47 ms·

Appreciate this may not be what the HN audience wants to hear, but there is evidence that writing things down helps you remember information better than typing

Appreciate this may not be what the HN audience wants to hear, but there is evidence that writing things down helps you remember information better than typing things out on a computer. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2414241-writing-things-down-may-help-you-remember-information-more-than-typing/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2414241-writing-things-... https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/11/23/why-writing-by-hand-is-still-the-best-way-to-retain-information/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/11/23/why-writing-by-hand-is...

thomastjeffery 3y ago
But is there any evidence on how what OP is doing compares? This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer".
- NBJack 3y ago
  I can only speak anecdotally on this, but I personally find the added cognitive load of advanced note taking solutions like this one were often distracting when I hit a tough thing to represent. I would be so focused on figuring out how to encode it that I would miss parts of what's being said.
  - lbourdages 3y ago
    Agreed, I stopped taking notes after 3 weeks in college because I was busy writing stuff and didn't have brain power left to actually try to understand.
  - taopai 3y ago
    I agree with you. It's great to put your notes in latex. But that's just final polishing. It's just a medium. I am not a genius, in fact I am pretty dumb, but I studied with geniuses. The more geniuses they where, the less things they wrote in class. One of them, the extreme case, completed the 5 years Math and Physics combined undergrad IN ONLY 3 YEARS. He just wrote 4 or 6 sentences in a white sheet for class, except when doing calculations, but he didn't do that much in class. Some sentences were facts others were questions. He seemed uninterested but I think he was doing heavy lifting in his head relating what he saw with what he knew. When you asked something to him he used to say "Yes this is not new, it's just a variation, combination or example of this". If I were to do college again I would spend a lot of time reading the texts (more than one for comparing important topics), then go to class to listen and solve doubts and spend time solving problems (interleaving topics) and making active recall with spaced repetition. Only after the exam I will put effort to try to sum up what I learned In a well rounded Latex small book. For sharing and for revising it later on, in case of need.
    - flopriore 3y ago
      Anectodically speaking, it has always been extremely helpful not only reading texts and solving problems/exercises, but also: 1) repeating topics out loud and, if there were some formulas, writing them down while doing that 2) explaining something to your friend if they didn't understand it
  - darkwater 3y ago
    Well, if you are a vim+latex wizard the cognitive load would be similar to hand-writing but hey, very few can reach that status.
- logifail 3y ago
  > This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer" Why is it 'obviously different'? The OP's title is How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using [a computer]
  - thomastjeffery 3y ago
    The meaningful difference between handwritten notes and typed notes is not the device itself. It's not as if the computer screen erases your memory, or as if the pencil itself writes it. The difference that would meaningfully affect learning is the note-taker's behavior. What OP has described is clearly a different behavior than either handwriting or typing.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > The meaningful difference between handwritten notes and typed notes is not the device itself[..] That's one hypothesis. Another would be the device [or lack of] is indeed the meaningful difference: "Handwriting likely facilitates learning and memorization because of the numerous one-of-a-kind physical cues it provides: the shapes of your letters, the tactile feel of the paper and pen, the location of your words on the page, and details like folded corners, ink color, and other marks on the page. Your brain absorbs all of these pieces of information, which can later serve as triggers so that you more precisely pull the information from your memory. By comparison, when you enter information into a phone or tablet, your words have no fixed position and then disappear when you close the app, leaving substantially less tactile and spatial information for your mind to absorb."[0] [0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes-handwriting-is-way-better-for-memorization-and-speed https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes...
      - thomastjeffery 3y ago
        My point is that it's the interaction with the device that causes a difference. We should not assume OP's note-taking methodology to be equivalent to regular typed notes, because the interaction is substantially different.
- jacurtis 3y ago
