pen that feels good in your hand. They are plentiful. Then buy a stock of them.
I actually like using pencils, with a thick lead because I tend to have a pretty heavy hand when writing and I will continually break a thin lead.
Pencil with soft lead works perfectly for me.
I don’t know about the brain but it’s good for the final results in my experience coding, writing and composing (orchestral music). The results are better and it takes less time if I start with pen and paper before “committing” to the computer. One of my favorite authors Jennifer Egan also writes fiction on paper (non-fiction articles still on the computer). More thoughts: https://www.phpied.com/starting-in-the-analog-domain/
I’m 2.5 years through college in pencil and paper. I’m 45 and the Apple Pencil sucks compared to regular paper and pencil. It was fun for the procreate course but I would never depend on it for actual note taking. My retention is off the charts compared to my fellow students who are largely not taking notes that I can tell, at least when they’re younglings rather than my middle aged self. Apparently the biggest problem with modern students and note-taking is that they cannot handwrite rapidly because they never learned cursive.
Don’t be involuntarily incapable like your peers, kids. If your school didn’t teach you cursive, teach yourself ASAP. Not calligraphy, not oblique italic roundhand, just pick a cursive and do an entire drill book end to end and make sure to take hand breaks whenever it hurts for 5min.
I love handwriting. I do daily logs of my workday. I just write what’s happening, what I’m doing during the day, what tasks are coming in, and so on. Surprisingly, it works well for a person with ADHD. It’s a method to ground myself and avoid slipping into ADHD hyperfocus.
The only problem I have is doing it comfortably. My desk is cluttered with a keyboard, laptop, and monitor. There’s barely any room to write with proper posture, and shuffling things around every time just isn’t practical
Huh. Sounds just like me :D Depth helps there. Since I started working mostly on desks with a depth of 80 cm in front of me (or 31 inches that is) it's gotten usually pretty easy to squeeze in a notebook or a paper (also hanging the monitors on the wall, so that no foot is on the desk any more, gives another extra 10 cm).
I actually have around 70 cm, but for some reason it still doesn’t feel right. Maybe removing the monitor foot is key.
After reading your comment, I tried moving the monitor as far as I could to free up space. And it’s actually better. Notebook is next to the keyboard on the right side, not sure if that’s optimal when looking back and forth
You need more desk space, you need mega desk: https://youtu.be/nwoIJxDRu8M?is=P5Z1Zi4qas1Wi2BM
I'm a convert to the idea of just having a cup full of Bic Cristal (cheap, ubiquitous, reliable, replaceable, 76 year old design) ball point pens. Whenever I temporarily misplace one, I just grab another from the cup as I find them. When I'm cleaning up, they all go back to the cup. However, his point about how hard you have to push to write is making me reconsider. On the other hand, I'm also not writing 42 inch high stacks of manuscripts like him.
The modern version of this is the Pilot G2. Scatter 'em around everywhere! 80% as good as fountain pens at 1% of the fussiness.
I have a Lamy 2000 (well, more than one...) that I adore for writing anything with any actual length. But I still scatter those G2s around.
I used to be a fan of Zebra Sarasa (retractable, not one of the variations) which I thought was better than the G2, but it wasn't always reliable (maybe they changed something), was more expensive, hard to find in stores (G2 are everywhere though), and accumulates a glob of ink when you draw a line across the page, which ends up wherever you next write something. I happen to have a G2 next to me so I'm testing it for the same problem now, and ended up with a glob somewhere along the long line. I cross things off of todo lists a lot or draw dividers between sections of the page so that happens all the time. Still, it might be a good compromise for the pressure issue for writing sentences.
Not that I'm that price sensitive, it is kind of nice: Sarasa ($2+ each, if you can find it), G2 (~1.25 each), Cristal ($0.10-$0.25 each)
The G2 definitely does glob. That's one of its bigger faults. (Others being that I, personally, prefer a line width between the 05 and 07 options -- obviously this is world-stoppingly critically important -- and that really old ones, I mean really old, tend to get disgusting sticky grips.)
Mostly they're just nice for being fairly rugged and reliable in a way most nicer pens just aren't, for carrying loads of ink, and for being ubiquitous. They're far from perfect. They're just... Good Enough™. And that's good enough!
I do one slightly different, if they carry the G2, they likely also carry a pack of retractable Pilot Precise V5s in a 4 pack of black. I prefer V7s or V10s, but even a v5 in black has a better/softer grip than a G2, does not glob like a G2, has a cool needlepoint that plays nicer for fine writing than a G2, and has a stronger clip than a G2.
The downsides are A) nontransparent barrel B) people tend to steal them more than G2s and C) 80% as available as a G2
The V5 is a great pen! They used to be my daily driver, and if you want what they do well, they're hard to beat. (Fountain pens can and will, but they're fussy, and everyone knows it. They're basically V5s on steroids: same highs, same lows, just more of them, with more choice and customization possible.)
But I would never call them "robust". Unfussy, yes. But a G2 glob is just a minor annoyance. A V5 leak, and they do leak, is a real problem. They're also prone to quick deaths if they roll off a table. G2s don't care about such minor mishaps.
So the G2 is my vote for "sprinkle everywhere".
Having tried gel rollerball and fountain pens, I always end up going back to clutch pencils with soft leads.
The author dismisses all pencils because he has to press down hard to use them, but I don't press down any more than I would with a fountain pen.
Being able to erase is also a bonus. Not to mention the ASMR sound!
I've never heard of clutch pencils before! I'll definitely check them out since I'm not sure I'd ever put pencils and asmr in a sentence together -besides the one I'd just typed- and yet I still occasionally need one.
>pressure
the gel pen I use can write under its own weight, so it's surely less pressure than any pencil would require, unless it's particularly soft and hefty?
I don't doubt the premise, but this sounds like another in a long series of Doing X May Delay Onset of Alzheimers articles.
Most of which includes the author's favorite mental task, food, or exercise.
There was a study with nuns in the early 2000s which found them doing crossword puzzles daily....
The core idea is really solid, but isnt half the article about finidng the right type of paper and taking care of fountain pens? I don't think my setup (free notebooks from events + ballpoint pens) will reduce yourt brain activity compared to a fancy fountain pen and fancy italian paper.
I have found writing even on my ipad with apple pencil to be wayy better than typing on my keyboard.
I am thinking of switching to a supernote which allows me to write on a paperlike surface, but mainly because it is free from distractions and notifications on an ipad.
i mainly like the idea of a blank canvas and writing and rearranging thoughts on that canvas - which pen and paper do not allow.
That's not the point he was making at all though.
He wasn't saying "buy a fancy pen, it's better for your brain".
The positioning is "every time people hear that I write on paper, they come up with all these reasons why it won't work for them (crap/smudges/etc). These are the things I do so that's not a problem for me"
I can write code just fine on a random Dell membrane keyboard I got for free, but it's much more satisfying to use a mechanical keyboard. It seems like the same idea applied to hand writing, and I think you're more likely to do more of something if it's enjoyable.
I wonder to what extent these habits or quirks are self-learned or "self-imposed" (probably the wrong word). I guess, it gets us in the comfort zone to free up our brain energy to perform more important tasks.
I don't think there is an argument in the article that contradicts you. The part about choosing a pen is to point out that pencils and cheap ballpoint pens require more effort than fancy fountain pen. Which is true, but it is mostly commentary about "writer's cramp".
The part about choosing paper is about fountain pens being blotchy where better quality paper helps.
You can write with anything and on anything, but just like how it is much more enjoyable to type on a fancy mechanical keyboard it is more enjoyable to write with fancy fountain pen. Although I prefer gel pens since they are just easier to have a bunch around.
Hard disagree on both accounts. Mechanical keyboards are obnoxious and tiring to use because of the insane travel. Fountain pens are nice when they work, but the ink evaporates, the nibs clog up, and accidentally bluing yourself is not uncommon among fountaineers.
To each their own. I love my mechanical keyboards and I have never had problems with fountain pens.
My guess is cheapest versions of each are the problem
Agree, the best part of writing by hand for me is that I can do it anywhere and anytime. Randomly during a hike or laying outside in my backyard, small notebook + pen is easy.
Fountain pen + fancy paper sounds like I am tied to a desk again. Stephenson is probably doing way more intense sit down grind out some pages type writing sessions though.
Don’t wait for the right equipment to start writing, _but_ there is a little joy in just splashing a little on a nice pen and nice paper. A few decades in life and I’ve assembled a set of multiple fountain pens, in different colours and sizes with different inks and colours. It adds to the fun like herbs add to a dish.
the point isnt that it is 'italian paper' (actually the high quality stuff is generally from france and japan), but the coefficient of friction of the paper is much reduced. It is not fancy as much as it is very well engineered
- coding without an LLM is also good for your brain
- whose gonna tell it to em?
