A lot of people seem to think cursive writing is more efficient than printing because you don’t lift the pen as often. I counter that cursive with its extraneous loops and whorls is no more efficient. My usual style is a hybrid of printing and cursive.
I tested myself on several passages and even I was surprised how slow my cursive is compared to my printing, and how slow both of them are compared to my typing speed. Here are my results:
I haven’t tested myself, but here are my observations:
Typing - pretty damn fast. Just ask anyone who’s played me in #sd-trivia.
Printing - this is my normal mode of handwriting. But ever since I started taking notes in class on my Palm Pilot keyboard, my writing speed has gotten glacial. Even worse, it’s getting to where it’s nearly impossible to read, even for me. Even my signiature is beginning to look more and more like a four-year-old’s.
Cursive - I haven’t even tried in years. I’d have to stop at each letter and try and remember how it’s formed.
Haven’t tested the printing and cursive speed. Probably pretty average. I actually write in a sort of half cursive/half print style. It’s like printing, but a bunch of the letters are strung together.
Wow, Kyla, I think you and I were separated at birth.
I have been timed at 90 wpm typing, although, I’m probably closer to 80 most times.
I also print, stringing a lot of the letters together. Half the time I intersperse upper and lower case letters in words. Looks sorta psycho, like what I’d imagine the diary of a serial killer would look like, but some letters are easier for me to print in upper case.
I haven’t written cursive script in about 20 years, and it was largely illegible even then. That’s why I started printing everything. I knew I would be able to read my class notes if I didn’t write them legibly, so I switched to printing everything.
My typing speed varies with my caffeine level, but it’s usually between 65 and 80 wpm. My usual writing is a weird hybrid (like so many others here) with printed letters connected by a drag-mark where I didn’t lift the pencil all the way off the paper, with occasional bits of cursive sneaking into it.
I find cursive less hard on the hands. When writing essay questions I always switch to cursive to avoid cramping up. Plus, it looks prettier. I enjoy making beautiful cursive capital letters.
Ahem. My attempt at a semi-precise measurement.
For my samples I used the old “The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog” switching the order of adjectives and nouns to avoid giving the advantage to samples done later.
Punctuation and capitalization was included.
The average speed for writing, given by totaling the number of letters (not including spaces) and dividing by 5 was:
22.2 wpm for printed (27.5 actual words)
20 wpm for cursive (24.5 actual words)
For printing, I made spelling errors. I corrected those while typing, so no reduction in wpm due to errors (as is commonly done).
Again, letters, not counting spaces:
54.2 wpm (70 actual words)
Swear to god, my freshman (HS) english teacher told me to stop writing in cursive, it was that bad. I was destined to either be a doctor or an engineer, I took the path with less school. So the number for that is:** 0**
My printing isn’t that great either, but I’m probably around 35-40 wpm.
Typing, well, that’s probably more along the lines of **60-70[b/] wpm, with corrections, which ther always are. Wich is good considering it’s a combination of touch-typing and looking.
typing: 66-72 WPM by typing test; >120 in bursts
printing by hand: 18 WPM est
cursive writing: 24 WPM est
I’m not sure I could print or write by hand for an entire minute without my hand cramping up, I’m so unused to it!
Ok, these things are wildly inaccurate. I did another test and came out at 67.1wpm or 82wpm counting actual word length.
It seems to be different based on whether I’m pausing to think or transcribing…
Okay, I tested myself writing the poem “Batter my Heart, Three Personed God, For you” by John Donne, because I just happen to have a copy of taped to the wall.
Writing normally (in the ever-popular hybrid stlye of mostly printed with some letters connected) I averaged 36 wpm.
Pure printing was 32 wpm, but I was finding it hard not to lapse into my usual stlye of writing (what, you meant the o and the u aren’t usually written in one pen stroke??)
Cursive was a bitch. I averaged a whopping 14 wpm. But that’s accounting for having to stop and try to remember how to make some of the letters. I found myself getting confused on longer words like “captivated” and “betrothed” because that just seemed like way too many letters to not pick up the pen in between. I notice now that I’ve neglected to cross some T’s and dot some I’s (I’d get trouble for this all the time back in grade school when I was forced to write cursive. I just don’t have the patience to–after I’ve finished writing the word (without being allowed to pick up the pen midway)–go _all_the way back to the beginning and cross some goddamned T.) Also, I was so caught up in the actual, physical act of writing, that I seem to have forgotten an entire line of the poem. Have I mentioned cursive is a bitch? Down with cursive!!
Typing was 53 wpm. But that includes many many typos, because I was going for speed and not looking up at the screen to see what I was writing.
I haven’t used cursive since the fifth grade(!) My teacher told me that I was an exception to her rule that all kids should use cursive. I’ve looked at some of my stuff from back then, and…YIKES! Talk about illegible…
Anyways, I’m a hunt-and-peck typer. On average, I use three fingers to type. So I’m below average in that category. Probably around 30-40 wpm. Handwriting, on the other hand… I think I’m quite fast at it. It also is the hybrid sketch/print type. Haven’t tested, But definitely faster than my typing.
Might as well chime in on a subject where I have an opinion, eh?
Cursive: 20 wpm, as long as I write with really short words.
Print: Anywhere from 30 to 60 wpm, but legibility decreases as I approach 60 wpm, and the print takes on the appearance of a wild-n-wacky shorthand.
Typing: Sustained 130 wpm, bursts up to 150 wpm. One of my few joys in life. Or something like that.
I worked as a temp off and on during high school- until I realized that people loved me only for my fingers. No one at any of the temp agencies really loved me for who I was . . .
