Cursive Is Quicker Than Printing (?)

[beak]

.................. It's not about unfamiliarity per se, but a visual connectivity inherant in some good designs. Bad designs can "stop" the mind.

 

.......................

Another very good point - it's not about cursive per se, but about well-made (readable) cursive. I guess one other factor is that when cursive 'goes wrong' it really goes wrong! Printing is more tollerant of bad forms?

[celesul]

So, if I write painfully slowly, my print is easier for most people to read (but I think that's just that I'm young, and most of my peers can barely read even the neatest cursive). If I write at a normal speed, my cursive is pretty and legible and my print turns into a hybrid semi-legible scrawl. If I write really fast, they both turn into approximately the same terrible scrawl that only I can read but was very useful in high school debate, when recording most of my opponent's words was a good idea (the cursive one ends up moderately worse, but no one else can read either regardless).

 

So, I do most of my work in cursive, and end up very amused when my Indian friends view this as ideal and my fellow American students are kind of like "what is this junk?".

[beak]

I wholeheartedly agree with you beak. I believe that cursive is faster than print in general. However, to add another level, I believe that it could be argued that printing is actually faster with an HB pencil on paper because it is easier to put enough pressure to mark on the paper than with cursive. With a fountain pen or similar device, I only use cursive, but I prefer to print with a pencil because I find it hard to make a dark enough line with cursive without going slowly.

I'm sure you have your reasons, but why, out of interest, do you not choose to use a softer pencil for writing? I would habitually use a 2B or 4B, or softer, depending on the maker - they vary of course.

[blackrainstorm]

I wholeheartedly agree with you beak. I believe that cursive is faster than print in general. However, to add another level, I believe that it could be argued that printing is actually faster with an HB pencil on paper because it is easier to put enough pressure to mark on the paper than with cursive...

I'm sure you have your reasons, but why, out of interest, do you not choose to use a softer pencil for writing? I would habitually use a 2B or 4B, or softer, depending on the maker - they vary of course.

 

Yeah, I suppose that would solve the problem, but I just have been defaulting to the HB because I have to use test forms for optical mark recognition machines which read marks by HB pencils (I am a college student). I suspect they would also read darker pencil marks from softer pencils, but I have been unwilling to try because if they don't, my test would be read as a 0%

 

But I do do some sketching, and I love the softer pencils and find them much easier to write with. My cursive is faster with them than my print.

[JefferyS]

For writing, I defaulted to 2H simply because that's what I used when I had drafting in the 7th grade. I have seen guys using really soft pencils (like the fellow who did my taxes one year). He had very bold, dark lines that looked good and were easy to read (but wondered how easy they would be to smear).

[Chris H]

I print for legibility. Started back in high school when I could no longer read my cursive script. Been printing ever since, say somewhere in the neighborhood of 43 or 44 years. I print quickly enough, but it seems reasonable to believe if I wrote a legible cursive probably my printing speed would be faster. But this is just me. Others will obviously have a different experience.

 

Chris

[ethernautrix]

Looking through some notebooks from 1991, I was enthralled with my cursive. Wow. I don't write like that anymore. I wonder if I can.... Pretty sure I didn't write quickly, though, what with all the loops and doubling back and such.

 

I print now, in my notebooks, cos I like the look of it when I flip through the pages.

[myyrkezaan]

I had done some timing tests when this came up before (can't seem to find that thread) and I write about the same speed. Sometimes cursive was faster, sometimes printing, the biggest factor for speed decrease was brain to hand hiccups.

[Randal6393]

I had done some timing tests when this came up before (can't seem to find that thread) and I write about the same speed. Sometimes cursive was faster, sometimes printing, the biggest factor for speed decrease was brain to hand hiccups.

 

+1 on this. My speed is about the same, whether I use cursive or italic. What slows me down? Wanting to look pretty or look neat.

 

Enjoy,

[P.A.R.]

I write just about everything in cursive that I'm allowed to, and have been working on making it more legible for others. My printing is legible, but slower, less comfortable and certainly less fluid because I don't use it as often. I've also noticed that it takes me a while to switch between the two styles if writing large amounts of text, as I'm so used to using cursive that it takes a while to adjust.

Edited February 17, 2012 by P.A.R.

[FLZapped]

My fastest writing is neither print, nor cursive, but a semi-joined italic-wannabe. It's what my block printing and cursive evolved into. I can move my fingers quickly, my arm - not so much.

 

I couldn't find the FPN threads/posts regarding the handwriting contests. The current World Handwriting Contest is now split into Manuscript and Cursive. I don't remember such a split in the past. I couldn't find the list but vaguely remember prior winners to be almost all print/non-cursive.

