It is most telling, to me, to hear people (none of them made from straw) admit that writer's cramp is part and parcel of a single session of taking notes or writing an hour-long exam. Professional copyists and secretaries in the early 20th century weren't biting down on their lower lips to push through the pain every time they put pen to paper during ten- and twelve-hour workdays. They just used better tools for that job (leak as the tools might do) and were taught how to write with focus on posture and movement, not on letterforms alone.
I don't strictly use the letterforms or all the best practices of the Palmer method—see the article for a link—but using a Palmer book as a guide, I managed to teach myself to write with a relaxed grip and no movement in the fingers or wrist, and I can go for hours now and walk away with no more discomfort than the stiffness of sitting without relief.
It is hard to write like this using most ballpoints because you do need to exert more force to get a consistent line out of the things. You don't need a fountain or dip pen, however—just a soft-leaded pencil (try an art supply shop), a good rollerball pen, or some gel pens. None of these write as effortlessly as a fountain pen, but neither do they require the kind of cramp-inducing force that a Bic pen does.
I've read mid-century materials on this topic before. My sense is that this isn't a new argument so much as a forgotten one.
I've almost exclusively used fountain pens for about 5 years now, and it's been amazing. Modern fountain pens don't generally leak much, and they are SO much better to write with than a basic Bic/generic ballpoint. The primary difference is that you don't have to push down at all which saves your hand from a huge amount of stress after a long writing session. I really don't understand why more people don't use them these days. Another bonus is that you can choose from a very wide variety of inks, so you can change it up whenever you feel like it.
My daily driver is currently a Monteverde Invincia Deluxe Stainless Steel ($65), which looks fantastic and is a great performer. I highly recommend to that anyone with large hands, because it's definitely not small. I also recommend the Pilot Metropolitan (~$12) [1] and the Waterman Phileas (~$50) all of which I have used extensively for class notes.
If I don't have one of my FPs for whatever reason, then I have been known to go for smooth "roller ball" pens as well - they use more lubricated ink than standard ball points and require less pressure, so they generally feel like mediocre fountain pens.
I'm a year into the fountain pen habit, and have an absurd collection at this point.
My daily carry is a Pilot Vanishing Point (EF or a custom-ground 0.6mm italic) and a Sailor Sapporo Mini (hard fine). Those are about $175 and $200 retail, respectively.
Note that I didn't pay anywhere near that, as I've been buying, trading, repairing, and selling pens since shortly after I started. In total, I'm slightly in the black at the moment.
I recommend Reddit's /r/fountainpens - there is an IRC server listed in the sidebar, and it's surprisingly active.
how would you compare them with Gel Rollerballs ? [1]
I am partial to the Parker rollerball refills - I use a Parker Chinese Laque Ambre - but do not want the inconvenience of a fountain pen.
I believe a rollerball is like the Nespresso to the fountain pen's espresso. Slightly worse - but much better than ball point pens.
But the best part that I like about rollerballs is how you can get an expensive experience in a cheap pen. For example Mont Blanc refills can be hacked to fit a cheap G2 [2]
I tend to prefer roller ball pens but I'm pretty much a lost cause when it comes to writing at this point anyway. Handwriting was never one of my better subjects in grade school under the best of circumstances but looking through old notebooks as they progress over the years apparently reveals a general descent into total loss of right hand muscular control. :-)
In France everyone uses ballpoints, and yet everyone writes cursive, so I very much doubt there's any connection between the two.
The weird handwriting of Americans certainly has to do with how they're taught, not what they use.
I have three kids that are currently learning to write (aged 6, 7 and 10) and a great deal of time is spent forming nice, cursive letters (copying lines of frequent letter pairs to lean how to join them properly and nicely for example).
I'm not saying this is good or bad (I like cursive and am happy my kids are learning it, but would like they would also learn to touch type, which isn't taught in school), but I am saying that you write how you learned to write...
Discussions about cursive writing on the Internet confused me quite a bit until I noticed that there seems to be a pretty large difference between what I learned in Germany and what people in the US learned.
From what I understand, the cursive script that was taught in US schools was much more complicated with lots of little flourishes. The simplified cursive script seems a lot more practical to me, and I wonder if that is a factor in the the decline of cursive writing. The negative reactions to cursive writing I've read on the internet from people in the US seemed a lot stronger than anything I've ever heard from Germans.
I call bullshit, in Russia people still write in cursive long after introduction of ballpoint pen, because that's what people are taught in school. It also happens to be much faster than print, regardless of the writing implement, so that helps too.