  > This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer". People tend to get wrapped up in the idea that writing stuff down is better than typing stuff out in terms of memory retention. But this is not the full story. The reason that studies repeatedly conclude that writing notes is more effective than typing notes is that writing is a conscious effort. You are usually falling behind when writing compared to what is being spoken and therefore as a subconscious product, your mind is actually summarizing and filtering information from the speaker as they speak. You can't write every word they say, so you have to actually listen to the speaker and determine what is worth writing. Then as you write, it takes a conscious stream of effort to write out the words and it is a slower process, which allows your brain to focus on and digest the information another handful of seconds before moving on. The feedback loop that writing naturally requires is what makes it more applicable to memory retention, not the physical act of writing itself. By comparison, most people can type around the speed of a speaker talking at a moderate cadence. This allows you to often type exactly what a speaker is saying, essentially as a stream of words coming in the ears and transferring directly into your motor control that allows for typing. This skips a processing stage (or introduces a very vague one) and so typed notes often become just streams of data collection as opposed to writing which tends to require elaborate data processing. It is the data processing that makes memory retention effective, not the writing of letters itself. What OP is doing is creating the same feedback loop, potentially to an even stronger degree than writing allows for, because you have to consume the information, figure out how to translate that to LaTeX and determine a method for displaying that information. LaTeX often requires an understanding of the full function when creating it. This requires more processing, and then a secondary process of consideration in developing a written or image function into a LaTeX format. Therefore, you get the same effect that writing provides, which is the data processing and translation components. This is what makes writing effective, not the movement of pen on paper. I would argue that what OP does is at least as effective as writing (maybe more, but that is conjecture).
  - goku12 3y ago
    > By comparison, most people can type around the speed of a speaker talking at a moderate cadence. This allows you to often type exactly what a speaker is saying, essentially as a stream of words coming in the ears and transferring directly into your motor control that allows for typing. That may depend on whether they can touch type. I don't know what percentage of HN audience can touch type, but the prevalence is pretty low among general population. The generation senior to me has more touch typists due to their training on typewriters. But I'm the only touch typist in my circle among the current and the next generation. The reason why touch typing is important is that non-touch typing is very distracting and takes more cognitive effort - diverting some of your attention away from what you're supposed to be doing. I know the difference because I learned touch typing recently. In fact, I think that cognitive effort in non-touch typing is one of the reasons why it's not easy to remember things you type, compared to writing.
- al_borland 3y ago
  On the surface, it seems like it would be much worse, as it seems OP is using a bunch of snippets and shortcuts to make it faster and easier to write syntax that will ultimately show a viewer nice looking math. I’d imagine the brain would be too preoccupied with translating what it’s seeing to what syntax/shortcuts need to be used to make it visually correct, and less focused on understanding what’s actually going on. Maybe that’s fine if OP really likes to study, and high quality notes make that better. I always had pretty poor study habits, and needed to lock away as much info as I could during class.
crunchbang-excl 3y ago
The issue I find with the first linked article is that the people tested were not allowed to type normally. They were required to type with their dominant hand only, which reduces most people to hunt and peck typing. Typing this way is a very different experience from typing with two hands, especially for people who can otherwise touch type. I'd like to see a similar study with people allowed to touch type.
- logifail 3y ago
  > I'd like to see a similar study with people allowed to touch type This one compared 'a paper datebook and pen, a calendar app on a digital tablet and a stylus, or a calendar app on a large smartphone and a touch-screen keyboard': "Study shows stronger brain activity after writing on paper than on tablet or smartphone" https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00168.html https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00168.html
lordswork 3y ago
In my experience, hand-writing notes and then typing them up is the best of both worlds, where you end up with beautiful notes and get at least 2 iterations of reading the material, which helps retain information.
- troyvit 3y ago
  It's probably not as good, but I type my notes really quickly and then go back later to proof them, taking out spelling errors and clarifying stuff. It seems to help me retain a little bit.
- azmodeus 3y ago
  Reverse also worked for me, take (other's) typed notes and write them out
gargs 3y ago
Unless it is doctors' notes or prescriptions.
musictubes 3y ago
I tried going back to writing in cursive and I was shocked at how different the process of writing was. When writing in script you have to think in terms of whole words. Writing in print is an atomic experience, one latter at a time. And of course once you get good at it you can probably write faster in cursive. If I were doing my math and Econ classes today I would absolutely use an ipad. Not only can you draw diagrams along with the notes, you can take a picture of the whiteboard or someone else’s notes and extract the text out it. Then later on you can type up the notes to reintegrate (hah!) what you were writing down. Then you could use LaTex or whatever other markup system you want while thinking about the subject matter.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  The feeling of writing on glass is just so overwhelmingly unsatisfying. The nice friction of a good pencil on good paper is like half of the experience, right?
  - flylikeabanana 3y ago