- dont worry, the long term studies are going to pick this up big time 5 years from now
And the long term studies will show that it’s indeed not good, people will discuss it, and nothing will really change, except that there will be a counter movement, and writing code by hand will become a real craft again.
We also know fast food, alcohol, etc., are bad for you and yet most people do these things. I wouldn't bet on LLM usage going down due to it anytime soon.
I thought the purpose of coding was to produce software, but apparently every action I take should be evaluated on how well it achieves arbitrary brain calisthenics.
Yes the brain is known to be useful when writing software
jej
Coding manually keeps you focused on irrelevant details. I find people that actually like that cognitive style and try to remain in it for as long as possible insanely unproductive. They'll spend years coding up shit that can be replaced in a month. I've seen it happen multiple times now and I'm getting sick of it. Proper problem decomposition and architecture is everything. Think about your problem domain. Code is just bullshit.
I'm dealing all day with developers incapable of thinking about anything else than "queries", "classes", "structs" and "early returns are bad". Semantics, ontologies, interfaces, abstraction boundaries, problem decomposition: ain't got no time for that.
We got structs to initialize, copy constructors to worry about and header definitions in bloody C++ to deal with! Oh look, you forgot to use Yoda-speak in your conditional, also you initialized two variables instead of one in this completely transient, temporary piece of code that is only run once every two months. Let's talk about this all morning! Because code hygiene is so extraordinarily important. You should definitely worry about each and every line of code. I hear it's "good for the brain".
I wonder if an LLM could just turn my hand-written notes into code, and if so, where this’d land on the brain health spectrum.
Wacom tablets come with a stylus that simulates a pencil lead.
It actually wears down over time which may sound like a bug/trying to get you to buy more but I have to say that it really does feel like using a pen. There is just enough drag to give you the sense of moving without it feeling like drawing on glass (like an iPad).
A lot of people reading this may say "But I'm a SWE, not an artist. Why would I ever need this?" My response is that if you ever used a whiteboard and now you work remotely, you would be surprised how much faster meetings can go when you can quickly draw out a data flow. I'm a DevOps/SRE and I've also used it during outages to explain to management or other teams "ok, here is how it's supposed to work and here is what's broken"
If you get one, I highly recommend the Medium [0]. The Small is very portable but feels a bit cramped and the Large is too big for someone who isn't using it all the time. The Medium is just big enough to be comfortable but easy to put aside when you are using the keyboard.
0 - https://amzn.to/4bbT6lM
Kobo stylus is similar. Closest experience I've had to actually writing on paper. Quality of thought too, is closer to that of actual paper writing, compared to typing.
I've always struggled with writing by hand primarily because I tend to over-tense my grip on a pencil/pen even with an ergonomic grip attached. I learned to touch type pretty early on, so back in school before they let us bring laptops to class I would sometimes "type" notes and imagine the text of them in my head as I typed. This still helped with my retention compared to just listening and making mental connections between the concepts being introduced. Sometimes I would type out the full detailed notes and then by hand write out tiny personal shorthand bullet points that would help me recall the general point.
To this day, if I'm trying to learn something new, I will sometimes "type" on an invisible keyboard if I don't have a pen/paper or a smartphone I can write down specifics on. It doesn't work as well for things like memorizing phone numbers or like support ticket ID numbers, but I've found it helps me ingest knowledge even if it doesn't help as much with raw information the way writing by hand does.
Now all of that said, I have also found, like Neal Stephenson, that a high quality, low friction pen on notebook paper tends to feel the best and produce the least cramping. To this day, when I absolutely need to take handwritten notes, I use a Sharpie Rollerball 0.5 black pen with a small notebook, primarily for D&D (and other TTRPG) prep-work, so that I can recall specifics off the top of my head better while improvising.
I'm a huge fan of N.S. and what he says might be true, but I have an aversion to writing by hand after being tortured while growing up in the late 80s.
I just couldn't seem to hold a pen or pencil the right way and would always fall behind following along with the rest of the class. I was forced to spend hours at home with worksheets tracing over letters. I was led to believe that if I couldn't write properly I would be a complete failure.
It turns out being able to use a computer and type quickly was a more useful skill.
> Pains me to say it, but rollerball gel pens are about as good as fountain pens on this front.
This. Don't use pencil or normal ballpoint bell with thick ink. Good gel pens are really good and not that much more expensive.
That was a reccomendation from a philosophy professor I had in college. By the end of the semester, I didn't even have to review my notes.
I went back to school at 25, and that moment made me realize why school felt strangely more difficult, and then I remembered that we wrote down everything back then.
> when you write things down by hand you’re recruiting more of your brain, which is a good thing.
I completely agree! Perhaps it's simply for one reason: slowness.
Writing by hand slows down and the brain "breathes", calms down, and the waves of thought flow at their proper pace.
We aren't made to rush always: by slowing down, our brain also has time to better process thoughts and information, one at a time, and each one is given the "time it deserves."
Our brain works best when it's relaxed and has time to make all its connections.
Thinking is, first and foremost, an exercise in slowness.
(ps: I'm also left-handed, I wonder if this also affects the functioning of the brain...).
As an academic, I concur with the findings. However, some points for discussion:
1. I don’t believe iPad doesn’t offer the same benefits of writing with pen on paper. I mean iPad writing can be made to be almost as realistic as pen on paper with good accessories. It can be slow, doesn’t waste papers, you can edit, color code it, annotate in a way that’s backed up. I definitely like writing on paper, but I don’t see too much of a difference with iPad.
2. I absolutely love using Pilot V5 RT pens, and haven’t found something that is as smooth and satisfying when put on paper. What are your favorite pens? Are they available on JetPens for trying? Thanks!
If you love the V5, then the next step is definitely a fountain pen. There are plenty of guides out there, so I'll not waste time doing an inferior job of making a specific recommendation.
Out of all the things I’d consider to help me improve or be more productive, this has to be at the bottom. I actually used to write notes all throughout college, mostly because I couldn’t afford a laptop and would use the school desktop computers when actually writing code. But, I don’t see any degradation from moving to a workflow where I never physically write anymore.
I also don’t understand his stance on using cursive. Everyone that writes quickly develops their own scribble, which they can easily read and doesn’t involve taking the pen off the paper. What’s the point in relearning proper cursive?
> you’re going to get tired faster if your muscles have to exert more force
I like to handwrite, but my right hand gets tired very fast, especially as I got older. I write almost a shorthand style, and it is hard to read, but I value speed of writing things down versus the neatness or readability afterward. The author recommends fountain pen or gel rollerball pen, which I have both tried.
Does anyone have any other advice for preventing fatigue? I've also tried to learn to use my left hand, so I can switch hand when my hand gets tired. But even after months (or years?) of trying, I could never get it to write, or atleast to my satisfaction.
Clench the other fist while writing. This loosens the writing hand. Something in the subconscious releases tension in the other hand. It's a trick I've used with reasonable success and it's immediately effective. It does require a bit of conscious effort, but overall it's a great hack.
Other posters are providing advice about writing from the shoulder, and writing slower etc which I would agree with. The other thing I would mention is: how tightly do you grasp/hold the pen? Try relaxing the grasp a bit.
(I've noticed this with students I support. In the UK the public exams known as GCSEs and GCEs are written papers, and some adult students who need to take them have similar fatigue problems).
Edit: another poster has mentioned grip
If you're willing to try things like non-dominant hand writing, it may be worth learning something like business cursive. Most of the movement is done with your arm, and it was designed for people who had to handwrite all day for their job.
A liquid ink rollerball pen, for example the classic "uni-ball Vision Elite" is even closer to the effortless writing experience of a fountain pen (i.e. with a minimum pressure on the paper), than any gel pen (but gel pens are still much better than traditional ball-point pens, which require an excessive pressure on the paper; fountain pens and liquid-ink rollerball pens need to just touch the paper, almost no pressure needed).
Versus a fountain pen, a liquid-ink rollerball pen has the advantage of being insensitive to orientation (which may be difficult to control if you tire easily) and it is also much more unlikely to dry up when unused.
I do not write so much by hand as to become tired, so for myself I prefer a Japanese fountain pen with a nib that allows variable-width lines, for less boring letter forms, but if the criterion for choosing is the maximum possible comfort then I recommend a liquid-ink rollerball pen, and I have experimented with all kinds of writing implements known to mankind.
Except for using the most comfortable writing tool, there is nothing else to do besides changing the style in which you write, to simplify the hand movements.