In Poland, people in schools are too usually forced to write in cursive. But that doesn't mean people like it or are particularly good at it. I was amongst the not-so-few that just couldn't/wouldn't write legibly enough. Some teachers would just give you 0 points for stuff they didn't want to or couldn't read. The most ironic part is, most teachers (and most adults in the "real world") have terribly illegible cursive too. Say when they'd write a comment on your exam, I could rarely understand it. Usually you'd ask some other students for their guess or just go ask the teacher.
If you want to try fountain pens but don't want to spend $$ on a nice one at first, check out the Pilot Varsity line.[1] They're cheap and disposable and seem to write pretty well. (I'm no expert on fountain pens though.)
I use them for note taking at meetings and whatnot. You do want a fairly fine/tight paper to write on though - the same as any other liquid-ink pen.
I can recommend the Pilot Metropolitan [1]! I have two and they are better than some "very nice" fountain pens I've used/had. Very smooth, very little issues with leaking, pretty cheap at <$20.
I love fountain pens and highly encourage everyone to try them (with a good notebook helps). First, ballpoint pens are wasteful — 1.6 billion pens a year are thrown away[1]. Fountain pens are reusable, ink is comparatively cheap and lasts forever, and finding your ink is a fun and personal experience (I really like the "bulletproof" Noodler's inks which are waterproof, bleach proof, etc.). Fountain pens last forever — which is why folks still hunt around for 40+ year old used ones.
Second, it really does make writing fun. I hated writing — my handwriting is messy, it's slow, and it's not as easy as typing. As the article argues, a good fountain pen makes it much, and in my experience much more enjoyable.
Third, it doesn't need to be expensive. Get a Lamy Safari (EF), a Lamy converter and a bottle of Noodlers ink. I also love my Faber Castell Loom[2] (it's the smoothest pen I own), and I carry around a Kaweco Al-Sport[3] everywhere (it's the perfect pocket pen).
> Almost all US schools have standardized on forms of looped cursive (e.g. Parker Penmanship, Zaner-Bloser) -- a set of letterforms designed not for handwriting, but for the movable type printing press! Looped cursive was made to be attractive with the fewest unique joins possible so that printers needed to stock fewer pieces for their movable type presses. Looped cursive is slower, less legible, and more difficult to learn than forms of writing actually made to be written (such as cursive italic).
Any lefties here? I'm a lefty and feel stuck with the basic ballpoint because any other pen I try ends up with everything smudged. Not sure if that's just poor form on my part.
I'm a lefty, and I can barely get pens to work most of the time because of the angle I have to hold the pen to write with (lefties tend to push pens, which makes them not work). Pencils weren't much better because of the smudgy mess it created all over my hand and the paper. Getting through school was excruciating and messy until I got to college and it was considered "okay" to turn in work I had done on my computer.
I could have pretty decent handwriting for about an hour and then fatigue simply set it and most of my writing is an illegible mess. Not surprisingly, when I was young and we were graded on handwriting my grades were pretty poor.
Cursive didn't help much either as the continuous strokes simply meant I made more of a mess all over myself.
I was an okay sketch artist as a kid, so I had good pen control, just could never really adapt myself to the written word.
Lots of lefties go through all kinds of contortions to improve some of the situation, you'll notice Obama reaches around where he's writing so he can pull on the pen. I tried that for a while but the back and shoulder cramps were pretty spectacularly killer.
I'm also left handed and have tried out way too many pens. As others have suggested, Uniball Jetstream pens are fantastic and are nearly impossible to smudge by accident. They also come in a variety of sizes. I really like the 0.38mm for taking notes on the small margins of academic papers.
The main pens I've been using these days are disposable fountain pens [1]. They write great and somehow the ink rarely smudges, though more often than with the Jetstreams. But overall I find it more pleasant to write with fountain pens.
I switched to Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens a year or so ago for daily use and will never go back to a ball point pen ever again. I also switched to vertical writing a when I was very young. I could never get comfortable writing with my wrist all twisted over the top like the teachers wanted me to do. So my note pads all sit with the lines vertical and I write up.
Even worse, for my own personal note books and random writing I use steno pads and write from the bottom to the top of a page. My wife hates it because when I ask her to read something I've been working on she has a lot of trouble reading it. But I've been doing it for so long it's natural for me. If I need to share something with people I can write "normally" or type it out. But personal use my system works for me.
