Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking | Hacker News Reader

Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking

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45 pointsAjJi22 comments

The author uploaded the full text here: http://www.academia.edu/6273095/The_Pen_Is_Mightier_Than_The...

I'm interested in why. The linked paper has some fascinating discussion of prior research on the "why" question, but as yet really the only data we have come from correlational studies rather than explanatory ones.

I type a lot (5x-10x?) faster than I can write but I take all my meeting notes by pen (I use a livescribe but it hasn't changed my workflow much). It's clearly faster in terms of retention, comprehension and relevance. But why?

I have noticed that in note taking I have my own idiosyncratic handwriting: primarily joined-up ("cursive"), with many letterforms surviving from my childhood, but with some that are formed in a way that simply seems more natural to me (especially the decenders of y and g) intermixed with some "printed" characters (for example j, as well as almost all the capital letters, to the extent that I use them at all). Definitely not designed for someone else to read again, and even in my case I often have to puzzle out what I had written -- yet still, it has a much better result than typing! I clearly have adapted my writing to reduce its overhead.

Apart from note taking I almost don't write at all: a few hand-printed notes ("don't throw this away") or addresses, and whiteboards of course. These always use separated, printed letters and seem cognitively complex to write (i.e. slow!). Typing is clearly the most effortless.

With my own n of one I have tried taking notes with a wireless keyboard on the table or my lap (so the screen isn't a barrier between me and my interlocutor) but it doesn't help. There presumably is some disjoint mechanism between handwriting and typing, and somehow the handwriting barrier is lower.

Longhand ruled my course simply because, at the time there were few good options for fast equation and diagram transcription. 80-90% of our lectures were equations with short notes around them.

Occasionally we'd have lecturers who handed out dense powerpoint slides and then went through and explained them very rapidly. Good luck doing that on a laptop.

I think perhaps 3 out of 80 people used laptops. I usually wrote everything verbatim with a bit of extra stuff the lecturer was saying if something wasn't immediately obvious.

I'd then go through and convert it all to LaTeX forcing myself to understand each equation that went in (i.e. if there was a step with an integral that was omitted in the lecture, perform it). That way you know exactly how to do all the steps and you can add your own relevant comments that you may have glossed over in the auditorium. Worked well for me and I could then recycle the reams of paper that collected on my shelves.

As for distraction, we played Peggle a lot in quantum mechanics...

I favour guided note taking a lot. A page, with concepts, and a blocked-off section for personal questions similar to the Cornell method. Together with diagrams and drawing lots of arrows, I know of no electronic method which is as fast as the pen.

If taking notes means essentially taking meeting minutes, the material provided by the lecturer is lacking.

On the other hand, I type at least 10x faster than I write. If people learned to only take notes on as much as they would write otherwise, it seems you'd get the best of both worlds -- faster note-taking which would allow time for deeper processing.

But really, the deeper problem is taking notes at all. Honestly, in what world is it efficient for a lecturer to recite, and all the students take notes? Students should be able to pay attention without being distracted, and a designated note-taker should be taking everything down, getting the professor to correct any mistakes, and then e-mailing everyone afterwards. Note-taking is an anachronism that deserves to die.

Typing notes doesn't work well in all classes, though. I can't write equations down on a computer as fast as I write, especially complex ones. Figures are also another problem.

I've seen undergrad classes where the students get the notes and I saw two main problems. They often either don't bother coming to class or they don't pay attention. In some of my grad courses, we got notes ahead of time and then made personal notes during the lectures on top of the supplied ones, but we were a bit more motivated than the average undergrad.

An alternative that seemed to work well in the undergrad courses I had was notes that had portions for students to fill in. The only problem with this approach is that it requires careful consideration by the lecturer. This approach is actually what is suggested by some of the research [1] on note-taking and lectures.

While the research is mixed on note-taking, overall it seems to suggest that some note-taking is good as long as the lectures are set to accommodate it. For example, looking at a study by Kiewra and Benton [2] it says the "amount of note-taking is related to academic achievement" and "ability to hold and manipulate propositional knowledge in working memory is related to the number of words, complex propositions, and main ideas recorded in notes."

[1] McAndrew, Donald A. "Underlining and notetaking: Some suggestions from research," Journal of Reading, 27(2), November 1983, pp. 103-108.

[2] Kiewra, Kenneth A., and Benton, Stephen L. "The relationship between information-processing ability and notetaking," Contemporary Educational Psychology, 13, 1988, pp. 33-44.

Note taking worked very well for me because it caused the information to be fixed into my memory, even if I never looked at the notes again.

Taking notes on paper is far more effective, because you cannot type diagrams or equations or draw arrows, etc. The batteries never die on notepaper, they're light and easy to carry, they don't make noise, the display doesn't distract the folks behind you, etc.

Later, just run the notes through a scanner.

The point of note-taking is not in passing some oral tradition from the lecturer to the students. If the information exchange had been an issue then there had not been any lectures after the invention of printing process - all lectures had been printed and distributed to students. Such a process, in fact, exists but does not substitute lectures as you might already know.

