Writing coach clients ask me all the time if it’s better to write longhand or type. I answer yes. And I advise those who don’t ask that question to try both. I know from my own work that writing longhand brings different results than typing. When I’m stuck and can’t seem to make any writing progress on the computer, I’ll grab a pen and a pad and head outside or to the kitchen to scribble. Inevitably that helps restart my stalled writer’s engine.
I’ve always suspected that this trick works because typing and writing longhand tap different parts of the brain. It turns out that I’m right. (Did you really doubt it?) According to “The End of Cursive Handwriting” in Real Simple magazine, “recent research from Indiana University found that writing by hand activates areas of the brain that don’t get tapped during typing.”
It gets better. Not only are you smarter when you occasionally opt to write longhand, your words tend to flow. The same Real Simple article states that “another study, conducted by the University of Washington, revealed that when elementary-school students composed essays on paper rather than on-screen, they wrote more and faster.”
So there you have it. The question about whether to write longhand or type presents a false choice. The only answer is yes. You want to do both.
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