 

But I did manage to find this blog post by one of our respected members:

http://thepetulantchild.edublogs.org/2010/03/07/should-we-let-cursive-die/

 

Kate Gladstone on March 9, 2010 11:40 am

 

Research shows that the fastest and most legible handwriters avoid cursive. The highest-speed highest-legibility handwriters join only some letters (not all of them) — making only the easiest joins and skipping the rest — and tend to use print-like letter-shapes for those letters whose printed and cursive shapes disagree.

 

 

I have huge problems with Gladstone. I have great disdain for anyone who actively seeks to kill a legitimate form of handwriting. She is rabidly anti-cursive, which is why I'll never participate in the World Handwriting Contest as long as she is involved. Her supposed research isn't. It is all either opinion or non-scientific polls, which are just another form of opinion. She has nothing scientific to back up her claims. There is also a fallacy in her declaration. Cursive is NOT 100% connected writing as she would want you to believe and I suspect that some of the polls conducted were worded in such a way to capture cursive writers, but I have no way of confirming this. I have, in the past, demonstrated that some of her efficiency claims for non-cursive writing, were in fact false. I have no problems with all forms of writing, only those who are biased to the point of being dishonest.

 

For me, printing hits a wall at about 20WPM. I know this from copying Morse Code, where block printing is really the best way to copy. I generally will use block printing when making editorial notes in reviewing manuals an other documents. However, when I write, my preference is cursive, it is simply easier and more efficient for me in that context. Some of the manuals available on the IAMPETH website seem to indicate an upper speed of 18WPM, although I doubt this is a hard and fast rule, other than too much speed is as bad as not enough. It also seems to me that printing may be more tolerant to breaking the speed limit than cursive, but I speak only for my own experience.

 

I am old enough that I was taught cursive in public school. However, the same discipline and methods found in the old manuals on business handwriting were non-existent. Of course now it seems that this writing style is ignored in school and printing is barely taught. Keyboard skills are king of the hill now - although this is soon to be supplanted by voice recognition input. (Will direct thought be next??)

 

I thought others here were kidding when they mentioned that there are school age children who could not read cursive, until I ran into one myself. I find that rather sad.

 

-Bruce

[beak]

......

Good stuff!

 

'Research shows that the fastest and most legible writers avoid cursive.'

 

Is a typically pointless statement; that which is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence.

[mirosc]

IMO opinion 'I print because it's quicker.' cannot be true, and what is usually meant is 'I print because it's quicker for me because I am not good at cursive writing.'

I think that many talk about "printing" without really meaning "printing". "Cursive" is a clearly defined way of writing, but "printing" seems not.

Some think of letterforms like on the good old typewriter, where you really separate all letters. Some think of a sort of new, personal cursive, where they have the basic form of printed letters, but connect the letters very much (and in lack of a better word, but still opposed to old cursive, they call it "printing") - this is usually not following the strict rules of cursive, but rather develops a very individual style of writing that suits the personal needs and strengths.

And I can imagine that this individualized "cursive printing" is faster than the old regular cursive.

At least it's usually more legible than most cursives I encounter in the wild.

[ticoun]

That's what i think too. Some say printing is quicker because they're not good enough at cursive. Since i've learned cursive back in second grade, 9 years ago, i've written in cursive exclusively because it was many times faster. Today, when i print, it looks like a first grader's handwriting, and for only a word and a half, after which i subconciously switch back to cursive.

[katim]

I missed this topic when it first appeared and have now read through the discussion with great interest. The major problem for me is defining what is meant by some of the terms used. I suspect that this is chiefly due to my age, having grown up with a rather different attitude towards handwriting.

For example, when I was at school no one 'printed' - it was regarded as a sign of illiteracy. I have to admit that, although I now see it more often, especially in examples posted in this forum, I still have to stifle that Pavlovian reaction.

Similarly, 'printing' almost always meant printing in capital letters - indeed, I can't think of ever meeting the expression in any other way. "Print your answer..." meant "Print in capital letters..." In this discussion, I assume that 'printing' means using both upper and lower case letters, but not joining them?

Why that should be intrinsically quicker puzzles me because it means lifting the pen/pencil between letters which I would expect to take fractionally more time. However, as with most things, practice has a great deal to do with speed and if one habitually prints rather than writes a cursive script, it's inevitably going to be faster to print! I fear, therefore, that beak's hope of establishing which of these is the faster is always in danger of a subjective opinion: those who write a cursive hand will vote one way while those who print will vote the other.

As for the need to be able to write at speed, especially when taking notes in class, I always found it easier to develop a sort of shorthand, mainly using a lot of abbreviations. The first letters of a word often sufficed, while simple abbreviations like "cd" for "could", "+" for "and" made speed easier to achieve. It did mean a lot of subsequent writing up of those notes, of course, and that needed to be done before one forgot what the abbreviations meant!

I write a cursive round hand and a cursive italic, with more 'lifts' of the pen in the latter, but neither of them at speed. That's mainly because I have the time to spare, being retired, but also because I've never been able to write either of those scripts at speed without offending my own eye, let alone that of any reader!