Perhaps you should alternate between 2 different styles of handwriting, because they might stress different hand muscles.
I have no idea what style of handwriting you use, but I am not convinced that the kinds of "cursive" handwriting that were taught in many schools are really the least tiring, despite their emphasis on minimizing the number of times when the pen is raised from the paper. Many years ago I have abandoned the kind of writing that I was taught as a child and I have switched to one of the variants of the so-called "Italic" handwriting, which are now promoted in many places and which are a revival of the Aldine letters from the Italy of the 16th century, which have also been the base from which the so-called "Italic" style of the printed typefaces (fonts) had been developed. Such a handwriting has improved readability, but how fast and comfortable it is felt, can vary a lot between people. It works for me, but that does not mean that it would also be the best for others. There are books and on-line tutorials about this.
Perhaps you should just write slower, to avoid fatigue.
Consider using "bubble mapping" and connecting words/thoughts, instead of writing linear text.
I write a daily journal - in this calm relaxed mode, I write linearly (on dotted paper).
When I'm in a business meeting, or taking notes where time is fleeting (a speech / seminar), I use bubble notes - which is effective for quickly getting the thoughts down, and connecting them.
Give it a try!
Don't hold the pen too tightly. Find a pen and paper combination that doesn't require force to write. Ball point pens on cheap notebook paper are notorious for requiring too much force. On quality paper with a good pen the ink will flow effortlessly because of gravity and capillary action. You will only need a light pressure.
I'm left handed and I never really learned a good grip I could write with. So I've always struggled with handwriting. I also have an essential tremor in my left hand. As I have aged, the tremor has gotten worse. So now, I have to grip tight to minimize the tremor.
I've pretty much given up on handwriting, it's embarrassing to either try to write, or have someone else write stuff for me. I ask my wife to fill stuff out for me all the time, but people probably think that's weird when they see it.
That sucks, sorry to hear it. Have you tried seeing if a tablet handwriting recognizer can be trained on your writing?
There is a technique where you keep your hand almost still and move the whole arm instead.
https://youtu.be/-F8SA_QySkc?is=z0P7I8loxuHVwKXn
Write slower.
I write by hand to hack my productivity.
I buy nice notebooks and nice pens that are satisfying to use. I practice my handwriting, so the finished work is satisfying to look at. I think it gives me a bit of dopamine boost.
Go a bit further and use pencil or charcoal so you can smell the wood and lead and feel the texture of the drawing surface, helping your brain make more connections.
It also allows you to make more mistakes, which can lead to surprising directions.
And the team who makes the most mistakes usually *wins*!
See also:
The Hand - How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture By Frank R. Wilson
Drawing on the Right Side of The Brain by Betty Edwards
Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court by John Wood
You Matter More Than You Think by Karen O’Brien with illustrations by Tone Bjordam
I'm surprised he didn't mention editing. On a computer this is trivial; on paper you need an ink eradicator, correction tape, or correction fluid. And even those are only good for small corrections. If you want to insert a sentence or paragraph somewhere, that's not really possible with paper.
Also, if you want your text to be published online or printed, it needs to be digitized somehow. Which is a good OCR tool for handwriting, especially if it's not very legible? Just feed scans into Gemini perhaps?
Agreed. As someone who frequently rearranges the structure and order of sentences as I go, I don't even know how to attempt writing by hand. It would be a complete mess. I expect that the common refrain would be wait until the second draft to make such rearrangements, but it's often the bones of the story I'm trying to set properly, and if the bones are broken, there's nothing for the meat to dangle upon.
But maybe it's different for me, since I write nonfiction?
I think writing by hand trains you to be more deliberate when writing. You can't easily go back and make changes, so you have to think ahead more before you write.
For paper it also helps even more than digitally to outline the logical structure of a text before you actually write down full sentences.
I suspect it's because Stepenson stopped editing his work a long time ago.
He used to write a ton and edit it down to a normal-sized book, but once he got popular he just decided to (seemingly) publish everything he wrote, without editing.
As a writer, I used to love to handwrite; it was practical, easier, faster, with no misspellings. But now, I had to adapt to the new format, and I think I'm good at it too. If I write something by hand now, I must think of putting it on digital, and that's overwork and time-consuming. I also tried using OCR apps, but it never feels the same, and the outcome might be wrong sometimes too, which means you have to edit that work. But I still try to write lil notes by hand when possible and practical. But yeah, I miss using notebooks for handwriting. Feel nostalgic now.
Does anyone here handwrite a blog? I've been thinking about doing that, but I'd be interested in how people accomplish it. Personally, I'd like this to be a hobby that gets me away from screens, so I'm looking to focus more on handwriting and minimize how much I'd need to interact with a digital device.
"Paper Website" seems appealing, but I haven't tried it yet: https://paperwebsite.com/
Not a blog, but I handwrite presentation slides sometimes. And, of course, pages of notes. I use my ReMarkable 2 for that, so it's pretty easy to import to desktop and run scripts.
I’ve recently gone back to writing by hand, at least for text that is of a reasonable length. The workflow that works for me is a third-party app on my iPad that converts my handwriting to digital text that I can then paste somewhere.
I’m sure, as the author says, it’s not as good as the real deal of writing with an actual pen, but I need it to be digital text eventually and don’t want to waste a lot of paper. I have found that I’m more creative and enjoy writing more.
I'm curious about everyone's opinion on writing "by hand" with a stylus on tablets like the Remarkable, Kindle Scribe, iPad+Pencil, etc.
I like sketching and outlining with pencil and paper, but my handwritten notes are often illegible and disorganized. I know it's partly process and my poor penmanship, but digital surfaces compensate for this with built-in organization, searchability, and easier integration into projects and knowledge bases.
I think tablet handwriting is fine. I had some six weeks of down time a while back and took advantage of it to go through the Getty-Dubay book Write Now: the Getty-Dubay Program for Handwriting Success to improve my handwriting legibility. There's a website now https://handwritingsuccess.com/ and for your purposes even more relevant, there's a mobile app. I'm not affiliated, in case you're wondering.
As for disorganization, that's kind of the nature of early notes. There are ways to kind of organize them. One technique I use is writing them on notecards or notecard-sized paper, which I can later shuffle and organize.
I used an iPad + Apple Plencil for my last 2 years of University. I love the idea of digital notebooks, but for me writing 99% of the time in cursive zero friction between Pencil and glass was not a good combo. I find, at least for me, cursive needs that friction.
I tried some big name matte screen protector, I can’t remember now what it was called, and it was pretty good. It was like 70% of the way to feeling like paper. The Pencil tips would wear away but they still lasted much longer than the sticks for a mechanical pencil would. But the way the matte finish would diffuse light hurt the sharpness of the iPad display so I’ve been using these Pencil tip covers instead. It took some getting used to, and I still prefer actual pencil to actual paper but this at least saves me from buying and storing tens or hundreds of notebooks.
I tried for years to make handwriting on the iPad work, but it never clicked for me. I randomly encountered a reMarkable Paper Pro Move recently, instantly purchased it. For the first time in my life, I no longer tote a paper notebook with me. The software, simplicity, low-latency, form factor, writing feel, everything is absolutely perfect for me.
My handwriting is roughly legible on paper (but getting worse). It is the same on an iPad+pencil with a Paperlike screen cover. It was impossible to read on my Remarkable 2 - the resolution just isn’t there for me.
I think it’s important to have that friction between the stylus and the screen. And if you have that, I am pretty happy with notes on either my iPad or paper.
I found the Paperlike to be worse than the iPad screen alone, but I've been happy with the Astropad Rock Paper Pencil as it comes with a replacement tip for the Apple Pencil that has a metal tip and generates some noticeable friction.
I was filling notebooks too quickly and didn’t know what to do with them so I switched to a Kindle Scribe. It’s more expensive than a bunch of nice paper notebooks but it’s worked well for me. I export my handwritten notes for safe keeping and can have AI conversations with them as material. I also tried Kindle HD tablets, which worked just as well, but I got a lot of eye strain since I also work on a computer all day.
I am in the same camp. A year ago I switched over to taking notes on a Kindle Scribe, and as a voracious note taker it has been going very well. There are a few small negatives: - twice a page of text just vanished completely, in roughly 500 pages written in the past year, due to some shenanigans with the selection tool - Over 40/50 pages notebooks don't seem to export reliably. So for my work notes I start a new notebook every month (I average approximately 1.5 pages per workday) - I no longer scribble as many unspoken impressions down as I did with paper (where I had known before, that small writings in the margins on some paper of mine where as save from looking in to, as the insides of my Jeans' pocket watch pocket)
Positive: - I can send PDFs of my notes out within a minute to any email - a lot less to carry around, I just make sure to keep it with me, nearly all the time - organizing notes retrospectively is a big leap forward from paper - I can just select lines of text I wrote and move them around, even shrink them a little (to fit an extra line of text or two on the same page)
So far I haven't gotten used to actually extracting the notes with the Kindle application on my PC, it's always going over Amazon's servers whenever I click "share" to export my notes...