The point of note-taking is that people learn better this way as this and numerous other researches show. One theory is that it's because of activation of motor cortex, which is largely dedicated to controlling hands and fingers [1]. It appears that people learn better when the larger parts of their brain are active. The same principle explains reciting as a learning technique. Speech also takes a large part of the brain and it similarly helps learning.

On the same note, I believe the failing American education can be explained by the decline of handwriting. It will be interesting to see how well Finland will fare after they stop teaching longhand in 2016 [2]

1. http://www.acbrown.com/neuro/Lectures/Motr/NrMotrPrmr.htm

2. http://www.savonsanomat.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/nappaintaitoja-op...

I believe the failing American education can be explained by the decline of handwriting.

Handwriting isn't declining; cursive handwriting is. I strongly believe that writing things by hand (handwriting) is an aid to learning, but I don't think learning two different, parallel scripts increases that learning. (I don't object to cursive as an art form--in fact I love it and practice it--but that is something for older kids in art class, not something for writing papers and taking notes while you're still new to writing.)

Those who print all the time can write just as quickly, draw the same diagrams, arrows, underlining, marginalia, and so on, as those who write in cursive or in both scripts. Using a single script instead of two will not lessen the benefits of writing by hand, but using a keyboard instead of printing by hand is more problematic.

>Those who print all the time can write just as quickly

If they have studied cursive as an art form in the 3d grade then I agree. Otherwise, not really. Cursive is not an art form, it's an efficient system of handwriting. If you are seeing it as an art form - you are not using handwriting enough in my humble opinion. When I went to school, rebelling kids were developing all kinds of different ways to longhand to stand out and show their individuality. I have never seen anybody typing voluntarily. It's just not as quick.

This has been measured by researchers, and cursive provided no speed advantage over printing. That's why it's so easy and common for people who know how to write in cursive to revert to printing all the time even after years of cursive in school.

Cursive as a non-art, general writing system was developed because of the need to keep the pen nib in contact with the paper as much as possible to draw the ink drop forward. Each time the nib was lifted, you risked leaving an ink blob. Kids advancing from pencil to pen needed to also change from printing to cursive.

The shift away from liquid ink pens (quill, steel, fountain, cartridge) to polymerizing ("ball point") pens in the second half of the 20th Century obviated that need.

Have researchers ever published they research? Also, appreciate downvotes from the illiterate :)

Yes, it has definitely been published in academic journals in the education field. I apologize for being lazy about looking it up, but if you're interested, go to scholar.google.com and search for cursive writing and whatever else makes sense to you. The question of whether or not to teach cursive in school has been an ongoing controversy in the education field (in the US) for many years, so it has been formally researched in various ways.

Not surprisingly, of course, the research doesn't simply settle the policy issue. People's opinions about educational policy are strong and the general quality of research in the field is, IMO, pretty weak, so it's only quoted when it supports your opinion and doesn't change anybody else's opinions.

Also, I'll give you a couple of upvotes to hopefully neutralize any downvotes.

I actually read many articles on the topic of handwriting so saying "go to google and find my arguments for me" is wasted on me. There is no research that is simultaneously believable and saying what you are saying. Most I could find that was supporting your opinion were people comparing some canonical cursive script to other forms of cursive writing and saying that fastest writers are not using the canonical script the schools in the USA are teaching but are writing connected letters as opposite to typing each letter separately. But just to be sure I did a search as you suggested and found that cursive is now the new enemy of the Left in the US (the Common Core thing, right?). This explains the hostility and points to the futility of any further discussion so I will bow out.

I'd be curious to see how these results change with pen-driven technology, such as the Galaxy Note tablets, or the Livescribe pens (that simultaneously write to paper, create digital copies stored in Evernote, and also record an audio version of the lecture/meeting).

I've always felt that when I need to think through concepts, walking away from the computer & working with pen & paper was a more effective way to do it, at least for myself.

The abstract rings true to me. In high-school I had a fetish for heavy rewording, formatting of notes. The more I formatted it (indentation, color coding, consistent abbreviations) the more I learned indirect relationships in the content.

Out of my hat, I tend to think that digital tools aren't good for learning, for they are too symbolic. I believe native interactions stimulate the brain more and feed more data to process that is useful for newcomers.

I improved my grades in the later undergrad years by taking the notes from class and re-writing them in a nice form (like you using colour and cleaning it up) into bound notebooks, like the kind used for log books. Then, if I needed to review for a test, I just grabbed the book. Now, I have a handy set of books on my shelf.

I'll add that the constraints forced me to focus on what was new and counter-intuitive to me. Limited space meant I'll have to trim away what felt obvious, and only keep the obscure.

The only problem with trimming away something you feel is obvious is that if you need to go back to the notes quite some time afterwards, it might not appear obvious at that time. It's just like when you don't comment something in code and when you go back to it, you're wondering what you were thinking when you wrote it.

> Prior studies have primarily focused on students’ capacity for multitasking and distraction when using laptops.

I prefer to not multi-task at all and just pay attention.

From the study linked:

> The studies we report here show that laptop use can negatively affect performance on educational assessments, even—or perhaps especially—when the computer is used for its intended function of easier note taking.

What is your point? I'm saying that I simply pay attention in lectures; I don't use note taking or use my laptop. My laptop battery wouldn't last a whole lecture, anyway.

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