Lefty, grew up in France (= forced to use a fountain pen from 1st to 12th grade), I just learned how to write in a way that minimizes smudges (my 2nd grade teacher would tear apart any piece of work with smudges on it and make you redo it, that's French education for you), plus heavily use blotting paper.
Now I work for a big tech company and still carry a notebook + fountain pen + blotting paper to meetings, it amuses my coworkers.
I have always wondered if right-handed people who write with right-to-left scripts (Arabic or Hebrew spring to mind) face the same struggles that lefties who who write the Latin alphabet face. Arabic calligraphy in particular, has managed to reach a high degree of refinement despite the risk of smudging.
If so, there must be a lot of products and techniques to accommodate their needs, which could help you.
The only way I've successfully used a fountain pen for any length of time as a lefty was to write right to left with it. As with a right handed script you're drawing away from the finished script so you don't smudge it, but your angle and letters are "wrong" (until you get used to them that way). When I was in high school I read that Leanardo DaVinci wrote "backwards" in his notebooks[1] because it was more comfortable for him as a left handed writer, which of course as a nerd I had to try :-).
I'm a lefty and I switched successfully to Mitsubishi Jetstream pens a few years ago. They don't smudge unless you're writing on glossy paper. I bought mine at a Japanese stationery/pen shop in SF (at the mall next to Union Square) a few years ago, but you can find them anywhere. Here's a Rakuten link: http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/atn/item/sxn-15005/
Yep, have similar problems with ballpoints and soft-leaded pencil.
At the moment I am mostly using Artline 200 Fine 0.4mm pens. These are not ballpoints and the think ink lines dry fast, so the text is hard to smudge. They are not without issue though. As the nibs are only crimped into place and writing with your left hand means you are pushing down and to the right; the nibs slowly get pushed up into the pen body. So I have to replace them when the nib disappears which is before the ink runs out.
If I am forced to use ballpoints for any lengthy text I end up rotating the paper close to 90 degrees and writing at an extreme angle to get the pen to drag rather than push across the page.
I took a calligraphy workshop, and since I'm a lefty, I ended up having to hold the paper with the top edge to my right and write vertically down the page. That way, the letters came out looking correct and I didn't smudge the paper.
See Noodler's "Ben Bernanke" inks[1] which are fast drying and meant for lefties. The name is a play on the fast drying inks Bernanke is using to print more money.
I learned cursive writing in first grade in 1958 (in Detroit) and we were already using ballpoint pens. But the desks we used had working inkwells, emptied of the ink, so I'd guess the change was fairly recent because a few years later the inkwells had been removed just leaving big holes in the desks where they'd resided.
The biggest thing back then was that I was left handed and the teachers forced me to write right handed. My mother ended up getting me 'permission' to write left handed and I have been happily ever since ;<).
My primary school (UK) had desks with inkwells in the 80s. I have no idea when the inkwells had last been used. The idea of giving 4-11 yo kids ink seems crazy now.
Is there even a point to learning cursive anymore? Seems like a waste of time if they're still teaching it to kids. I can't think of any practical purpose for it. Knowing cursive is about as useful as knowing how to use an abacus.
Knowing how to use an abacus makes early arithmetic so much easier for young school children.
I think knowing cursive is still useful, too, because if you do know how to use ligatures to join letters you can write MUCH faster than if you have to write in print. As an engineer, I prefer smallcaps when I need someone else to read my handwriting, but if it's just for my own consumption (task lists, notes, etc) it's faux* cursive 99% of the time.
I think it's useful for being able to read old documents. My parents and grandparents wrote only in cursive and I'm finding I have to read their writing to younger people who can't read it.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned felt tip pens as an alternative to fountain pens.
The Paper Mate medium point felt tip pen is my favorite writing tool. It provides a good-looking and effortless stroke and you can buy them pretty much anywhere.
I learned this when I bought my first and only fountain pen last year. The difference in writing experience is amazing - I take so much more notes now, and actually carry a notebook with me.
Sustained fine grained and fluid hand movement is more difficult to learn then drawing a sequence of geometric shapes and a lot more challenging to read. School should be about understanding ideas and the value of critical thinking. Using or requiring the use of an inefficient presentation method does not help with that mission.
I suppose the mass move away from cursive writing started with the printing press. By simplifying the symbols we gained a powerful tool to spread the ideas they convey. This has just become more true with the computer which, much like the printing press, has a much easier time with distinct disconnected symbols.
I believe it's more important to learn how to write and express your ideas using all available technologies then spending time learning the particulars of one.