    There are screen protectors with a rough/matte finish that provide some of the friction you'd get from paper. It's not exactly the same, but it's a discrete step above writing on raw glass
  - the-mitr 3y ago
    Or the feeling of a very well calibrated/smoothed fountain pen on a nice quality paper, the way the nip slides on the paper effortlessly, yet following obediently slight nudges in pressure and tilts of the fingers to create the shapes that you want.
  - lanstin 3y ago
    Remarkable is great writing experience, very nice friction, but the notes end up being more like paper notes than equation edit notes.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
vouaobrasil 3y ago
I'm a mathematician and I actually tried this in class. I can do it but I found it much more effective to write on paper. Yes, you get good-looking notes but in math, since everything is written down so nicely already somewhere, it's much better for understanding to write on paper for a lot of people (and the majority of people still use paper). Plus, typing in class is annoying for others.
- palata 3y ago
  > Yes, you get good-looking notes but in math, since everything is written down so nicely already somewhere That was my first question as well: there shouldn't be a need to take notes because the class should be provided in a written form (a book, something). Such that the student can focus on understanding what's happening instead of just writing down what the teacher says. If taking notes helps understanding, that's different. But I doubt that writing in LateX particularly helps, on the contrary...
  - ska 3y ago
    > Such that the student can focus on understanding what's happening instead of just writing down what the teacher says. If you are writing down everything the teacher says, you aren't taking notes, you are transcribing a lecture. Taking notes should only be the highlights, key ideas, and things you didn't understand or misunderstood when you prepped for the lecture.
- mathgradthrow 3y ago
  I have much better results spending all my attention on predicting what's coming next in a talk. No notes at all.
  - sieste 3y ago
    Thank you, chatGPT, but nobody asked you!
bee_rider 3y ago
It is interesting that they tried some experiments with kids who were just learning to write. My speculation has always been that it is a ritual that we were taught, memorization is just correlated to note-taking by hand for ~20 years for many of us. So it would make sense for that to put our brain in a “let’s memorize” mode (after all, people in the past, before widespread writing, memorized things—presumably they had a different ritual). I assumed people raised on typing would memorize better that way. But the experiments seem to contradict my worldview. :(
- logifail 3y ago
  > I assumed people raised on typing would memorize better that way. But the experiments seem to contradict my worldview As another article[0] puts it, "going old school works because your brain is old school". 'Handwriting likely facilitates learning and memorization because of the numerous one-of-a-kind physical cues it provides: the shapes of your letters, the tactile feel of the paper and pen, the location of your words on the page, and details like folded corners, ink color, and other marks on the page. Your brain absorbs all of these pieces of information, which can later serve as triggers so that you more precisely pull the information from your memory. By comparison, when you enter information into a phone or tablet, your words have no fixed position and then disappear when you close the app, leaving substantially less tactile and spatial information for your mind to absorb' [0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes-handwriting-is- https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes... way-better-for-memorization-and-speed
Semaphor 3y ago
If I had done that, I'd have had the choice between not keeping up, or having issues reading the material again, later.
gjjgjgjgj 3y ago
No doubt, but I long ago gave up trying to memorize everything. Writing by hand helps you memorize but doesn't improve conceptual understanding and that's what most important for my work. I can always look up the syntax or the name or the exact value.
sureglymop 3y ago
I do all my studying on the PC except for math classes. For those I use an iPad and an apple pen and it works much better that way.
NobodyNada 3y ago
As always, this is something people should evaluate for themselves rather than assuming a generalized study applies to them in particular. Myself, my handwriting is awful. It’s slow, illegible, and writing more than a sentence or two physically hurts my hand. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, and it’s not for lack of practice. I practiced handwriting for sometimes hours a day growing up (not begrudgingly, I was serious about wanting to improve my handwriting), and my parents tried teaching me with different curriculums, different scripts, different techniques, different tools, etc. It was always miserable and my handwriting did not improve. Meanwhile, I can type at 150+ WPM. So, when taking notes, if I write by hand I can’t keep up with the speaker, miss details because I’m focused on writing, have to skip/abbreviate stuff, and end up with something illegible. If I type, I can properly digest what I’m hearing and write it out with nice Markdown/LaTex formatting, in a file that is legible, searchable, and doesn’t get wrinkled up in my backpack. I’d love to have better handwriting. The convenience and feel of pencil and paper is great, I don’t like having a screen in front of me while listening to someone talk, and good penmanship is something I respect a lot in others. But I’ve more or less given up on it at this point. If I actually care about remembering something, or want to be able to read it later, typed notes it is.

