Fountain Pens In College/school

[Alex-Diamine]

Brian Goulet just made an awesome video on "Back to School", a guide for using fountain pens in school. It's something that I've been looking for and this summer I just got into fountain pens. The video is very informative. http://www.inknouveau.com/2014/08/fp101-back-to-school-shopping.html

 

One thing I want to point out, everyone says that if you write in cursive it will improve your memory because you have to concentrate more on what you're writing, I disagree with this. I write everything in cursive and I have done so for years now, so writing in cursive is effortless for me, no it's not gorgeous, but I do not concentrate very hard on this. The concept is that you have to be concentrating harder, the study was also conducted with people who don't normally write in cursive. So if you're like me and write in cursive all the time, switch to writing in print, I find I concentrate harder when doing so and I remember things better when I switch to print because I'm not used to forming the letters in print. I could be entirely wrong here so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong I don't mind. =)

 

Also, today I picked up four cheap Composition notebooks from Wal-Mart. Three were made in Brazil, the other was made in Vietnam.....Holy....Cow. I am shocked at the differences. The one from Vietnam threhad more tooth and wasn't smooth, it was more absorbent and feathered badly. The three from Brazil feathered VERY little, and there was hardly any bleed through. Like none. A few spots here and there from where I started the stroke or ended it. The paper was very smooth, more tooth than Rhodia, but still very smooth. The pens stayed truer to their marked size.

 

I wrote with three pens.

1. Monteverde Impressa with Fine nib, the ink was Diamine Ancient Copper

2. Noodler's Ahab with flex nib, the ink was Diamine Ancient Copper

3. Pilot Metropolitan with M nib, the ink was Diamine Grey

 

The Grey had the overall least amount of bleed through. These notebooks were on sale for $.50! I did find several ones made in Brazil that had more tooth to them, I didn't purchase them so I don't know how they perform, the three from Brazil that I bought had very smooth paper. So be aware, it seems as if even the ones from Brazil aren't made as consistently as one might think.

 

[ac12]

Go to Staples.

If they are still on sale, the single subject, spiral bound, made in Brazil notebooks were 17 CENTS each a few weeks ago.

 

I bought 30 of them.

Edited August 15, 2014 by ac12

[ziptrickhead]

I will admit that when I went through college I changed my hand to print. I had learned to write cursive in third grade and did so all the way up to college. My cursive isn't complete chicken scratch but when rushed it does get difficult to read. All my teachers had no problems reading it after a little bit although I most substitute teachers struggled a bit but it's not like they were grading my papers or anything. The reason why I changed to print in college wasn't because i couldn't read my own rushed cursive, but because I figured sharing notes would be more common in college and I was concerned my classmates wouldn't be able to read what I wrote. So the summer before school started I practiced my print to build speed and legibility since I hadn't written print in so long.

 

Here's a sample of my horrendous handwriting. Not nearly as nice as a lot of what you'll see on the forums

 

 

 

Through college I didn't know anything about paper selection at all. I had bought a A5 Rhodia grid pad when I picked up my fine nibbed Lamy Safari but that pad lasted through my 4 years of undergrad since it was my "expensive paper". I just used whatever loose leaf or spiral notebooks were on sale at staples before the start of every school year and they happened to work out okay. Thinking back, there was a lot of spread and probably some feathering but Pelikan Brilliant Black was relatively well behaved on the papers I used minus the dreaded blue books. My pen spread and feathered like crazy on that but since my letters were less loopy because I switched to print and the ruling was really wide on the blue books I was able to make my normally small letter a lot bigger to be legible.

[knarflj]

I've never taken notes in a true cursive, although I do have a fairly legible cursive hand. Print is even more legible, and I find a semi-connected upright hand to be at least as fast to write as a legible slanted cursive.

 

I suspect it's the "thinking about what you write" that really counts. The best things I've found to help me retain lecture content are first, not to even try to write down every word the instructor says, but to rephrase the ideas in my own (fewer) words, and second, to arrange the ideas on the paper so that it's obvious what are the main points and which are the sub-points (iow, my notes generally assume an outline-like form, without the letters and numbers). Colour-coding can help, too, if you have a few pens with different inks handy.

[Snargle]

The Brazilian Norcom composition books are great for note-taking, doodling, and everyday utilitarian writing. And a 50 cents each, I always stock up on them when Walmart is having their back-to-school sales. I've got about a dozen sitting on my bookshelf...a huge $6.00 investment!

[WaskiSquirrel]

Except for a brief period during high school when a teacher made me mad, I've always used cursive. I generally also used a fountain pen.

 

There are several reasons why handwriting improves retention versus typing. One is that the muscle action involves more of the brain. Another is the freedom to lay out the notes in a way that makes sense. If you're just copying from the board, that benefit might not be there. A third benefit is that when we write, we often think about and summarize or condense what we hear.

 

I honestly don't know if there has been any study that compares the academic benefits of printing with cursive. Unlike many here, I don't worry too much about cursive writing versus printing. The main thing to me is the writing.

