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Improving Terrible Handwriting?
green pizza asks: "My handwriting is horrible, an irregular mix of sloppy print and cursive. I know this, and my coworkers have learned to live with it, but I didn't realize just how bad my chickenscratch was until I tried using a tablet PC. Unlike a Palm which forced me to learn its input method, a tablet PC (and other humans) expect me to write a certain way. Aside from a handwriting class for professional adults on the other side of the country, I have only been able to find lessons and materials for the young, illiterate, or mentally challenged. Have any other geeks found a structured way to improve their handwriting?"
I use a keyboard. :)
...but, I'm in the same boat. My handwriting is really bad -- I often end up replacing whole sections of words with unitelligible scrawls.
My Advice: Switch professions and become a doctor.
I had terrible handwriting (Everybody said I should have been a doctor). I figured on trying to better my handwriting and found that writing through the alphabet over and over for a few weeks. After that, I did repetitive practice writing. Writing pages from books or whatever until you notice any improvement. It sure worked for me, but ymmv.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
My first PDA was a Newton OS 1.3 Original MessagePad that my girlfriend got me. Determined to use and love it, I used it for taking notes in class and programming [1], as well as playing some games.
And of course, I had to use the handwriting recognition.
Back then, HWR wasn't great. This is the whole "eat up martha" era- and indeed, that Newt was named "Martha." The only way to get decent (though still slow) HWR was for me to start printing cleanly. It improved my penmanship quite a bit.
But then I lost it. Not a big deal, it only cost $50, picked up on eBay in '99. Then, I got a Newton MessagePad 2100- the real deal. A new HWR scheme, a much faster CPU and an overall much nicer unit. The HWR was a thousand times better, an still the best of anything I've ever used (and I've used it all). Alas, my better handwriting didn't last that long- after using the Newton 2100 for a couple years, my handwriting had devolved back to messy crap. But that wasn't a big deal, as the Newton had no problem interpreting it with 99%+ accuracy, allowing me to write a good 40-50 WPM in my crap-tastic handwriting.
What the hell is my point? Get an old, crappy Newton. You can get them cheap. Try to use its HWR. Or, get a new, expensive Palm OS 5 device and install Decuma. I am using that these days... Nowhere near as nice as Newton HWR or even CalliGrapher/Transcriver on pocketPC/WinCE. My handwriting is slowly improving, being stuck with this inferior, but still kind of nice, input method. Only printing, and very clean printing at that.
[1] That was one of the biggest reasons I decided on the Newton... It was completely programmable on the device itself, requiring no intervention, compilation or otherwise a toolchain on the desktop- unlike C++ on WinCE or C on PalmOS. You could write first-class NewtonScript apps on the Newton itself, even on one as gimpy as the OMP.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
The book "The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards has a chapter on handwriting, even though it is a book about drawing. BTW, I recommend the rest of the book to anyone as well. (especially if you think you "can't draw.")
I don't know if this works for people of other hand-usages, but I know what I did to improve my handwriting...
For the record, I'm a left-handed-to-ambidextrous individual, and ever since I was a child I've had trouble with handwriting--I'm infamous at my high school for it. I typically write left handed and do anything athletic right handed--the opposite of what you'd expect, as my left arm is much stronger. And I've discovered something fun...
Whenever I'm writing slowly, as long as I'm writing in big text, my right-handed handwriting is better than my left.
I can't write very fast right-handed--I'm more of a lefty than a righty, though I am technically ambidextrous. And if I try to write quickly with my right, it's more illegible than my left. But aside from some awkward numbers, my right is neater for slowly-written stuff.
And practice does make perfect. At first my right-handed handwriting looked like that of a very neat child (and I didn't start practicing with the right until about two years ago), but now, as long as I go slowly, it looks almost like my peers'.
So, you might want to try the old switcheroo. Just remember--most objects in our culture are right-handed, so you'll probably have better luck with this if you're a lefty than a righty.
...and learn to slow your handwriting down.
Calligraphy can be tremendously rewarding. Usually simple letters of the alphabet aren't considered works of art, but write them in calligraphy and suddenly everyone wants to hang the quips and quotes you scribble, all over their homes!
This will teach you the practice and patience and dexterity you need to improve your normal handwriting also.
It's not hard, it just takes endless practice.
And, even though some of those books are for children, they do have the outlined strokes you need to cleanly (and slowly) learn the forms.
Seriously,
I had this same problem and thses two things helped me more than anything else.
First try writing with a couple of differant pen types. Most people will find that they print much better with a certain type of pen; felt tip, ball point, microball etc. Find one you like. Also like swords, weight and balance are important. The same goes for stylii.
Then go get yourself a calligraphy book and a proper caligraphy pen. (the type with the metal tip) To use such a pen you have to always pull the tip across the paper down, or sidewise, but not up. This will teach you to slow down, and plan each pen stroke (or you will ruin a bunch of tips).
It is more or less impossible to write properly in cursive using a proper caligraphy pen because of the fact that you cant draw strokes "upwards." But i've noticed that most handwriting rec software seems to take print better anyway.
Also if the software is halfway decent and learns, the fact that you draw each letter the same way each time should help the rec quite alot.
NOZ
There are two types of people: those that can fill in the blanks,
I used to have the same problem. I failed tests and even lost a job because my handwriting was completely unreadable. What I finally realized was that my handwriting improved drastically (to the point where people would actually compliment me on my penmenship) if I just slowed down and paid attention to the actual letters I was writing. I know that this sounds like obvious advice, but it is something that you really have to be mindful of because most people have a tendancy to just start writing.
Another thing that may help is to try different grips on the pencil. As children we have it drilled into our heads that you HAVE to hold the pencil gripped between your thumb and index finger only, I've found that for me at least my writing and drawing as well is orders of magnintude better when the pencil or pen is gripped between my thumb and my index and middle fingers.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I had the same problem with my handwriting being illegible, a couple of years ago. I felt that just trying to write slower wasn't the solution. I did something more radical: I switched handwriting styles. I found a great little book called Naar beter handschrift ("To better handwriting") from 1956. This book teaches you to write in a script that is closely based on 14th-century Italian writing, the so-called "Humanistic cursive". (See here for an example of original humanistic cursive.)
Unlike our modern cursive handwriting, where you are supposed to write all the letter connected to each other (there is some kind of law "thou shalt not take the pen off the paper while writing", which is good for speed but not for legibility), you only connect letters when it makes sense in the humanistic cursive, and you are allowed to take the pen off the paper to draw better shapes for your letters. Example: the lower case r in modern cursive (at least the way that I learned it, in The Netherlands) is rather ugly, it's essentially an r written backwards (so that you won't have to take the pen off the paper while writing it). In the humanistic cursive, the lower case r looks much like a lower case printing letter r because you don't have to forcibly connect it to other letters. And it's much more readable that way.
JP
I found Rosemary Sassoon's Teach yourself better handwriting very useful. It is specifically targeted at ppl who are trying to fix up their handwriting and not at child first time learners. Rosemary states in the book that very different approaches are required for these two different pedagogical needs.
An interesting part of the book is where Rosemary addresses pen-grips and suggests a rather radical option of holding the pen between index and middle finger. I've switched over to this and enjoy it as I never felt comfortable with the oppositionary tension between index and thumb of the standard grip.
Here is an addall link to the book (2nd edition) so you can compare prices.
Here is a link to the book (1st edition - the one I used) on Amazon so you can check the reader reviewsHere is a link to the publisher's page on the book (2nd edition)
Here is a link to some information about the author Rosemary Sasson
the young, illiterate, or mentally challenged
Someone actually created handwriting lessons for script kiddies?!? GR347!