thomastjeffery 3y ago

But is there any evidence on how what OP is doing compares? This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer".

NBJack 3y ago
I can only speak anecdotally on this, but I personally find the added cognitive load of advanced note taking solutions like this one were often distracting when I hit a tough thing to represent. I would be so focused on figuring out how to encode it that I would miss parts of what's being said.
- lbourdages 3y ago
  Agreed, I stopped taking notes after 3 weeks in college because I was busy writing stuff and didn't have brain power left to actually try to understand.
- taopai 3y ago
  I agree with you. It's great to put your notes in latex. But that's just final polishing. It's just a medium. I am not a genius, in fact I am pretty dumb, but I studied with geniuses. The more geniuses they where, the less things they wrote in class. One of them, the extreme case, completed the 5 years Math and Physics combined undergrad IN ONLY 3 YEARS. He just wrote 4 or 6 sentences in a white sheet for class, except when doing calculations, but he didn't do that much in class. Some sentences were facts others were questions. He seemed uninterested but I think he was doing heavy lifting in his head relating what he saw with what he knew. When you asked something to him he used to say "Yes this is not new, it's just a variation, combination or example of this". If I were to do college again I would spend a lot of time reading the texts (more than one for comparing important topics), then go to class to listen and solve doubts and spend time solving problems (interleaving topics) and making active recall with spaced repetition. Only after the exam I will put effort to try to sum up what I learned In a well rounded Latex small book. For sharing and for revising it later on, in case of need.
  - flopriore 3y ago
    Anectodically speaking, it has always been extremely helpful not only reading texts and solving problems/exercises, but also: 1) repeating topics out loud and, if there were some formulas, writing them down while doing that 2) explaining something to your friend if they didn't understand it
- darkwater 3y ago
  Well, if you are a vim+latex wizard the cognitive load would be similar to hand-writing but hey, very few can reach that status.
logifail 3y ago
> This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer" Why is it 'obviously different'? The OP's title is How I'm able to take notes in mathematics lectures using [a computer]
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  The meaningful difference between handwritten notes and typed notes is not the device itself. It's not as if the computer screen erases your memory, or as if the pencil itself writes it. The difference that would meaningfully affect learning is the note-taker's behavior. What OP has described is clearly a different behavior than either handwriting or typing.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > The meaningful difference between handwritten notes and typed notes is not the device itself[..] That's one hypothesis. Another would be the device [or lack of] is indeed the meaningful difference: "Handwriting likely facilitates learning and memorization because of the numerous one-of-a-kind physical cues it provides: the shapes of your letters, the tactile feel of the paper and pen, the location of your words on the page, and details like folded corners, ink color, and other marks on the page. Your brain absorbs all of these pieces of information, which can later serve as triggers so that you more precisely pull the information from your memory. By comparison, when you enter information into a phone or tablet, your words have no fixed position and then disappear when you close the app, leaving substantially less tactile and spatial information for your mind to absorb."[0] [0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes-handwriting-is-way-better-for-memorization-and-speed https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes...
    - thomastjeffery 3y ago
      My point is that it's the interaction with the device that causes a difference. We should not assume OP's note-taking methodology to be equivalent to regular typed notes, because the interaction is substantially different.
jacurtis 3y ago
> This is obviously different from "typing things out on a computer". People tend to get wrapped up in the idea that writing stuff down is better than typing stuff out in terms of memory retention. But this is not the full story. The reason that studies repeatedly conclude that writing notes is more effective than typing notes is that writing is a conscious effort. You are usually falling behind when writing compared to what is being spoken and therefore as a subconscious product, your mind is actually summarizing and filtering information from the speaker as they speak. You can't write every word they say, so you have to actually listen to the speaker and determine what is worth writing. Then as you write, it takes a conscious stream of effort to write out the words and it is a slower process, which allows your brain to focus on and digest the information another handful of seconds before moving on. The feedback loop that writing naturally requires is what makes it more applicable to memory retention, not the physical act of writing itself. By comparison, most people can type around the speed of a speaker talking at a moderate cadence. This allows you to often type exactly what a speaker is saying, essentially as a stream of words coming in the ears and transferring directly into your motor control that allows for typing. This skips a processing stage (or introduces a very vague one) and so typed notes often become just streams of data collection as opposed to writing which tends to require elaborate data processing. It is the data processing that makes memory retention effective, not the writing of letters itself. What OP is doing is creating the same feedback loop, potentially to an even stronger degree than writing allows for, because you have to consume the information, figure out how to translate that to LaTeX and determine a method for displaying that information. LaTeX often requires an understanding of the full function when creating it. This requires more processing, and then a secondary process of consideration in developing a written or image function into a LaTeX format. Therefore, you get the same effect that writing provides, which is the data processing and translation components. This is what makes writing effective, not the movement of pen on paper. I would argue that what OP does is at least as effective as writing (maybe more, but that is conjecture).
- goku12 3y ago
  > By comparison, most people can type around the speed of a speaker talking at a moderate cadence. This allows you to often type exactly what a speaker is saying, essentially as a stream of words coming in the ears and transferring directly into your motor control that allows for typing. That may depend on whether they can touch type. I don't know what percentage of HN audience can touch type, but the prevalence is pretty low among general population. The generation senior to me has more touch typists due to their training on typewriters. But I'm the only touch typist in my circle among the current and the next generation. The reason why touch typing is important is that non-touch typing is very distracting and takes more cognitive effort - diverting some of your attention away from what you're supposed to be doing. I know the difference because I learned touch typing recently. In fact, I think that cognitive effort in non-touch typing is one of the reasons why it's not easy to remember things you type, compared to writing.
al_borland 3y ago
On the surface, it seems like it would be much worse, as it seems OP is using a bunch of snippets and shortcuts to make it faster and easier to write syntax that will ultimately show a viewer nice looking math. I’d imagine the brain would be too preoccupied with translating what it’s seeing to what syntax/shortcuts need to be used to make it visually correct, and less focused on understanding what’s actually going on. Maybe that’s fine if OP really likes to study, and high quality notes make that better. I always had pretty poor study habits, and needed to lock away as much info as I could during class.

