Typing vs. Longhanding

"That's not writing, that's typing." -- Truman Capote dismissing Jack Kerouac's work

Do you prefer to write first drafts by hand or on the computer?

I ask that question every time I teach "Written Communication" at UNC (a course which should be titled "How to Get Yourself to Sit Down and Write the Damn Dissertation.")

Nowadays, most students report that they write almost exclusively by computer: although in almost every class there is a student or two who prefers writing first drafts with pen and paper.

In an IHE article on Jan 30th, Shari Wilson muses about her observation that several students each semester write much better in-class, timed, hand written assignments than out-of-class "computer-generated" papers.  She proposes theories for this difference.  In the comments that follow, some professors agree with her observation.  Others vigorously dispute her views.

Most interesting to me, Wilson cites “The Phenomenology of Writing by Hand,” by University of Wales professor Daniel Chandler.  This article, although highly academic in tone (and I don't mean this as a compliment) and enamored of categorization without reference to empirical data, includes some wonderful quotes from writers about their love of pen or pencil.

Here's a quote-choked paragraph by Chandler that I found fun:

"Many writers have alluded to the importance of handwriting in their thinking and writing. Discoverers see their thinking itself as tactile. Fay Weldon declared: 'I choose to believe that there is some kind of mystic connection between the brain and the actual act of writing in longhand' (Hammond, 1984). And Graham Greene commented that 'Some authors type their works, but I cannot do that. Writing is tied up with the hand, almost with a special nerve' (Hammond, 1984). The anthropologist Jack Goody (1987) wrote that 'Nothing surpasses pen and paper as being "good to think with"'. And Rebecca West reported that she used a pencil 'When anything important has to be written... I think your hand concentrates for you.' She also emphasized the importance of kinaesthetic memory: 'My memory is certainly in my hands. I can remember things only if I have a pencil and I can write with it and I can play with it' (Plimpton, 1985). John Barth favours the fountain pen, commenting that: 'there's something about the muscular movement of putting down script on the paper that gets [the] imagination back in the track where it was' (Plimpton, 1987). William Gass even identifies the literary text with its original written form (treating writing in this respect as akin to drawing or painting): 'It was very important for Rilke to send a copy of the finished poem in his beautiful hand to somebody, because that was the poem, not the printed imitation. Writing by hand, mouthing by mouth: in each case you get a very strong physical sense of the emergence of language - squeezed out like a well-formed stool - what satisfaction! what bliss!' (Plimpton, 1981)."

A well formed stool....hmmm.... sounds like some dissertations I've met.

I used to write drafts by hand -- I didn't learn to touch type comfortably until after college and in the era before personal computers correcting mistakes on a typed draft was a messy hassle.  Now I write almost everything on the computer.  When I do write a draft by hand, I notice differences in both the process and product.  In general, I think that my work comes faster and is better on the computer.  But a printed out version is always necessary for adequate editing. (One of the reason I make so many errors and post graceless sentences when I blog is that I see the words only on the screen.)

It does seem useful to be able to write longhand -- on a warm spring day I love to be able to sit on a park bench and sun myself as I write with a pen.  I'm not picky about the paper I write on, but I've never liked writing with pencils. 

Are these choices of medium a mere matter of habit or are there core personality traits being expressed?

Comments

[Lisa]

Oh, I write by hand first draft. Pencils, big sketchbooks, the woiks.

[Kate]

I write in longhand when I'm having trouble getting past some kind of block--can't come up with ideas, am stuck with writing, can't figure out how to structure something. I find that changing medium can help jump-start my thought processes.

I have a couple of different computer programs I use for similar reasons, like KeyNote (which I use for my research journal--a zero pressure way to write down my thoughts on what I'm reading/studying), and Power Writer (which is designed for fiction, but I sometimes find useful for structuring longer papers).

So I almost always work on the computer, but keep longhand as my heavy artillery reserves when needed.

[La Lecturess]

I think this subject has come up on some blogs in the past, but I do both. I start out on computer and do most of the initial hack work there (I absolutely *couldn't* do this part in longhand), but my FAVORITE part of the process is once I have a complete(ish) draft, when I print out a copy and start to work on that in longhand in great detail, interlineating changes, moving things around, and adding in longer sections on pages torn out of legal pads. This stage may take days. I love the portability of this part of the process, and the different kind of thinking that writing by hand stimulates.

After that, I enter the changes onto my computer, print out a fresh draft, and then work through THAT in longhand. Lather, rinse, repeat, possibly four or five or six times.

For me, both kinds of composition are importantly creative in different ways, and I can't do without either one.

[academic coach]

Ah, a dialectic between longhand and computer-generated drafts... intriguing.

[Beth]

It seems to me that whatever you are used to becomes the easiest way. I used to find longhand the easiest way to write, but the more I used computers to write, the harder it seems to go back to longhand. I now do all my writing, editing (and the majority of my marking in the course I teach) on screen. For portability, I have a keyboard that attachs to my PalmPilot and can take my writing anywhere.

I find it interesting that so many of those quotations spoke of the importance of a connection between their writing and their hand -- don't they type with their hands? Wouldn't this mean you are engaging both sides of your brain (rather than just one as you write with one hand)?

[Ancarett]

My hand cramps after too much handwriting, no matter what I do -- I bore with it for years as a result of research strictures in archives. But once I got my first laptop computer, I was gone with the wind. Nowadays I'll opt for notes on my PDA rather than handwriting and it's been fairly successful -- I wrote 4000 words of one piece on my PDA during otherwise wasted commuting time.

[Mary]

I recently read that Nelson DeMille writes all his books of fiction by longhand and says he has a phenomenal assistant who can read his handwriting, even when he can't. Would anyone know of a first-time author who might prefer writing a book in longhand and having someone else type it?

I recently retired early from IBM and have a Bachelor degree in English. Thank you for any assistance you might provide.

[Daniel Chandler]

'This article, although highly academic in tone (and I don't mean this as a compliment) and enamored of categorization without reference to empirical data...'

It was based firmly on empirical data! See URL above!

Daniel

[academic coach]

One of the challenges of the web is the way getting snarky comes back to bite you... Sorry Daniel for criticising your academic tone. I'm sure that it is necessary in your field.
In my field, people's musing about their own process doesn't count as empirical data but qualitative data.
I don't buy your theory that people who use computers are planners and those who write in longhand are discoverers.
To be empirical, you'd need to survey a large sample of people, ask them whether they make outlines etc., before they write, how much they revise, and control for factors like date of birth (I suspect that people who were writing before personal computers were around are more likely to write longhand.)
Your collection of quotes about the pleasures of pen and paper are wonderful.