How do you go about having AI conversations with your notes?
I was cleaning my office a couple of days ago and found stacks upon stacks of paper. I've had a habit for over a decade of taking printer paper, folding it half length-wise, and scribbling notes on it as I work. I use it like a temporary scratch pad. It is an ingrained habit at this point, as soon as I have difficult focused work to do I reach for the paper and pen. Urgent site-wide outage? Start scribbling. Big feature decomposition? Start scribbling.
So I have this massive stack of notes that I glimpse at before shredding or whatever. Nothing of permanent value, nothing that I look at even 24 hours after it is written. But the sheer volume of the writing like that I do surprises me ever time I clean it out. It's like a novella sized stack of paper with server names, sketchy diagrams, peoples names, dates, commit hashes, debug messages. Lots and lots of lists. Things underlined, circled, stars, strike through, arrows, etc.
It is such an ingrained habit that its almost a compulsion, like someone is tying my hand behind my back if I don't have access. It is like my brain needs reassurance that some detail I just noticed won't be lost, at least it will be on the paper if I need it in the next 5 minutes. Like an extension of my short-term memory.
I have also kept a journal for 20+ years, mostly on paper. I often use a fountain pen (Lamy 2000) and notebooks with high-quality paper, but I am not super picky about it. I've used the cheapest school notebooks to the finest Japanese boutique papers. I'm a fan of the Pilot G2 and pens that have a similar feel. I'll also journal in Google Docs, Apple notes, or text docs in VS Code.
It is hard for me to disentangle the supposed benefits from the sheer weight of habit. It is just something I do, part of who I am.
> Removing friction by using a hard stylus on glass will actually make the process more tiring.
Well since I've never written with a fountain pen, and the type of paper I write on with the fountain pen matters, I'm probably better off picking up the habit with an ipad or the like.
From the source paper:
> Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning
I would also be interested in whether the parts lighting up are actually contributing to learning the task at hand. The 2024 paper quoted above didn't mention a test for comprehension. The prior Stanford experiment also reasoned that writing helped with comprehension because students were forced to summarize.
I'd like to see an experiment that forces both groups, typing and writing, to summarize while their brains are scanned. I'd also like to see results from tests for comprehension for each group. I feel like that would make a stronger case for whether the benefit from writing is actually worth it.
This is why Microsoft created Tablet PC and later Surface with handwriting pen: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/surfaceitpro/thinki...
No, that's not why.
And it's good for your brain to read the whole article, not just the title:
"Don’t use a gadget"
feel like he is saying 'do not use a frictionless writing surface' and generalizing that as 'gadget'. my remarkable is very similar to real pen and paper and has helped me immensely in retaining course material when taking notes vs my laptop
I have used fountain pens for the past 30 years. To me, writing with a good fountain, pen and quality paper feels like an air hockey puck floating on an air hockey table, smooth and effortless, and it allows me to get into the zone and think much better than I can by typing and to a lesser extent writing with other types of pens. Whenever I have something really important that requires deep thought I always use fountain pens. They do require maintenance in the form of periodically cleaning them, but the benefits of improved thinking outweigh the minimal maintenance cost.They are inexpensive and I find the quality of the paper is also important which I did not originally appreciate. Personally, I like Pilot fountain Pens, which start at about $15-$20, and Maruman paper. Both are readily available on Amazon or from specialized sources.
My big problem with the fountain pens is that the ink evaporates over a few weeks. Like bone dry, needs a refill.
If you use cartridges, you might try buying a converter and using bottled ink. Takes about 10 seconds to fill and the flushing of the pen by filling makes it right smoother longer before having to flush out with water. I’ve only had that happen when I left a pen for several months and forgot about it. An incidental benefit, as there is an almost infinite variety of types and colors of inks. If you go to a site like jet pens, or Goulet pens, they have a whole range of inks you can choose from
Back in uni, I used to write down notes both in class and during my own revision. It truly helped me pass tests. My go to was the Pomodoro technique. 25 minutes of reading and writing then 5 minutes of rest. Did this for four 25 minute sessions. By the end of the day I had short notes of what I had read that day.
dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49004202
This was my personal trick at the university. I was writing down all the notes during classes, even at the ugliest of my handwriting, but after classes insat down and rewrote the whole Notes in a better and clear way, so I was directly storing information in my brain.
I just needed to re-read the better notes 1 or 2 times and I could already recall the information, even at distance of time.
It's ironic that the article that caused him to write this post (https://substack.com/@justindeschamps/note/c-261265212?utm_s...) is written by AI.
I see this style of informational writing all over the place now.
On the topic of left handed writing: Switching to the uni-ball jetstream (RT SXN-210 or Sport SXN-150S) was a noticeable improvement for me. I did not search for other alternatives but would be interested if there are similar quick-drying options that work well. I tried the Pilot G2 before that because it got recommended often, but for me it was way worse.
I've always love stationery. Over the years I've looked up pen reviews and tried out many different types including fountain pens.
I watched a video recently from someone, from memory the creator behind the youtube channel vsauce. Very briefly, he lost some notes to water. His words, thoughts and ideas vanished. His solution was switching to pencil.
I found the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfY2JACiDGU
I'm addicted to people talking about pens and pencils. Adam Savage also has done a few videos on his favourite mechanical pencil.
Apparently Stephenson loves fountain pens and reluctantly gel pens. In general, those are water based inks and will wash away with water. There are one or two fountain pen inks designed to be more permanent and won't wash away with water.
Just something to keep in mind if you're currently writing or want to start.
I did some fade tests with several pens and a pencil on a laser print. The pencil and toner were the only things that hadn’t faded in direct sunlight after two years. Even high end pens faded.
To be fair, your notebook probably won’t get light like that, but pencils are pretty archival.
Interesting. I wonder if in 100 years time Stephenson's fountain pen writing will still be around. No doubt they are all scanned, but, maybe the originals will fade.
I saw another video about someone's favourite pen and he gave the reason as check fraud. Apparently the uniball 207 is pigment based ink and doesn't wash away in acetone.
I just searched then on youtube for acetone pen check fraud and it looks like there's a 13 year old video about it, and a million copycats. Either copycats are lazy, or the 207 is still $2 13 years later.
For last few months, whenever I am trying to understand a difficult problem or a concept or addressing a complex issue at work or in relationships, I try to write one page by hand. Often it brings clarity or surfaces the core confusion/misunderstanding. I don't know why that works but it has been really useful.
Speaking of ancient practices coming back into favor: Are other people thinking meditation would be useful as they wait for their LLM to finish?
I've incorporated back writing by hand some time ago but find as models get smarter and I throw more at them they have also been taking longer.
In these moments even a notebook can register as something of a distraction. I already aim to keep my phone far away but I'm curious about trying to commit to meditating between prompts. Part of me feels like it would be a little silly. But maybe not.
Doodling in a notebook feels preferable in these moments but also feels like a context switch when the agent is done. Then again perhaps I need to just refine my process so notebook planning can feel like it is working more in parallel with the LLM rather than us blocking each other...
Writing by hand, marking stuff and seeing the paper come to live is very rewarding when looking back at what you've done. But at the same time its so hard to organize, archive, and find previous notes, that's mainly the reason why I take digital notes more often.
This is a good pen: https://schneiderpen.com/uk/ballpoint-pen/slider-rave/132503
I still hand write a lot of code, and especially when starting out on projects or making more fundamental changes. I find it leads to better architectural solutions. My thinking has been that writing it out by hand can be slower so my brain is incentivized to think through the options and come up with more concise solutions. But maybe, as the article suggests, there are other small factors to hand-writing that lead to an improvement as well. I also use then go through the hand-written code to "execute" programs in my head and I think this also leads to higher-quality code. I encourage anyone that wants to be genuinely good at programming and software engineering to give it a try.
Perhaps there is a balance to be struck? I have thought long and hard about this, and I have settled on taking notes by typing on my laptop. The benefits are far too many: I do not have to carry my notes around to read them on the commute; I do not have to worry about losing them; I can rewrite them to my heart’s content without messing up the layout; and I feel that I type faster than I can write.
