I voted no because it’s not quality but tip size that makes a difference for me. Fine point or smaller highlights the shakiness of my writing. The thicker the tip the more legible my writing.
I have pretty bad handwriting, and since the amount of handwriting I do has tapered off significantly in the past 20 years, it is getting worse rather than better.
When I write, my brain tends to go much faster than my hand, and I end up scratching out a word here and there. Sometimes it is more than one word. I don’t just put a line through the offending word or phrase, I scribble through it so I can’t see what it used to say.
When I was in the fifth grade, I was living in Singapore and attending a British school. My teacher was from England. At one parent-teacher conference, he informed my dad that my handwriting would be improved by getting me a proper fountain pen. My dad thought this was garbage but bought me a decent fountain pen and a bottle of ink.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
Combining ADHD and OCD behavior with a bottle of ink is simply not a good thing.
I’m with jim. I can write legibly if I concentrate, but even with a fancy dancy writing utensil, it would never be anything classified as “neat.” Funny thing is I got good marks in penmanship in elementary school. Oh, if my teachers could see me now, they’d be so sad. I blame the internet.
No. I have horrible, illegible handwriting and I have used all sorts of fancy-schmancy writing utensils – fountain pens, thick barrell pens, thin barrell pens, roller balls, you name it. The only thing that improves my handwriting at all is to write a little more slowly. Even then, it’s still pretty much illegible.
I have horrible handwriting. I am usually in a hurry. I can read my own writing though, and that’s all that matters AFAIC. Quality of the writing instrument has no input.
My left-handed mother says my terrible handwriting is because my first-grade teacher switched me from being a lefty to a righty. I don’t remember, but my handwriting still sucks and I still don’t know my right from left without having to think about it. What I write with makes no difference at all.
This.
The only thing that would improve my handwriting would be a hand transplant from a calligrapher or something.
For me, the answer is yes.
I have crappy, crappy handwriting. In college, however, I found that if I use a fountain pen, it causes me to have to slow down, and be more exact due to the nature of the nib. It made my writing more legible, but still crappy. It helped, it truly did, but it was still bad.
What’s improved my handwriting is getting a handwriting curriculum (Handwriting Without Tears, if you’re interested) to teach to second-graders. If I want them to follow it, I gotta model it–and forcing myself to use the HWT method, even when kids aren’t around (otherwise I’ll forget when they’re around) has drastically improved my own handwriting. I really wish this curriculum had been used when I was a kid; it’s great.
“Slipperiness” makes no difference to me, but a smoother-writing pen would, I think, help anybody’s handwriting in contrast to a cheap or old ball point that blobs ink or “hangs up”, requiring one to go back over what you’ve written.
Funny you should bring this up. I had almost no occasion whatsoever to use handwriting, but now that I have a smart phone, it’s quicker to use the scratchpad and stylus to write a list, than it is to use the keypad, for which I also have to use the stylus. Sometimes I have a hard time deciphering my own writing so as to know what I’m supposed to bring home from the store.
As for pens, I find the rolling-ball type works best, the finer the point the better.
So, I answered no. But that’s probably not exactly right.
What initially made my handwriting legible was a mechanical drawing class in high school. I was introduced to the wonder that is block lettering, and suddenly, I could read my own handwriting!
In college, there was a nice little shop near campus that sold fancy-ish pens. I experimented with various things, looking for something that wouldn’t smear–while I’m right-handed, I hold my pen oddly and drag the edge of my hand across the page, such that the beginning of the line I’m writing really needs to be dry by the time I start the next line, or I’ll make a mess. So, by and by, I got around to liquid ink roller balls, and fountain pens. Both wrote more smoothly, and the ink dried just the way that I need it to. More important, though, is that having a nicer pen made me actually think about my handwriting a little bit more; I slowed down and used a lighter touch (especially important with the fountain pen!), and actually took a little pride in my longhand. From that, my longhand improved when I’d use it.
So, did the pen improve my handwriting? Sort of. But the mechanism was psychological, not mechanical. If something else had forced me to slow down and think about what I was doing, I’m sure I would have improved with a cheap Bic–though there would’ve been unattractive blobs and a sort of general smeariness to it all.
My normal handwriting isn’t very legible to most people but I can write as neatly as I want. I can do print and cursive in good style but it slows me down so I don’t usually do it. I have found over time that I can’t really write so badly that I can’t read it myself even if a lot of it is just random squiggles that look the same and aren’t letters. No one else can read my notes either. They aren’t even oriented in the same direction but I can read them just fine and can take them down quickly. There must be a psychological experiment in there somewhere.
No pen can help with that and there isn’t much of a problem to be solved in the first place.
That’s what I came in to say. My crappy handwriting is down to me and my scrawly laziness, not the quality of my tools.