[Koyote]

I can't write in cursive, aside from (clumsily) signing my name. It's tough for me to sign things for my wife, since even her name -- which has only three letters -- gives me difficulty. And yet, I have survived to adulthood -- AARP membership, even -- and have only been in jail once or twice. So I guess that printing works okay.

 

By the way, I haven't watched Goulet's video, but I'm not aware of studies indicating that writing cursive aids retention; there are studies showing that writing by hand allows better retention than typing.

[dothgrin]

I bought six Brazilian college ruled composition books at Staples, six for .50 cents, today. Quite pleased to have picked these up. I also picked up a couple Bagasse notebooks to add to the two I bought last week. Love the paper. I get reimbursed for these materials, so my wallet is pretty happy.

On the cursive side, my cursive has improved since I started using a FP a year ago. I so wish I has one of these thirty years ago...I might have kept my teachers much happier.

[orfew]

A few resources.

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/why-writing-hand-could-make-you-smarter

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201308/biological-and-psychology-benefits-learning-cursive

 

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing

 

http://davidsortino.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/10221/brain-research-and-cursive-writing/

 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-to-learn-cursive-2013-10

Edited August 15, 2014 by orfew

[ac12]

Tip for you students

When you do an exam or quiz, if there is partial credit given on questions, PRINT your answers CLEARLY and LEGIBLY.

As a former grader, if I could not find what I was looking for in the students answer, they did not get the partial credit.

I had students who must have been trying to duplicate their doctors handwriting. sheesh.

[Koyote]

Thanks, orfew. That is pretty interesting.

 

Some of the cites use the word "cursive" and then describe benefits of simply writing by hand; a few describe cursive more carefully. Perhaps any handwriting is better than keyboarding, but cursive is better than printing?

[Moose22]

  On 8/14/2014 at 11:15 PM, Alex-Diamine said:

One thing I want to point out, everyone says that if you write in cursive it will improve your memory because you have to concentrate more on what you're writing,

 

 

Not cursive. Just writing by hand -- as opposed to typing your notes or especially reading someone else's notes or just recording the lecture. The psychological studies that proved this never specified the hand used, just that it was manually written.

 

I'm a huge cursive fan. Write legibly MUCH faster in cursive, personally, so I use it. But for the benefits of learning the precise method of writing doesn't matter.

[inkypete]

Here down under there were two main fountain pens at school in the 60s. Osmoroid, Conway Stewart and Platignum. Of course Parker and Sheaffer were big but they were more expensive. Fur humble folk like us it was mainly Osmoroid or Platignum.

[Alex-Diamine]

  On 8/15/2014 at 3:51 AM, orfew said:

A few resources.

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/why-writing-hand-could-make-you-smarter

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201308/biological-and-psychology-benefits-learning-cursive

 

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing

 

http://davidsortino.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/10221/brain-research-and-cursive-writing/

 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-to-learn-cursive-2013-10

 

Thank you for that! I didn't search any sources or articles before I posted this.

 

  On 8/15/2014 at 4:26 AM, Moose22 said:

 

 

Not cursive. Just writing by hand -- as opposed to typing your notes or especially reading someone else's notes or just recording the lecture. The psychological studies that proved this never specified the hand used, just that it was manually written.

 

I'm a huge cursive fan. Write legibly MUCH faster in cursive, personally, so I use it. But for the benefits of learning the precise method of writing doesn't matter.

 

I've always written notes, I've never had a computer no do I have any interest in using a computer for notes. I enjoy writing. The reason why I originally said "writing in cursive makes you remember things better" was because in my high school a few years ago we read an article that specifically said that writing in cursive as opposed to writing in print proved to help people memorize things better because of the motor skills involved with writing in cursive, I couldn't find this source, nor do I remember where it came from, but I agree it is better to manually write the notes instead of typing them which would obviously help you remember things better. As the above links state, some refer to cursive specifically and some just refer to handwriting in general. I actually started writing more in cursive because of the article we read and it did help, but it got to the point where I felt like it stopped helping me to memorize things because it became so effortless, whereas when I write in print I have to concentrate harder on what I'm writing to make it legible. My print is HORRIBLE and is something I plan working on. hahahahahah anyway, thank you for your input!

 

Thanks to everyone else for your replies as well!

Edited August 15, 2014 by Alex-Diamine

[wikeh2004]

  On 8/15/2014 at 3:54 AM, ac12 said:

Tip for you students

When you do an exam or quiz, if there is partial credit given on questions, PRINT your answers CLEARLY and LEGIBLY.

As a former grader, if I could not find what I was looking for in the students answer, they did not get the partial credit.

I had students who must have been trying to duplicate their doctors handwriting. sheesh.

 

Good advice. Don't try to impress the professor with the beauty of your handwriting, just make sure they can read it. :-) My hybrid print/cursive handwriting, especially if I'm tired, turns to gibberish really quickly. I vowed to improve my writing using Rosemary Sassoon and Gunther Briem's book based on italic. Makes sense and looks efficient. (I recommend that book, BTW)

 

I remember getting some thank you cards some years ago from some high school graduates we'd sent gifts. Of the half dozen I received, only one was legible and neat. Some of them looked like a 3rd grader wrote it. It was appalling.