I do partly agree, though. When I am studying a new concept or reviewing old ones, I tend to scribble my thoughts down. I have not been able to replicate brainstorming while scribbling and doodling on an electronic device. The friction of my pen on paper seems to actually wire the pathways in my brain.
Used to write all meeting notes by hand to help me focus on the meeting and actually retain information. Fell out of the habit but must get back into it! Definitely helps especially if it's not a topic that's naturally gripping to me.
Since this is more about tools than the purpose I’d like to add my favorites:
Pilot friction pens - the four color versions. I find multicolored notes great and they are erasable.
Muji spine notebooks - hit the perfect balance between cheap and nice to write on. For me, a moleskin becomes “too nice to waste on this meeting” - the spine version lays flat and it is easy to rip out a paper if someone needs a sheet or you are really unhappy to keep some scribbles around.
It scores bonus point for cardboard cover making it easy to write on the outside
Added bonus points for no spills, blobs or airplane worries.
Silly question, if we believe the concept of evolution then we evolved to write by hands to materialize our thoughts. But as in some future we might not have paper to write on ( though we have writeable devices)
this gives me a question like when would our brain think its time to evolve from handwritting to typing and then typing to Brain computer interface so that we can write at the speed of thought?
> I use a lot of moleskine notebooks and Mead comp books, which I can buy in bulk online.
Moleskine notebooks are beautiful, but I always felt they were far too expensive. Would love to learn where they can be bought in bulk for a more reasonable price.
I wrote almost my entire PhD thesis by hand, with a pencil. When I made mistakes I erased them. My handwritten notebooks contain close to the final version of each chapter (there were, of course, some further corrections after typesetting).
I don't like writing in pen. I like being able to erase stuff. Having scribbled out bits looks messy and gets on my nerves.
Whatever implement you choose, I do concur with the author that writing by hand is good for you.
I don't write much these days, but I do fill pages full of notes, mostly diagrams and other pictures. I don't understand how some people with jobs similar to mine don't use paper at all.
I hated paper until I found a decent pen (frixion erasable, mediocre) and paper (Lemome grid notebook, very good). It's still harder than typing, but I've found nothing better for thinking through challenging problems.
When learning new languages, frameworks, or systems, I've learned over the last ten years that I -- as ADHD riddled as I am -- retain and engage with information a lot more when I write by hand, even if I am not medicated.
today I posted a show HN that got insta-flagged by an AI detector. I had written the post then gone back and forth with claude, getting to a refined version I thought was much better. claude said it would hit way better with hn (me?).
after getting flagged I found the original, reposted, and it is actually so much better. not polished, not a masterpiece, I'm nowhere close to a professional writer. But it's like a human story with the marks of human care.
i fear my brain's getting smoothed down by reading all the generation and I need to drop the AI crutch for a while, at least for copy/writing.
Your brain _is_ getting smoothed by this behavior. Don't use AI for writing or your thinking will suffer.
Of course Claude told you its version would land better, that's what how it is trained, but that doesn't make it true.
Did you use a fountain pen to write and refine the post? ;)
I've no idea on the state of research about this topic but I've always wondered if this really has to do with the locomotion side of it or if it's more about the fact that writing by hand takes a bit more effort and time.
For example, for taking math notes it's easier for me to write by hand rather than take notes in my laptop (because writing LaTeX takes time). If I spend more time on my notes in my laptop, would that improve retention?
I have been using every ipad there is with Notability and Goodnotes. You don't need anything else.
I have been thinking about that with regards to the new generation, I forget where but I saw a YouTube video interviewing Gen Alpha and how they couldn't recognize calligraphy texts.
I was sad, of course, but at the same time, it made me think if their brain is just being shaped differently. Could it be that this sort of thesis "writing = good" applies to us because we belong to a generation that had our formative memories shaped through that activity?
Is there something inherent to writing that makes it good or is it just a consequence because we did things that way?
Well, sorry but look at the methodology on this. The study the post leans on did not study learning. 36 adults went around copying familiar words, and their "typing" is key presses using one index finger (!).
I'm afraid this one's close to going down the replication crisis whirlpool. According to Sol:
"Direct replications found no reliable learning advantage, while a 2024 meta-analysis found only a *small* handwriting benefit but a far larger typing advantage in information captured."
Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis” by Abraham E. Flanigan and colleagues, published in Educational Psychology Review on July 12, 2024
I’d like to point out that basically all education research is only partially reproducible or not reproducible at all. So even though this study says it’s good for your brain. Have some skepticism.
If you're like me and lose things and want cheap pens that offer water resistance, try the PaperMate Inkjoy ballpoints. They roll much easier than other ballpoints, in my experience.
I wrote this reply by hand and then used by keyboard which is connected with my mac mini using Bluetooth to type it here so you guys can see it.
"I write all my notes and letters by hand and I started writing them like 2 months ago when I was researching on something and found out the benefits of writing by hand. My post went mega viral on X (@ihteshamali) you will see it here on X and it got like 120k likes and people really loved it. And most people said they will now turn back to writing by hand which is nice."
What the research shows and what Stephenson is alluding to also points to the way the design of digital technology has flattened human-computer interaction by prioritizing speed.
It is not impossible to design digital products that achieve the same balance of fountain pen on paper. But having used the iPad for journaling with a good toothed screen protector, I think we are still far from it. Even with the barrel rolling and pressure sensitivity, an actual pen just writers so much more expressively.
I keep a handwritten journal and write in script. My penmanship isn't great, but it's good enough.
For exams in my intro programming classes, I allow students to bring a handwritten notes sheet if they wish. I get anything from a few sentences to a sheet so full of writing it almost looks gray. From what I can tell, students who really put effort into their notes sheet look at it less frequently but tend to score higher. This tracks with the studies I've seen on handwritten notes.
What if I told you writing in all caps is even better for your brain.
IT VVORKED FOR THE ROMANS I SVPPOSE.
I have about 20 or 30 fountain pens. I do system architecture diagrams, with notes in the margin, using pen and ink. It does help me think. I actually find it relaxing and fun.
In fact, there's no scientific consensus research-wise on whether writing things by hand actually helps in any way.
Anecdotally, it never helped me to remember the stuff I was writing down.
Same.
While writting I think there's a very fine line that separates external storage from memorization. What I mean by this is that sometime we write ideas so we can avoid forgetting and be able to come back them (David Lynch), or as we write and develop a thought or subject, we are actually creating memories.
I think the point of writing stuff down is mainly organization, storage and exploration and not a memory exercise.
I have been experimenting with more hand writing notes as well. What I have been finding is better retention and more focus on what is that I'm following, wether is a book or a meeting.
I recently also started to review flashcards by printing the cards due today and writing down the answer opposed to reviewing them on a screen, and I have noticed a much higher retention as I am not distracted by the mere presence of the device.
As some have noted, if you like writing by hand for all of the benefits listed in this article but also want a digital copy for search, taking a photo and having an LLM read your handwriting works really well.
To streamline this process I wrote an iOS app that does exactly this. I used it to digitize my handwritten diaries, but it works for any handwritten paper.
https://inksightful.app/
I'm a huge fan of fountain pens, it's a very satisfying experience to write with a nice pen on a proper paper.
I use platinum 3776, it's quite expensive one, but it's just amazing. I originally bought it for sketches, but ended up using it for journaling.
Ended up buying one to my wife, she said I'm crazy to spend so much on a pen (200$) but few weeks after the gift she said that it's amazing and she enjoys it a lot.
I don't think that the research is as conclusive as the article makes it out to be ( I know he links ).
I would consider this: maybe useful, do it if you find it entertaining.
20 years ago when I use to instruct a 101 class on programming, in the first 2 weeks, I made everyone write simple programs with paper and pencil. Students thought that was insane, I would catch them mocking it. I always had the last laugh... those who took it seriously always performed the best and went on to have more successful careers.
My hand hurts when I hold a pencil for too long, it has always been that way since when I was young. The computer saved my ability to write longer texts.
Are you left-handed by chance?
> Being left handed is fine
As a lefty, I would rather never write another word then twist my hand the way he's doing (above the current line) to avoid the smudges.
> It might then seem reasonable to think that writing with a stylus on an iPad or similar would be best, since no force is needed and friction is minimized. I don’t think this is true. A small amount of friction is actually desirable.
I find digital handwriting quite pleasant and almost better than writing on paper. Friction is indeed an issue, but you can just buy a dedicated screen protector to address this problem.
Yeah especially for doing math, I've found it's really helpful that I can just select some equations I wrote and shift them down (or insert more space). It helps with adding derivations or additional notes after the fact.