The hammer doesn't need to be beautiful to build a beautiful house it needs to be efficient. Writing does not need to be elegant to convey a beautiful message.
In my hometown in the 80's, elementary school kids were not allowed to use ballpoints. Fountain pens were allowed from the 3rd grade. Before that, wood-based pencils only. Even mechanical pencils were forbidden. It was said that ballpoints and mechanical pencils, especially the former, would have very negative effects on developing one's handwriting.
This was the case for Chinese, in which a good handwriting was highly regarded. As far as I know, there are no studies to prove or disprove the claim. It was true for me personally and for my classmates. I could execute many handwriting forms in pencils and in fountain pens easily while extremely hard, if ever possible, in ballpoints. After using ballpoints for a pretty long period, I couldn't write as well even if I picked up my fountain pens again. It had to take some time and some writing to get it back.
This is rubbish. Ballpoint pens had long been in existence before I went to school, and I learned cursive. My daughter's French classmates are all, today, taught superb cursive handwriting.
"And since the thin ink flows more quickly, I have to refill the pen frequently."
While technically true, that fountain pens will use more ink, keep in mind that (a) ink is cheap, (b) refilling is easy, and (c) some[1] pens have a larger ink capacity.
"Fight for your Write” campaign—brought up an fMRI study suggesting that writing by hand may be better for kids’ learning than using a computer."
How about writing by hand ON a computer?
For me is totally stupid to teach kids to type on a keyboard, when in the present and near future you could use other faster and better means for writing, like this speech recognition I am using now or stenotype.
The other day I saw a friend using a new prototype of a new digital stenotype on a maker space and I was sold instantly. This is the future.
But children need to learn how to draw, and train their hands in precise manipulation. If you lose handwriting training when you are kid you also lose the ability of doing precise work with your hands as your brain will prune the neural connections with your hand as you don't use it.
You can do that on a computer. Today we have affordable galaxy notes. I use an expensive Cinqiq, that will become much more affordable in the future. Training kids looking at the rear mirror makes no sense to me.
[+] [-] boken|10 years ago|reply
I don't strictly use the letterforms or all the best practices of the Palmer method—see the article for a link—but using a Palmer book as a guide, I managed to teach myself to write with a relaxed grip and no movement in the fingers or wrist, and I can go for hours now and walk away with no more discomfort than the stiffness of sitting without relief.
It is hard to write like this using most ballpoints because you do need to exert more force to get a consistent line out of the things. You don't need a fountain or dip pen, however—just a soft-leaded pencil (try an art supply shop), a good rollerball pen, or some gel pens. None of these write as effortlessly as a fountain pen, but neither do they require the kind of cramp-inducing force that a Bic pen does.
I've read mid-century materials on this topic before. My sense is that this isn't a new argument so much as a forgotten one.
[+] [-] kctess5|10 years ago|reply
My daily driver is currently a Monteverde Invincia Deluxe Stainless Steel ($65), which looks fantastic and is a great performer. I highly recommend to that anyone with large hands, because it's definitely not small. I also recommend the Pilot Metropolitan (~$12) [1] and the Waterman Phileas (~$50) all of which I have used extensively for class notes.
If I don't have one of my FPs for whatever reason, then I have been known to go for smooth "roller ball" pens as well - they use more lubricated ink than standard ball points and require less pressure, so they generally feel like mediocre fountain pens.
[1] https://www.massdrop.com/buy/pilot-mr-fountain-pen
[+] [-] LyndsySimon|10 years ago|reply
My daily carry is a Pilot Vanishing Point (EF or a custom-ground 0.6mm italic) and a Sailor Sapporo Mini (hard fine). Those are about $175 and $200 retail, respectively.
Note that I didn't pay anywhere near that, as I've been buying, trading, repairing, and selling pens since shortly after I started. In total, I'm slightly in the black at the moment.
I recommend Reddit's /r/fountainpens - there is an IRC server listed in the sidebar, and it's surprisingly active.
[+] [-] Frondo|10 years ago|reply
http://www.gouletpens.com/Platinum-Preppy-Fountain-Pen/c/280
It's a great fountain pen for four bucks, I use them exclusively now (and don't worry too much about losing them, because four bucks!!).
[+] [-] sandGorgon|10 years ago|reply
I am partial to the Parker rollerball refills - I use a Parker Chinese Laque Ambre - but do not want the inconvenience of a fountain pen.
I believe a rollerball is like the Nespresso to the fountain pen's espresso. Slightly worse - but much better than ball point pens.