 

I had one graduate professor in Histology who made us write handwrite essay answers to questions in a blue book. Questions like "tell me what you know about connective tissue." He graded on legibility and grammar. That was a tough class. :-)

[Algester]

roller ball or fountain pen both my hand writing are still the same but thats probably because I have been used to rushed writing which sometimes I normally no longer able to read because I tend to forget what I write but my teachers are able to read it so I guess I'm safe I have been using cursive ever since

[orfew]

  On 8/15/2014 at 3:54 AM, ac12 said:

Tip for you students

When you do an exam or quiz, if there is partial credit given on questions, PRINT your answers CLEARLY and LEGIBLY.

As a former grader, if I could not find what I was looking for in the students answer, they did not get the partial credit.

I had students who must have been trying to duplicate their doctors handwriting. sheesh.

Great advice. Marking is a chore at the best of times. As a student you do not want your exam answers to be difficult to read.

[ac12]

  On 8/15/2014 at 3:54 AM, ac12 said:

Tip for you students

When you do an exam or quiz, if there is partial credit given on questions, PRINT your answers CLEARLY and LEGIBLY.

As a former grader, if I could not find what I was looking for in the students answer, they did not get the partial credit.

I had students who must have been trying to duplicate their doctors handwriting. sheesh.

 

I said partial credit questions, but this applies to ANY written answer.

 

 

 

  On 8/16/2014 at 2:11 AM, orfew said:

Great advice. Marking is a chore at the best of times. As a student you do not want your exam answers to be difficult to read.

 

Yes

I only spent so much effort trying to read the answer, and if I could not find what I was looking for.... 0 on that question.

Like wikeh said, some were barely legible.

What the some of the students do not get, is they are getting the grader upset at them, by making the grader struggle to read their answer. This makes for tougher grading. And on the borderline cases, the student could easily drop a grade.

 

BTW, answers in pencil was fine by me. As long as I could read it. So don't get to thinking that you have to answer exams in ink, unless so specified by the professor or person giving the exam.

Edited August 16, 2014 by ac12

[prf5]

Legible handwriting tends to be plain, tall, and thin. Legibility is compromised by poorly formed letters and small handwriting, especially in combination with highly saturated ink and a broad nib. You can control these features. What you may not be able to influence is the paper you are expected to use for in-class assignments. Poor quality paper feathers and causes your pen to drag. Even if you prefer a fountain pen, I recommend that you bring a ballpoint to an exam and be prepared to switch.

[Moose22]

  On 8/15/2014 at 8:07 PM, Alex-Diamine said:

 

writing in cursive as opposed to writing in print proved to help people memorize things better because of the motor skills involved with writing in cursive, I couldn't find this source, nor do I remember where it came from, but I agree it is better to manually write the notes instead of typing them which would obviously help you remember things better.

 

 

That actually convolutes the points. Memorization isn't due to cursive, but overall brain development is.

 

Learning cursive can accelerate overall brain development. Both the reading comprehension types of tasks and the motor skills tasks cause an overall cognitive increase. And a lot of this data is pretty spurious. You notice these are all news articles, and many of them are full of fluffy anecdotal info -- none are psychological studies. The data saying things like "SAT takers who write essays in cursive score higher" aren't particularly well studies. Correlation is not causation, and it could be that those same students might be more comfortable writing, or are more likely to come from a home where writing is valued, or that schools that still teach cursive might also be generally more academically focused, or a dozen other things.

 

Mostly, you know it's good to learn, and you know it isn't bad to learn, but a lot of the benefits of learning a new writing style are more likely to show up in younger children, where the plasticity of the brain is significantly greater than in an adult.

 

 

As far as remembering content, like from a specific lecture where you take notes, it doesn't matter what hand you're using. You remember much better with hand taken notes. This goes right back to the foundations of how we learn, and how we process short term memory, which is very limited. Most people can only remember about 7 items in short term, any more come in and they'll lose some items from that list. They have to process that information into long term memory if they are to retain it, and that processing is where the hand encoding helps.

 

In my fundamentals of instruction books they said there were three learning methods -- Visual, Auditory, and Tactile. If you can combine more than one, you will remember better than just one. If you use all three you will often learn more quickly, still. Hand writing is tactile AND visual, and has a sort of special extra something as your brain has to process and encode the data so far more of it makes it from short term to long term memory. Typing isn't the same as it doesn't require the same type of mental gymnastics, and reading someone else's notes or a handout sheet doesn't engage the tactile sense at all. That's why people learning a new alphabet gain recognition more quickly when they hand write the characters -- the process of visualizing then recreating the character forces your brain to process it and then reinforce itself tactually and visually.

Additionally, taking lecture notes by hand forces a student to make choices in what is written down, so it actually tends to increase concentration on the lecture. They focus on key items and only get the tactile and visual learning center engaged on those items so, as a result, they create memory triggers that help the brain to recall more extensive information. Very much like mnemonic memory techniques, the brain often stores a LOT of information that you just can't access unless you have some sort of trigger that starts the recall, and good note takers end up reinforcing enough triggers that they can recall a lot of what was not written down when reviewing the notes.