Ask HN: How to handwrite faster? To get into Stanford. | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to handwrite faster? To get into Stanford.

13 pointsnewsisan22 comments

With my school exams coming up, and no computer tests available, I have recently realized how important it is to be able to write faster (and readably).

Would it be worth adjusting my style of holding the pen to the recommended method?

Also, I was thinking of using WorkRave (workrave.org) breaks as a means of setting times for me to practice writing on lined paper, has any research been done on the best methods of practicing, in general - ie should I do 1 minute of writing every 10 minutes, 30 seconds every 5 minutes, 2 minutes every 20, etc? (looking at ratios, rather than absolute time, which will expand to fill my available time)

Any other general tips or similar experiences you have had? Would you be interested in improving your handwriting speed as well?

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Are you writing for other people, or taking notes? [edit: I fail at English comprehension, sorry. Post preserved for posterity to laugh at.] Writing for other people is largely an artistic pursuit these days, outside of class at any rate. Writing for yourself, you will destroy any achievable longhand speed by learning to outline effectively.

Among other pursuits, I have been a professional interpreter. The best exercise for note taking (aside from college debate, where they teach it) is watching the news in your native language. Write down key points only, develop personal symbolic vocabulary to quickly capture important concepts, practice practice practice.

Where is my notebook? Here we go:

w/ ^ glob 来 challop. Succ 社現 stup roi.

Apologies for the Japanese, I swap when it saves time. The full sentences the speaker said were:

With increasing globalization come challenges and opportunities. Successful companies will realize stupendous return on investment.

I am rate limited by speaker speed for anyone slower than the micro machine man, which is an occupational requirement when you have to be translating at the same time.

>Are you writing for other people, or taking notes?

He says he's writing exam papers. Legibility is highly important and a consistent standard writing style is expected (proper grammar, punctuation, etc.).

That said my Mum is a maths marker and she takes great pains to try to read even the most unintelligible and poorly written/drawn answers.

Those Japanese characters are faster to write than their corresponding english words? That's counterintuitive, at least to me.

In terms of improving the legibility, you can try this method: http://www.amazon.com/Write-Now-Complete-Program-Handwriting...

Personally, I find it's a tradeoff between legibility and speed. I also found, back in my school days (when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and "portable computers" still weighed about 40 lbs, and were thus useless for classwork) that I'd do much better to think quickly and write slowly than the opposite.

In other words, writing speed really shouldn't be the bottleneck.

I would recommend using gel pens (vs. ballpoint). These let you write on paper with a lot less effort compared to ballpoint, allowing you to write faster and without getting tired as quickly. If you don't already do so, you should write smaller (~15 words per line) and with very finetip pens, so you can cover more words in the same amount of time.

In high school, these were my favorite pens: http://www.jetpens.com/product_info.php/products_id/82

Pilot G2 gel pens have really nice dark, flowing ink, and are cheap and readily available.

The pens themselves are decent, though I got a Karim Rashid pen* as a gift and was delighted to find the g2 pen refills fit it perfectly. I've heard they fit many other custom pens, too.

* It looks like the blocky one in the middle here (http://www.aspshop.net/customs-wholesale/Pens/Karim-Rashid-I...). That one may or may not work for you - I have big hands.

Firstly, as a left handed person, if you are also left handed, learn to use your right hand(You probably don't have time for this though).

I would recommend the Palmer mothod, His book from 1935 is available to download here for free. http://www.iampeth.com/ADOBE_PDFs/Palmer%20Method%201935.pdf

Or if you like dead tree, Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1432596713?tag=callilearn-21&...;

As someone who hated and avoided cursive writing (all my writing is print until I made an effort a couple of years ago) this really helped, but it takes a couple of months if you're left handed (learning to use your right hand) I'm sure a lot less if you're right handed.

I'm left-handed, too. What's your reason to write right handed - because you smudge ink/graphite less?

I'll second the recommendation of getting a pen you really like.

The next step is going to depend on your boredom threshold. If you can do it, find an article or two, ideally a few pages each, and copy them word for word in longhand. The goal of this exercise is for your brain to get bored enough to naturally push you to go faster. For legibility, add in that if it's unreadable by your partner/friend, you have to redo that article (and not pick another article: that would be too interesting :).

If you have more time, handwriting a nightly journal or regular letters to someone is a more pleasant way to achieve the same goal. As writing more than a few words at a time becomes rote, it will naturally get better and faster.

I don't have a reference, but several years ago I read an article that described improving one's hand-writing by engaging the entire arm up through the shoulder. The amount of movement further up the arm is small, but it transforms the overall effort. As I recall the article describing, many people "freeze up" their arm, resulting in all the effort being made in the wrist and hand. This also increases strain and fatigue.

I tried what they suggested, a few times, and it did seem to have some effect, but I didn't stick with it methodically.

Sorry not to have a reference, but maybe Google will find it, if it sounds of interest.

This makes perfect sense to me. If you do massage, the strength comes from larger muscles like the shoulders, back and even legs. The hands need to remain relaxed or you hurt the person. So I can well imagine a similar principle applying to writing.

Found this link that talks about the correct technique for writing (engaging the forearm and shoulder instead of 'finger-writing') http://www.paperpenalia.com/handwriting.html

The only suggestions I have are:

1) Get a good ergonomic pen that works for you. This can help.

2) If you write small, legibility may be helped by getting a fine point pen rather than a standard medium point. This was a trick my ex-husband used.

Good luck with this.

I'm missing something important. How does this relate to Stanford?

I think he is preparing for the written portion of the SAT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand

Shorthand will help with note-taking, but the OP wants to write exams. I doubt his professors will be interested in reading them in shorthand.

Get a pen you like.

Take a deep breath and relax all your muscles.

Hold the pen very lightly. Pretend it's about to fall apart in your hand.

The tighter you hold the pen the worse and slower you'll write.

My mother-in-law always takes notes in stenography. Yes, she's that old (she learnt it at school during WWII). It's really fast as hell.

Shortly before the test, you might try handwriting a page or so as a warm-up, in order to get the muscles loosened up.

write in cursive.

Or Italic, which I believe is even faster than cursive.

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