But the best part that I like about rollerballs is how you can get an expensive experience in a cheap pen. For example Mont Blanc refills can be hacked to fit a cheap G2 [2]
[1] http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/241755-which-p...
[2] http://www.instructables.com/id/Save-$200-in-2-minutes-and-h...
[+] [-] bambax|10 years ago|reply
The only problem is that, in business meetings people tend to assume you're trying to make some kind of hipster statement.
Everywhere I go I'm usually the only one using a foutain pen; what a shame.
[+] [-] ghaff|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stewbrew|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bambax|10 years ago|reply
The weird handwriting of Americans certainly has to do with how they're taught, not what they use.
I have three kids that are currently learning to write (aged 6, 7 and 10) and a great deal of time is spent forming nice, cursive letters (copying lines of frequent letter pairs to lean how to join them properly and nicely for example).
I'm not saying this is good or bad (I like cursive and am happy my kids are learning it, but would like they would also learn to touch type, which isn't taught in school), but I am saying that you write how you learned to write...
[+] [-] fabian2k|10 years ago|reply
What children learn in Germany for at least a few decades now looks like the following: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Vereinfachte_Ausgangssch...
From what I understand, the cursive script that was taught in US schools was much more complicated with lots of little flourishes. The simplified cursive script seems a lot more practical to me, and I wonder if that is a factor in the the decline of cursive writing. The negative reactions to cursive writing I've read on the internet from people in the US seemed a lot stronger than anything I've ever heard from Germans.
[+] [-] Grue3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auganov|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonah|10 years ago|reply
I use them for note taking at meetings and whatnot. You do want a fairly fine/tight paper to write on though - the same as any other liquid-ink pen.
[1] http://pilotpen.us/categories/fountain-pens/varsity/
[+] [-] kctess5|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.gouletpens.com/Pilot-Metropolitan/c/191
[+] [-] gknoy|10 years ago|reply
For paper, try the bamboo-based paper from Staples. :)
[+] [-] vsbuffalo|10 years ago|reply
Second, it really does make writing fun. I hated writing — my handwriting is messy, it's slow, and it's not as easy as typing. As the article argues, a good fountain pen makes it much, and in my experience much more enjoyable.
Third, it doesn't need to be expensive. Get a Lamy Safari (EF), a Lamy converter and a bottle of Noodlers ink. I also love my Faber Castell Loom[2] (it's the smoothest pen I own), and I carry around a Kaweco Al-Sport[3] everywhere (it's the perfect pocket pen).
[1] http://www.epa.gov/superfund/students/clas_act/haz-ed/ff06.p... [2] http://www.gouletpens.com/faber-castell-loom-metallic-orange... [3] http://www.jetpens.com/Kaweco-AL-Sport-Fountain-Pen-Fine-Nib...
[+] [-] jacobolus|10 years ago|reply
I like this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2501152 – a partial quotation:
> Almost all US schools have standardized on forms of looped cursive (e.g. Parker Penmanship, Zaner-Bloser) -- a set of letterforms designed not for handwriting, but for the movable type printing press! Looped cursive was made to be attractive with the fewest unique joins possible so that printers needed to stock fewer pieces for their movable type presses. Looped cursive is slower, less legible, and more difficult to learn than forms of writing actually made to be written (such as cursive italic).
[+] [-] colinsidoti|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|10 years ago|reply
I could have pretty decent handwriting for about an hour and then fatigue simply set it and most of my writing is an illegible mess. Not surprisingly, when I was young and we were graded on handwriting my grades were pretty poor.
Cursive didn't help much either as the continuous strokes simply meant I made more of a mess all over myself.
I was an okay sketch artist as a kid, so I had good pen control, just could never really adapt myself to the written word.
Lots of lefties go through all kinds of contortions to improve some of the situation, you'll notice Obama reaches around where he's writing so he can pull on the pen. I tried that for a while but the back and shoulder cramps were pretty spectacularly killer.
https://traceyricksfoster.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/obama-...
[+] [-] drifkin|10 years ago|reply
The main pens I've been using these days are disposable fountain pens [1]. They write great and somehow the ink rarely smudges, though more often than with the Jetstreams. But overall I find it more pleasant to write with fountain pens.
[1] http://pilotpen.us/brands/varsity/varsity/
[+] [-] SteveGerencser|10 years ago|reply
Even worse, for my own personal note books and random writing I use steno pads and write from the bottom to the top of a page. My wife hates it because when I ask her to read something I've been working on she has a lot of trouble reading it. But I've been doing it for so long it's natural for me. If I need to share something with people I can write "normally" or type it out. But personal use my system works for me.