However I'm considering moving back to handwritten notebooks for some things, purely due to the simplicity (no worry about battery life, technical issues, or the difficulty in switching back and forth between my book reader and my notes app).
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i'm not totally sold on writing prose by hand. it's still a little too uncomfortable for me. but, for doing mathematics or memorizing things, i have specific rituals built around handwriting that i finally figured out how to make work quite well. i have funny hard requirements though: a) clean, white printer sheets only, absolutely no lines, they are distracting b) mechanical pencils only c) a flat, hard, stable and clear writing surface is a must d) a real eraser must be available
my technique for memorizing things involves a handwritten spatiotemporal reproduction from memory (put everything in the same place on the page in the same order) with spaced repetition that exploits sleep cycles. took me forever to figure it out, but once i did things like exams that build on toolboxes of rote memorization became a lot easier!
i guess i should also mention that i have long had an interest in reproducing the causal nature of handwriting for composing text on the computer. things like write only editors that attempt to encourage that same sort of causal flow.
This is why I use a reMarkable tablet for my notes. I noticed a few years ago that when I wrote down my notes I actually remembered them more easily. Something about the hand/brain connection helped etch my thoughts more deeply.
I still use Apple Notes, but more as a place to store copy/paste info I want to save or checklists. But for meeting or game design notes? Writing those down 100%.
The Remarkable tablet is so close to what I want. I just wish it was 13".
My iPad is 13" and having a a display about the same size as a sheet of A4/letter paper is nice. It's so nice to have a full size display for marking up pdfs.
Now that I've gotten used to the iPad with Goodnotes, I'm not sure I'd get a 13" Remarkable. I'd probably buy one, but I suspect their notes app would be enough of a downgrade that I would probably return it.
How is the remarkable at converting handwritten notes into text? Especially so that you can search over it? Yeah, I used to handwrite my notes on paper back in the day, and still do for a couple of important topics, but switched over to putting things in Evernote several years ago. The reason is actually do need to do searches over them quite often, and it’s obviously very difficult to do with handwritten documents.
It does a pretty good job. But to be honest I don't use that feature often. I also have the keyboard for it but don't use that often, either. I really mainly use it as a notebook.
Ah, okay. Will probably just have to try it out.
I don't know about reMarkable but LLMs are good at recognizing handwriting from photos. I wrote an iOS app to do this for my handwritten diaries, but it works for any handwritten paper: https://inksightful.app/
Interesting, will take a look!
Somewhat related, I've seen more and more colleges now banning devices in class and reverting to handwritten notes and exams only, presumably due to AI. When I went to college this was actually already done, where many professors, even for CS, made you write code by hand. And it's true, it actually helps you reason better when writing it down over typing it.
When i was in college, we wrote a lot of C code in those blue notebooks. And this is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, which is probably why I don't totally didn't hate whiteboard coding tests. And when I'm trying to work with a new programming language or tool, I'm usually writing things out by hand (helps with the memory, like the article referenced).
I hand write my notes so that I don't have to find them again when I need to remember them. I used to study the same way - just summarize everything I'm reading into hand written notes, maybe read them once more before the test if I had time, and pass the test. It's nice to see that my successful practice is now backed by research.
I know this is true and all but I think a lot of people never really write anything anyways. Texting, random notes, emails. Strange to say but it feels kind of hipster and performative with the technology we have, which kind of makes it hard to enjoy. What I mean is I understand the theory but never have a chance to implement it or even want to.
That is why I call good pens like my Fink [1] a thinking tool. I always wonder if it is nature or nurture, but I am sure that writing helps me to think in a straight line.
[1]: https://www.stefanfink.de/en/writing-instruments
I am really trying to get everything digital. But I much prefer writing by hand, especially when doing math. I got Samsung s10+ and have 2 problems: the pen is too damn small and my handwriting sucks for recognition so it's mostly PDFs for now instead of fully digitized. Anyone have similar problems with solution?
> I want to again live in a world where application developers use public, community driven standards to create interoperable applications with common data standards.
Has this ever been the case?
Also common data standards in a way restrict innovation when the standard body can't move fast enough.
Stephenson mentions the Pilot G-2 Gel, and it is a great pen, especially for left-handers. I've found one that improves on it: the Pilot Acroball. It's a better G-2 and though it might be a bit hard to find at retail it can be found online in all kinds of variations.
I wonder how much of this is handwriting versus simply removing distractions. A notebook doesn't have notifications, tabs, or an autocomplete constantly trying to finish your thoughts. I hope to to see studies comparing handwriting with typing on a distraction-free device
I agree with the content of the post.
It does feel like a post stating things that are obvious, were someone not blinded by technology.
Curious if others have noticed a trend of going back to "old school" methods, once there is research etc around it. Seems like you can have just not used the new flashy thing.
Whew... reading just the title I thought this was about me having to write code by hand.
"Writing by hand is good for your brain", but it does not say the habit or behavior can help you achieve some success, many achievements, especially the more significant ones need a complicated system and long-term hard work (remember 10000 hours theory?)
> The paper will bear a visible imprint where it was pressed down by the writing instrument.
Can I have your pencils then? They must be made of titanium. My 2mm nibbed pencilpoints break off if I put any pressure at all on them. :-D
I really like this talk[0] by Big Suze from Peep Show on how children learn better with physical writing than with typing.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V6nucKFK88
Anecdotally I find I connect more with what I write by pen as well.
Ultimately I want things to in text documents though (typst for me these days). If there was a non-slopware solution to ocr scanning to a typst doc, I would do it a lot more .
I have been using LLMs for this and they excel and understanding my very poor calligraphy. All I do I take photos of the pages I wrote by hand, and then ask the LLM to convert those notes to markdown and convert any diagrams that I might have to mermaidjs style, and worked wonders for me.
Hmmm - I guess all the "chatbot" web interfaces for LLMs have an option to upload images. And they're really good at this now you say? That's a really useful tip; thanks.
Yeah they work really well. I have tried Claude opus and ChatGPT 5.5
I literally can't think without a pen in my hand. Especially when I'm stuck, writing anything, or even better, drawing, activates my brain cells.
Typing forces you to think linearly, it feels constrained. That's not how the brain works.
I remember when pretty much everyone knew how to write cursive. Imagine how surprised I was when my 12 year-old nephew didn't even know what cursive was. Makes you realize how much things have changed.
At least in high school I was the opposite. If I had a class with a teacher strict about notes I didn't absorb the material as well because I was more focused on getting the notes correct than engaging with the material
I'd rather learn a language than write with a pen. In my life at least, writing with a pen is now depreceated. Maybe writing left handed would be worth it but I can't think of another good reason to bring it back.
Why would I ride my bicycle anywhere when I have a car?
Not sure the intent of the question. Is the pen the car or the bicycle?
To me bicycles are for health and for short distances. Cars are for heavy objects and long distances.
I used to ride bicycles to the train station, then get a train to another city and ride it on the other side. Which kind of alters that.
Essentially for me at least, bicycles and cars have entirely different uses.
A pen on the other hand, is just a worse version of a keyboard. Unless I'm signing a document. Though as the years pass, that is increasingly done digitally and often doesn't even involve hand movements that anywhere near resemble pen use.
Riding a bicycle is good for your body.
Writing by hand is good for your brain.
This is something you don’t need to argue about. You don’t need a cite studies.
The studies are not geared for a sample size of one there is only one you.
Just… Try it.
You can just do things. They don’t have to be rational, the best things rarely are.
I need good handwriting OCR. Like perfect. Because id love to write things like blog posts on a remarkable or something, and then be able to just export it to text and publish
I like handwriting, but it struggles when you need to copy it in your obsidian
Rocketbook has some products that promise to help with this here. I've tried them and found them high friction but it might be worth it to you.
There's also the pens that use cameras and special papers like livescribe (I think?) but I didn't love those either.
I just take a photo and let an LLM transcribe it
It's a bummer that Apple Pencil support isn't better in the iPadOS version of Obsidian.
Take a pic of the pages, extract text.
I like writing by hand and now it’s easier than ever to just take a picture and give it to an LLM for a transcription if you need it on your phone/computer. Small local models work well for this too.
I'd like to go back to writing with pen and paper, but my bad handwriting bothers me. So any time I start writing something, part of my concentration is wasted on trying to make it look good.
I find that writing with ai is far superior both in terms of results and for my memory. Writers like Neal won’t be competitive for much longer. It’s time to put the pencils down.
Show me an interesting novel you wrote, then.
I have always found interesting that we thing as equivalent "different parts of the brain light up" and "good for the brain". I say this as someone who has an tiny knowledge of neuroscience, but wouldn't you want sometimes to have low brain activity, for certain things?