crunchbang-excl 3y ago

The issue I find with the first linked article is that the people tested were not allowed to type normally. They were required to type with their dominant hand only, which reduces most people to hunt and peck typing. Typing this way is a very different experience from typing with two hands, especially for people who can otherwise touch type. I'd like to see a similar study with people allowed to touch type.

logifail 3y ago
> I'd like to see a similar study with people allowed to touch type This one compared 'a paper datebook and pen, a calendar app on a digital tablet and a stylus, or a calendar app on a large smartphone and a touch-screen keyboard': "Study shows stronger brain activity after writing on paper than on tablet or smartphone" https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00168.html https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00168.html

lordswork 3y ago

In my experience, hand-writing notes and then typing them up is the best of both worlds, where you end up with beautiful notes and get at least 2 iterations of reading the material, which helps retain information.

troyvit 3y ago
It's probably not as good, but I type my notes really quickly and then go back later to proof them, taking out spelling errors and clarifying stuff. It seems to help me retain a little bit.
azmodeus 3y ago
Reverse also worked for me, take (other's) typed notes and write them out

gargs 3y ago

Unless it is doctors' notes or prescriptions.

musictubes 3y ago

I tried going back to writing in cursive and I was shocked at how different the process of writing was. When writing in script you have to think in terms of whole words. Writing in print is an atomic experience, one latter at a time. And of course once you get good at it you can probably write faster in cursive. If I were doing my math and Econ classes today I would absolutely use an ipad. Not only can you draw diagrams along with the notes, you can take a picture of the whiteboard or someone else’s notes and extract the text out it. Then later on you can type up the notes to reintegrate (hah!) what you were writing down. Then you could use LaTex or whatever other markup system you want while thinking about the subject matter.