[+] [-] GuiA|10 years ago|reply
Now I work for a big tech company and still carry a notebook + fountain pen + blotting paper to meetings, it amuses my coworkers.
[+] [-] ern|10 years ago|reply
If so, there must be a lot of products and techniques to accommodate their needs, which could help you.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://legacy.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/LeonardoRighttoLeft.html
[+] [-] eitally|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fian|10 years ago|reply
At the moment I am mostly using Artline 200 Fine 0.4mm pens. These are not ballpoints and the think ink lines dry fast, so the text is hard to smudge. They are not without issue though. As the nibs are only crimped into place and writing with your left hand means you are pushing down and to the right; the nibs slowly get pushed up into the pen body. So I have to replace them when the nib disappears which is before the ink runs out.
If I am forced to use ballpoints for any lengthy text I end up rotating the paper close to 90 degrees and writing at an extreme angle to get the pen to drag rather than push across the page.
[+] [-] spc476|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vsbuffalo|10 years ago|reply
[1]: http://www.gouletpens.com/noodlers-bernanke-black-3oz-bottle...
[+] [-] munificent|10 years ago|reply
But as a lefty, I feel like the proper experience of using them is pretty much off limits to me.
[+] [-] Udo_Schmitz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shocks|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmason|10 years ago|reply
The biggest thing back then was that I was left handed and the teachers forced me to write right handed. My mother ended up getting me 'permission' to write left handed and I have been happily ever since ;<).
[+] [-] amouat|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esaym|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jane_is_here|10 years ago|reply
If you prefer something larger,the Jinhao 159 is a clone of the Montblanc Meisterstück 149 http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/216230-jinhao-... and is under $6 on ebay
[+] [-] ryandrake|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eitally|10 years ago|reply
I think knowing cursive is still useful, too, because if you do know how to use ligatures to join letters you can write MUCH faster than if you have to write in print. As an engineer, I prefer smallcaps when I need someone else to read my handwriting, but if it's just for my own consumption (task lists, notes, etc) it's faux* cursive 99% of the time.
* faux because it's really just joining letters and filling the missing letter spaces with zig zaggy curlies ... which have no bearing on readability, per this: http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/
[+] [-] esaym|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheetos|10 years ago|reply
The Paper Mate medium point felt tip pen is my favorite writing tool. It provides a good-looking and effortless stroke and you can buy them pretty much anywhere.
[+] [-] fsloth|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drakonka|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WhoBeI|10 years ago|reply
I suppose the mass move away from cursive writing started with the printing press. By simplifying the symbols we gained a powerful tool to spread the ideas they convey. This has just become more true with the computer which, much like the printing press, has a much easier time with distinct disconnected symbols.
I believe it's more important to learn how to write and express your ideas using all available technologies then spending time learning the particulars of one.
The hammer doesn't need to be beautiful to build a beautiful house it needs to be efficient. Writing does not need to be elegant to convey a beautiful message.
[+] [-] muddyrivers|10 years ago|reply
This was the case for Chinese, in which a good handwriting was highly regarded. As far as I know, there are no studies to prove or disprove the claim. It was true for me personally and for my classmates. I could execute many handwriting forms in pencils and in fountain pens easily while extremely hard, if ever possible, in ballpoints. After using ballpoints for a pretty long period, I couldn't write as well even if I picked up my fountain pens again. It had to take some time and some writing to get it back.
[+] [-] rodgerd|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcguire|10 years ago|reply
While technically true, that fountain pens will use more ink, keep in mind that (a) ink is cheap, (b) refilling is easy, and (c) some[1] pens have a larger ink capacity.
[1] http://asapens.in/eshop/fountain-pen/gama-ebonite-pens/gama-...
[+] [-] Htsthbjig|10 years ago|reply
How about writing by hand ON a computer?
For me is totally stupid to teach kids to type on a keyboard, when in the present and near future you could use other faster and better means for writing, like this speech recognition I am using now or stenotype.
The other day I saw a friend using a new prototype of a new digital stenotype on a maker space and I was sold instantly. This is the future.
But children need to learn how to draw, and train their hands in precise manipulation. If you lose handwriting training when you are kid you also lose the ability of doing precise work with your hands as your brain will prune the neural connections with your hand as you don't use it.
You can do that on a computer. Today we have affordable galaxy notes. I use an expensive Cinqiq, that will become much more affordable in the future. Training kids looking at the rear mirror makes no sense to me.