But one thing is certain as far as I'm concerned: I will 'print' in some scripts, like the foundation hand, which don't have a cursive form, but I shall never be able to shrug off that Pavlovian aversion to printing anything that has a perfectly good cursive form. Old-fashioned that may be, but when you're as old as I, that's par for the course!

[beak]

Though not yet retired, I too am old enough to remember the stigma attached to printing as an everyday hand.

 

Block capitals and printing were synonymous to me, but given that printing (i.e. not joining letters) is now popular with some people, the use of l/c letters now comes under that heading without doubt, I'd say.

 

The use of nothing but l/c, unjoined letters will strike those of a certain age as infantile and unlettered in the extreme, but that's just cultural change; neatly and legibly done, there's nothing to be said against it, really, except; if you've got that far, why not finish the job and join the letters, thus writing faster?

 

I don't take speed as the be-all-and-end-all, it's just that in the normal compromise between comfort, legibility, aesthetics and so on, that we all make when we write, cursive has the clear edge in speed, IMO, for those sufficiently practised at it - which used to be everyone who had completed their schooling successfully.

 

Even though I do write a good deal, I doubt that I write as much as did pre-electronic generations, and thus my cursive is not strict; there are gaps here and there; letters unjoined, either as miscellaneous habit, intentionally to save time because I find the join awkward, or because I can't make the join neatly. I doubt that I'm alone in this.

[caliken]

For example, when I was at school no one 'printed' - it was regarded as a sign of illiteracy. I have to admit that, although I now see it more often, especially in examples posted in this forum, I still have to stifle that Pavlovian reaction.

Similarly, 'printing' almost always meant printing in capital letters - indeed, I can't think of ever meeting the expression in any other way. "Print your answer..." meant "Print in capital letters..." In this discussion, I assume that 'printing' means using both upper and lower case letters, but not joining them?

As a fellow "Brit" of a similar age, this co-incides exactly with my experience. It was a long time before I realised that "printing" in the context of this forum, meant upper and lower case and not just capitals. Similarly, I have to remember that "Cursive" means Spencerian (or Business Writing which evolved from it). When I see "Cursive" I automatically think of Italic Cursive.

 

To talk of "Cursive" without specifying, can be confusing.

 

caliken

 

 

 

 

 

 

Katim; In quoting you, I have inadvertently changed the size and style of your chosen font! I have no idea how that happened - sorry!

Edited February 17, 2012 by caliken

[katim]

Though not yet retired, I too am old enough to remember the stigma attached to printing as an everyday hand.

....

The use of nothing but l/c, unjoined letters will strike those of a certain age as infantile and unlettered in the extreme, but that's just cultural change; neatly and legibly done, there's nothing to be said against it, really, except; if you've got that far, why not finish the job and join the letters, thus writing faster?

....

 

I prefer your use of the word 'infantile' to mine of 'illiterate'! We were all taught to print our letters in lower case in infancy - "the cat sat on the mat" etc, and no doubt similar teaching takes place in primary schools today. One felt very grown up as the move towards joined-up writing took place, leaving the early methods of writing behind. That's why we older members tend to think of those early methods as infantile. As you say, why not finish the job? Too much like making an effort?

It's hardly surprising that there are now generations complaining about being unable to read a cursive script when they don't use it themselves.

I expect we are in for a period when a cursive script is considered as old hat as a goose quill pen and some will call that progress. It's analogous to the rejection of good manners - why open a door for a woman who's perfectly capable of opening it for herself? Why insist on walking on the roadside edge of the pavement (sidewalk in America!) to prevent a lady's dress being spattered with mud when road surfaces are clean and well-drained? Why bother with all the paraphernalia of pens and handwriting when a simple ballpoint and the first method of writing you learn can do all that's necessary? After all, there's always the word-processor and printer for the more formal stuff.

But there's much good in progress and perhaps we have to accept that some things will disappear as younger generations rationalise the way they live. I just wish they'd be a bit more selective and avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water!

 

 

@ caliken

I'm not quite sure why I've settled on using a different font for my contributions - I think it was just that I was investigating the possibilities one day (some time ago!) and found Century Gothic. I only use it to provide a bit of variation on the pages of the forum!

Edited February 18, 2012 by katim

[beak]

.............. Similarly, I have to remember that "Cursive" means Spencerian (or Business Writing which evolved from it)..............

Surely not. Cursive = running = joined, and covers any such form, many (most?) of which pre-date American Spencerian of the 1850s.

[vincentstao]

Hi everyone, I have only started using the Palmer method for three months. Despite numerous claims that cursive is faster, my cursive is slower than my printing, probably due to not using it long enough. When I try to increase the speed of my cursive to that of my printing, it becomes an illegible scrawl.

 

Can anyone give me some pointers and tips?

 

Thanks