Having the brain making more connexions and using more resources to do the same thing could be seen, from one point of view, as waste ?
Not that I disagree with the article, of course. Test results speak for themselves, but for example, when I am writing stories, do I need to "better remember" them, or do I need to go faster through my first draft ? (3 years and counting at the moment...wish me luck !)
Can confirm, started writing every morning, am smarter.
Probably one of the best interview questions that I've been asked over the years, is to write a script (can't remember the purpose) in bash, using pen and paper.
Really made me think hard.
Is there an online support group for people who have been on the keyboard so long that their penmanship looks more like klingon than english? Is there a way to correct this?
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I can't remember the last time I wrote something significantly long and it didn't hurt my wrists. Maybe in middle school.
This reminds me of Donald Knuth writing drafts by hand.
I switched from an Obsidian fanboy to only writing by hand, and I'm never going back.
It seemed preposterous to put notes in something I can't back up or "CTRL+F" search, but I've found that yes, sometimes I spend two minutes looking for a note, but when I do I generally never have to look up that information again... as opposed to things I'd search Obsidian for constantly that seemed to never get stored in my brain.
Hi. Retention is a problem not because there is something wrong with our memory but that’s how the brain works. Science shows that we forget 70% of what you read in 24 hours. I have had the same issue and always left me with the feeling that I am not getting the best out of my reading. So I created LearnBetter. It applies learning science principles to help you retain by converting what you read into short exercises. Re-reading, highlighting or writing it yourself by creating then organizing notes won’t give you the results you are looking for. Atleast not to me. Trust me I have done them all. Try out Learnbetter. See if that helps you. It’s free. I am passionate about this problem and I want to help others who are going through what I did. It’s getlearnbetter.ai. It’s in beta so expect some minor issues here and there. Would love to hear what you think if you decide to try.
In my first job, my supervisor gave me a Day Timer binder and set of pages for it and I very dependent on it within a few weeks. That thing was always with me and I was a little terrified that I would leave it somewhere. If I were hit by a bus and they gave that book to my replacement, they would have no problem picking up where I left off.
Then I got a series of Palm Pilot devices and left the paper behind. It worked pretty well for me and the grafitti handwriting system was ingenious. Aside from my contact list being duplicated a few times a year, I didn't really have any negative experiences.
Then smart phones hit and even though they can do everything any electronic organizer ever did for me, I've never been as happy with them.
I'm seriously considering buying a paper planner again. Shared calendars is the only thing blocking me.
I love Obsidian too, but for me it's just a place where I park notes for future reference. I don't actively use it.
Writing by hand has some advantages and writing by keyboard also has some advantages. Using note-taking app or similar software is very convenient and useful in some situations.
Writing by hand is in no way good for your brain.
Best feature of paper notebook: no web browser, no chat apps.
> Don’t worry about conserving paper
The best suggestion, thank you
not only writing, but drawing, art, putting a pen or pencil to paper/tablet and just flowing is great to keep the brain muscle active.
But how do you convert your handwritten notes into Markdown blog posts or LaTeX or Typst? Can multimodal LLMs do that?
Claude is great at that. I have a custom /skill in obsidian which OCRs and then reads and corrects the output. It gets like 95%+ of my notes right, and my handwriting is rather abhorrent
for sure... if your handwriting is good enough.
This is gonna open up the science of stimuli necessity. Everything we do is effort then reward, we need to do things on our own.
I exclusively take notes by hand now, and have amassed a pretty interesting collection of pens, paper and notebooks.
These days, you can easily take notes and mark things in digital books. I wonder if that would be helpful, too?
I completely agree with this, but where do I start if I have terrible handwriting and never really learned cursive properly?
Absolutely. It helps me a lot, especially when it comes to remembering important tasks or planning my days.
i've been writing since i was 8 and always felt there must be something special about writing by hand. nice to read this post and see the science behind it.
i recently bought my first fountain pen and some nice ink and paper and it's even nicer that way :) highly recommend it
So, why nobody write a code by hand using pen onto paper right now? If it's that good, shouldn't we?
Great advice. Didn't know Neal is left-handed.
Neal, if you're reading this, will you ever visit Germany on a book signing tour?
0.7 Energel pens ftw. There are subtle difference but I favor Made in Japan.
So I should buy a drawing tablet for my laptop so I can hand write my AI prompts? Got it!
(/s if not obvious!)
i like writing by hand, and definitely generate better content / thoughts. I don't like going back through my writing and putting it in electronic form (an no writing on an electronic device (ipad/remarkable etc.) doesn't is not a substitute).
Somewhat apropos... I started re-learning cursive about two years ago. I'm old enough to have been taught cursive when I was young, but my dad preferred block letters (he was trained as an engineer) so I took after him when I entered college. My handwriting was never going to win any awards (either cursive or block) but with attentive practice, my cursive is up to about where it was in 9th grade.
I wonder what my brain would look like writing cursive instead of block two years ago vs. today? If you're comparing type-writing with cursive penmanship in a sample that doesn't control for how much experience individual test subjects have with cursive, I suspect you may not get the results you're looking for.
I don't have any data for this assertion, but was disappointed to see the research not control for this variable. Not to say the research wasn't useful... In fact, were I to have control of the research budget, I would give them more money for a larger study that controls for more variables including age, experience with cursive and (what the heck) socio-economic background.
So... I recommend trying to (re) learn cursive. It's sort of fun to watch the faces of people when they realize you've reverted to jr. high school penmanship.
>Use cursive
Any good resources to learn cursive?
Doesn't work for everyone. I have essential tremor and my handwriting is abysmal.
I had to learn to type early on due to my handwriting, but I can read my own. I definitely process things differently through handwriting. When I write stories, my style changes when I type!
im right-handed and was taught to write by a left-handed parent so i have a goofy technique where i have my hand above the line like a lefty. this causes me to write the letter "s" backwards, from bottom to top
"Sure, doing X the old-fashioned way is slow, inefficient, and inconvenient in a hundred minor and major ways - but haven't you considered that it might, on an incredibly shaky connection with low effect sizes and uncertain causality, be better than your brain?"
Sorry, but no. I trust that "the Old Way is just Better in an invisible, unproven way" about as much as I trust any other "appeal to tradition".
I like Neal Stephenson's writing, but I wouldn't take this advice seriously.
everything by hand is good for the brain! writing of course, but inducting a younger person working the till, into the dance of correct change, or an aproximation that leaves them with a float, and/or not getting a pocket full of coin, and watching the light go on as they activly get into the game of useing simple math in a practicle way for the first time, big grins all round, or some few mildly enraged and uncertain as to what just happened, this bieng a common experience as I use cash for most of my personal expendature, which more recently is getting comments from other customers and employees, but I like it, pay and be done. I also dabble in scrap and precious metals, back woods deals for a wide variety of primary building materials, supplys, feed, manufacturing equipment,etc, which is all done with cash, live, right now, on your feet, make a deal, be good with it, done and on to other things.
I have had, and continue having, way above average use for my handwriting. It works for all sorts of math, quick diagrams on anything from geometric reasoning to electronics, composing tricky fragments of text, taking notes on something I'm doing that requires a myriad of easy-to-forget details, and so on.
But my 1st grade teacher and my 1st to 12st year classes variously agreed on how atrocious my handwriting was. Famously, my 1st grade teacher told my parents, "there's no hope". She was right. And, four decades later, it irks me to no end that every time I grab a pen and start writing, the ghosts come to look over my shoulder and judge. "Look at it, he's at it again. That 'f' looks like anything but... That's not a proper uppercase 'I'... you could summon a demon with it, but it would be a pitiful one. That 'g' is vicious. Is that a '1', a '3' or a '7'? Didn't we fail you enough times in basic arithmetic for that? Also, that line of text is sagging as much as your sitting, boy..."
This applies to code as well, except, typing, instead of generating
Remember when serious debugging meant at least an inch of greenbar?
Here’s my question, what if the writing looks like handwriting?
My thoughts on this is there is a deliberate act going on that is doing more for retention than just the simple act of using a (fountain) pen.
If I am in a lecture and I am writing down everything I hear as fast as possible in one ear, on paper, out the other style I don't think writing is any different than typing the same way.
If I am in lecture and I am trying to stay deliberately between the lines of paper, then I have to take the info in, process it in a way where I analyze and summarize it, and then put it on paper neatly. I have to do that for brevity and to keep up with the lecture. Its not the act of just writing, its the analyzation that occurs before the words hit the paper. This can be achieved with typing as well if you deliberately style your notes.
I think sometimes we correlate this in too simple of terms to use pen = better, the pen forces the deliberate action of analysis easier than typing does.