bee_rider 3y ago
The feeling of writing on glass is just so overwhelmingly unsatisfying. The nice friction of a good pencil on good paper is like half of the experience, right?
- flylikeabanana 3y ago
  There are screen protectors with a rough/matte finish that provide some of the friction you'd get from paper. It's not exactly the same, but it's a discrete step above writing on raw glass
- the-mitr 3y ago
  Or the feeling of a very well calibrated/smoothed fountain pen on a nice quality paper, the way the nip slides on the paper effortlessly, yet following obediently slight nudges in pressure and tilts of the fingers to create the shapes that you want.
- lanstin 3y ago
  Remarkable is great writing experience, very nice friction, but the notes end up being more like paper notes than equation edit notes.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

vouaobrasil 3y ago

I'm a mathematician and I actually tried this in class. I can do it but I found it much more effective to write on paper. Yes, you get good-looking notes but in math, since everything is written down so nicely already somewhere, it's much better for understanding to write on paper for a lot of people (and the majority of people still use paper). Plus, typing in class is annoying for others.

palata 3y ago
> Yes, you get good-looking notes but in math, since everything is written down so nicely already somewhere That was my first question as well: there shouldn't be a need to take notes because the class should be provided in a written form (a book, something). Such that the student can focus on understanding what's happening instead of just writing down what the teacher says. If taking notes helps understanding, that's different. But I doubt that writing in LateX particularly helps, on the contrary...
- ska 3y ago
  > Such that the student can focus on understanding what's happening instead of just writing down what the teacher says. If you are writing down everything the teacher says, you aren't taking notes, you are transcribing a lecture. Taking notes should only be the highlights, key ideas, and things you didn't understand or misunderstood when you prepped for the lecture.
mathgradthrow 3y ago
I have much better results spending all my attention on predicting what's coming next in a talk. No notes at all.
- sieste 3y ago
  Thank you, chatGPT, but nobody asked you!

bee_rider 3y ago

It is interesting that they tried some experiments with kids who were just learning to write. My speculation has always been that it is a ritual that we were taught, memorization is just correlated to note-taking by hand for ~20 years for many of us. So it would make sense for that to put our brain in a “let’s memorize” mode (after all, people in the past, before widespread writing, memorized things—presumably they had a different ritual). I assumed people raised on typing would memorize better that way. But the experiments seem to contradict my worldview. :(

logifail 3y ago
> I assumed people raised on typing would memorize better that way. But the experiments seem to contradict my worldview As another article[0] puts it, "going old school works because your brain is old school". 'Handwriting likely facilitates learning and memorization because of the numerous one-of-a-kind physical cues it provides: the shapes of your letters, the tactile feel of the paper and pen, the location of your words on the page, and details like folded corners, ink color, and other marks on the page. Your brain absorbs all of these pieces of information, which can later serve as triggers so that you more precisely pull the information from your memory. By comparison, when you enter information into a phone or tablet, your words have no fixed position and then disappear when you close the app, leaving substantially less tactile and spatial information for your mind to absorb' [0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes-handwriting-is- https://www.fastcompany.com/90618464/ditch-the-digital-notes... way-better-for-memorization-and-speed

Semaphor 3y ago

If I had done that, I'd have had the choice between not keeping up, or having issues reading the material again, later.

gjjgjgjgj 3y ago

No doubt, but I long ago gave up trying to memorize everything. Writing by hand helps you memorize but doesn't improve conceptual understanding and that's what most important for my work. I can always look up the syntax or the name or the exact value.

sureglymop 3y ago

I do all my studying on the PC except for math classes. For those I use an iPad and an apple pen and it works much better that way.

NobodyNada 3y ago

As always, this is something people should evaluate for themselves rather than assuming a generalized study applies to them in particular. Myself, my handwriting is awful. It’s slow, illegible, and writing more than a sentence or two physically hurts my hand. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, and it’s not for lack of practice. I practiced handwriting for sometimes hours a day growing up (not begrudgingly, I was serious about wanting to improve my handwriting), and my parents tried teaching me with different curriculums, different scripts, different techniques, different tools, etc. It was always miserable and my handwriting did not improve. Meanwhile, I can type at 150+ WPM. So, when taking notes, if I write by hand I can’t keep up with the speaker, miss details because I’m focused on writing, have to skip/abbreviate stuff, and end up with something illegible. If I type, I can properly digest what I’m hearing and write it out with nice Markdown/LaTex formatting, in a file that is legible, searchable, and doesn’t get wrinkled up in my backpack. I’d love to have better handwriting. The convenience and feel of pencil and paper is great, I don’t like having a screen in front of me while listening to someone talk, and good penmanship is something I respect a lot in others. But I’ve more or less given up on it at this point. If I actually care about remembering something, or want to be able to read it later, typed notes it is.