Writing things by hand

This is a response to one of last week's topics but I think it's worthwhile saying something about it. Lucy wanted to know what the advantages are of using handwriting to construct e.g. an essay rather than a PC, with all the advantages the latter has.

One of the things lost with print is the individuality of handwriting. Whether we have beautiful handwriting or write as if taken over by a mad spider, it is still something uniquely ours, honed over many years. So an essay written out in one's own hand rather than printed out (like everyone else's) offers us - and the reader - a sense of identity passed on through that particualr text. It's a bit like a voice, I suppose. Print seesm to remove that voice, to an extent.

The second thing is to do with thought processes. Writing by hand is slower, thus what ends up on the page may be very different, in terms of the amount of time that the thought has had to dvelop. It's the rsult of a matured thought, not a sudden one.

Finally, when we draft things these days, a couple of things may occur. Either we draft and "save as" so that we end up with several similar documents OR we redraft/edit on the same copy, so that all that is produced is the final piece of work. In both cases, the record of where you've come from on the way to the final piece is different. A draft of a handwritten essay may well be covered in pen - additions, scribbling outs, arrows, boxes and so on. It is a record of a process of thinking, whereas if you save several different versions of your essay, this is a record of stages of thinking.

Of course there are lots of counter-arguments to what I've just claimed.....