All well and good for folks without hand issues.
I <3 Stephenson's earlier works: Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and even the lesser stuff (the university one, In the Beginning There Was the Command Line, etc.) were all incredibly well written, and I'd strongly recommend them.
But Cryptonomicon started to go in the wrong direction (though it was still good), and after that he completely lost me by writing 1000 page books that require you to learn half of an entirely new language he made up! His success seems to have made him completely lose the magic (of writing well) that he once had.
As such, I'd take any advice he gives with a mountain of salt. It's like getting advice from a "has been" former athlete: it might be good advice from their glory days, or it might just be junk they spew in their obsolescence.
Me too. I love Snow Crash and re-read it recently. I started Cryptonomicon, but didn't even get 1/4th before giving up.
I swear, early on he wrote well, which means he wrote 1000 pages and edited them down to a normal book.
Once he got popular I imagine he was like "I'm popular, screw that editing stuff, I'm just publishing every word I write" ... and that is not how you make a good book.
What about writing code by hand?
> If the pen’s ink reservoir is partly empty, so that it contains an air bubble, and if it’s positioned nib down, then, when you go up in an airplane, the bubble will expand as the ambient pressure drops, forcing ink out the nib. Once I figured that out, I got in the habit of making sure my pens were positioned nib up when taking off in an airplane. If I have time I’ll also refill the pen before departure, to minimize the size of the air bubble.
Finally! this was one of those things that bothered me for many years, but not enough to spend time to research :) . Thank you!!
Yes, I've had to learn this one the hard way, too. And more than once, I have to admit.
tbh the value of this seems overstated and overhyped imo
I've always dabbled with this but gone back to just typing instead of writing by hand as it seens to possess many more advantages
The closest thing I have to this is more like speech to text or notes on a phone which seem more manual (speech) or slower than touch typing (phone)
This post makes me feel old
the pencil industry has been waiting 30 years for this paper
Very little young people are writing by hand nowadays :( Mostly vaping xd
Do crosswords count?
bunun ilerde işe yarayacagını düşünüyorum
Surprised honestly we haven't had similar claims for typing on keyboard versus typing on screens or dictation.
I mean, I love writing with fountain pen and I do it every day, but I have _read_ Anathem.
Hello fellow Anathem reader, there's doesn't seem to be many of us
Anathem is the best Stephenson book; The Algebraist is the best Iain Banks. There's enough of us to fill a good sized van!
Something is seriously wrong with an author when they think they need to invent an entire new language (and force the reader to learn half of it) just for a book. ENGLISH IS A PERFECTLY FINE LANGUAGE, AND EVERY GREAT WORK OF ENGLISH WAS WRITTEN USING IT!
Stephenson was my literally my favorite author, but when I got to Anathem I was like fuck this pompous asshat and his made up language BS: I'm sticking to authors who write in English.
"don't use a pencil" i stopped reading there. That's a completely invalid and stupid thing to say. Pencils are superior to any and all other writing instruments.
> I’m not an expert on how the brain works, but I can say that,
Aaaaaand time to tune out.
The rest of that sentence:
> I can say that, when writing by hand, one is continually solving a series of small problems having to do with the spacing of words, how letters are connected, the crossing of the letter t (sometimes more than one in the same word) and the dotting of the letters i and j, and how to accomplish all of those things through coordinated movements not just of the fingers but of the whole arm.
Do you think he needs to be a neuroscientist to make this claim?
The non-sequiturs that follow do.
Appeal to Authority is a logical fallacy. Perverse incentives exist in every domain, and you cannot discount the human factor. The experts can be wrong.
And in this case, Van der Meer's experiment showing more "elaborate" brain activity during handwriting was correlational. The conclusion that this leads to better learning outcomes does not follow.
More to your point: calling "appeal to authority" does not license argument from ignorance. Furthermore, appeal to authority only refers to an authority who is not authoritative in the domain in question.
I don't think this is appeal to authority (or the reverse, I guess). Neuroscience is complex, being a scientist/doctor is one signal that the observations here would be based on/reflective of a large body of knowledge. Probably GP's unstated point is that the author isn't a scientist/doctor and they also haven't studied/read up on their own either.
The experts in the sciences usually back their claims up using citations, and can be disproven through the normal methods of disproving citations. not through "vibes"
And he said "I'm not an expert" just after citing evidence.
Except that he didn't actually cite evidence that supported his claim. He merely reposted a blog's incorrect conclusion.
You've been downvoted to oblivion, but I figured I'll use you as a meat shield since there isn't a single other reply of criticality here AFAICT.
The study talks about connections and frequency, but that seems like a very coarse measure for something as complex as the brain.
> Increased connectivity within the theta (3.5–7.5 Hz) and alpha (8–12.5 Hz) frequency bands has been linked to mechanisms underlying sensorimotor integration (). As increased connectivity in the brain was observed only when writing by hand and not when simply pressing keys on the keyboard, our findings can be taken as evidence that handwriting promotes learning.
Can you? The linked paper appears to be stating association, not causation.
The alternative hypothesis is that the brain activates more because writing by hand is harder, and that by writing by hand you just get better at writing by hand.
My thought is, write in whichever medium you feel you work best in. Maybe try them both. And if you're not productive maybe don't use that medium.
This feels like a lot of grasping to try to justify some retroism (why does it need justification?).
This is a fair response and I think would be a good top level comment, you don't need a meat shield. The reason the parent was downvoted was that it isn't criticism, it's just a declaration that they didn't read the article.
There are a lot of citations in the paper backing up the idea that handwriting promotes learning, though (or at least spelling, memory, recall, and letter recognition/understanding). It reads to me like an attempt to explain an observed phenomenon: "given that handwriting appears to promote learning, what could be a mechanism for that?" It isn't in a vacuum just claiming that "these brain signals clearly prove that learning is happening".
The "general discussion" section also covers why the specific connectivity they looked at might be related to learning.
The issue is that the title "Writing by hand is good for your brain" does not follow from the cited study. At all.
The EEG measurement is the only real thing in the study, but there was no actual learning task anywhere at all.
Meanwhile, mr "I’m not an expert on how the brain works, but..." blithely goes on with his non-expert opinion, even talking about fountain pens and the various pen tip qualities in a manner smacking of audiophile.
And so the article reaches #1 on HN (supposedly the place of reason), and stays there for hours as everyone ignores the elephant in the room.
This is how junk science is born.
Decent article.
No notes.
More like old habits go hard - heh
As another fountain pen aficionado, it's reassuring to see that Neal's handwriting is as bad as mine.
Another article from that substack.com - this website has terrible UI, please stop using it. And I noticed that usually if an author uses substack - the article quality is bad.
Regarding the topic - "more brain activity/connectivity" does not automatically prove better long-term intelligence or brain health.
I think the article offers some good advice, at least advice that the author believes in, and from my own anecdotal experience it seems to hold water. Writing by hand, on physical paper, does indeed seem to offer some advantages over typing or using a tablet/stylus.
Great!
HN should add downvote option.
It exists I think, they just require you to score a certain amount of points before you obtain the privilege
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Always boggles my mind that some people can't write cursive. So you write each letter one by one?
Sort of. For most letters, my print strokes are the same motion as cursive (except r and s) but lifting up the pen between letters/strokes. Even when I was practiced in cursive, I never felt like it added any time to lift and lower the pen, any more than the time it already took to move the pen to the right, but doing so improved legibility. Its not like I'm consciously thinking about each letter, unlike caligraphy or drafting block print.
I connect letters that are easy to connect and pick up my pen on others. Anything that flows into the next, cursive. Anything where you have to contort and lead in or out with fiddly little bits and then just write the letter anyhow, I just skip all that and write it plain.
I haven't written cursive in many years, i should try it again but since i'm out of practice i find it takes more time to write than going print. Which of course does lead to hand cramps etc
You need to practice it. It's a survival skill. You'll never know when you'll need it.
I'm almost 30 and I haven't run into a "survival situation" where I needed cursive.
I would hazard a guess it falls below knowing Spanish but above folding origami cranes.
No, definitely not. Although it depends where you are. If you are near South America etc, then Spanish would be useful to know.
I have used it before when I've lost a phone etc, or if I had no way of contacting someone otherwise. I can think of more dramatic situations too. Technology can be helpful but if you're overreliant on it then that is a potential weakness.
Yes. When I write cursive and want to be able to read after myself I need to write very slowly and deliberately.
All my childhood I optimized my cursive writing for speed. Most teachers I had only valued note taking, not thinking about what is written.
Ummm, yes. Especially for those of us who may have had less than ideal schooling.