Your hand flies across the page. You are a wordsmith of wonders, an aficionado of adjectives, and a maestro of meaning. Out of your fingertips flow endless creativity and profound insights. Knowledge follows in your wake, and readers perk their ears and turn their eyes when you enter the room.
You are a writer and a note-taker, capturing vast quantities of data onto a single page with finesse and endless elegance. You are a voyager venturing into the vast unknowns, bringing the light of knowledge to the dark places of — hold on, you’re not writing this down? Is that the plunking of a keyboard that I hear coming through the screen right now? You’re typing your notes even while reading a blog post about reasons why handwritten notes trump typed notes?
Alas! Pray tell me, fair note-taker, what depths of hypocrisy you are willing to bow to. The battle between the forces of hand and keyboard is one of epic proportions, with skirmishes still happening night and day.
Have you not seen the articles, the blog posts, and the studies being produced on this topic? The influx of opinions, heated debates, and slammed doors?
It is chaos! Pure and utter, unadulterated chaos! If you walk into this conflict unprepared, you will find yourself meandering in mayhem, a cacophony of clutter that may leave your note-taking navigational skills sadly lost and confused.
And then where would you be, you paragon of productivity, you skillful sailor on the seas of success? Your reputation would be in tatters, and your next quest into the quandary of content would be over before you knew it.
We don’t want that to happen! Instead, we shall endeavor ever onward to excellence in both our art, our note-taking, and our lives. And it all begins here, with putting the pencil in your hand.
… Very well, I may have let my alliteration run away with me while I was trying to entertain myself by writing this intro. Not to fear, though, note-taking enthusiasts; if you are here for a serious discussion about the merits of handwritten notes, then you are in the right place.
In fact, we will make this a fair fight and offer the advantages of both approaches, just to ensure that you are well-equipped to make the right decision when taking your own notes. Are we all in agreement? Very well, then let the duel commence. En garde!
Taking Notes 101
Note-taking is a staple of intentional learning, as we all know. Whether you are a newbie on the streets of pen and paper or whether you’re an old hand with wisdom to share, you are well aware of the value of jotting down important information for later reference. This is a helpful practice to have in academia, in your professional career, and, quite frankly, in your daily home life. Whatever it is that you’re trying to do, note-taking is there to support your efforts on the road to success.
Effective note-taking begins before the session even starts. Pull out any material you were given beforehand, or any material from proceeding sessions if this is a series, and look it over. Familiarize yourself with the topic at hand and try to guess what key concepts might be discussed in the session. Take a moment to brainstorm any questions you might have about the topic going into it to get those creative juices flowing and get your mind focused on truly engaging with the material.
Identify what your learning goals are in this session — whether it be learning the material for an exam, noting important aspects of a project at work, or wanting to capture the best recipe for fried chicken you’ve ever seen on the cooking channel — and consider how you can best connect your notes to that outcome. That may include how you structure your notes or which information you choose to prioritize from the talking points delivered in the session.
After the session starts, the real work begins. Take your notes in your own words, paraphrasing the key concepts rather than trying to transcribe every word the speaker utters — trust me, you won’t be able to, and you will end up with a cluttered mess of a page. Utilize abbreviations, symbols, acronyms, and what have you to speed things up.
Capture the main ideas and all of their sufficient details, but don’t worry too much about writing in complete sentences or achieving perfect punctuation. Effective notes don’t have to be publishable; you’re not writing a novel here! The purpose is to master the material as comprehensively and concisely as possible and to set yourself up for future success in your revision and reviewing stages.
Feel free to use color, underlining, highlighting, arrows, images, and other visuals to spice up your notes and draw your eye to key story concepts. Just remember not to spend so much time drawing the perfect sketch that you miss out on some of the important information!
After hearing the session come to a close, you may close your notebook or laptop with a sigh, but the work is not done. Memory experts suggest reviewing your notes immediately after the session ends so that you can jot down any questions or comments, mark elements you found confusing or profound, and really get the big picture of it cemented in your short-term memory.
You can also compare your notes with a peer’s to check if you missed anything important or misunderstood anything. Relate your notes back to your learning goals and see if you got the right thing or outcome that you wanted and if your learning experience is still going in the same direction or on the right track.
In the days and weeks that follow, it’s crucial that you don’t forget to review your notes. You need to put in the work of reviewing to move that knowledge from your short-term memory into your long-term memory, and frankly, that simply takes time. Start by scheduling fairly frequent review sessions, and then gradually increase the intervals in between as you find your working memory holding onto more of the content. Eventually, you won’t even need to refer to your notes anymore.
And that, my friends, is Basics 101 for taking effective notes.
Handwriting vs. Typed: What the Research Says
Now that we have that established, we can look at the merits and demerits of the contestants in this duel. Here are the stakes, in case you come to this scene unawares: Handwriting used to be the medium of the day, the butter to our bread, and the preferred outlet of the mind. But as humanity has bravely forayed into the digital age of computers and the internet, the way the game has been played has changed.
When it comes to note-taking, these two vie for the top spot, and there can only be one winner. However, it must be said that both have advantages and disadvantages, and these should become quite apparent as you and I watch this duel play out.
So before any further ado, here are the rules of engagement: We will let each contestant take a stab at the other, making a case for why they are the better note-taking tool. In the end, you and I will analyze the damages done and the victories won, and decide together who the true winner is. Will you accept the deal on these terms? Perfect. Then let handwriting attempt the first strike.
Handwriting #1: Encoding Makes for Better Learning
Scientific circles have a fancy name for the learning that takes place within the note-taking process: the encoding function. This is a function that only takes place during the act of note-taking, as the learner is jotting down information. Without any mention or consideration of preparation or review — looking solely at the act of note-taking itself — research suggests that handwriting your notes better encodes them into your brain.
According to that research, the act of transforming letters and organizing information through handwriting helps better encode it into the brain than typing that same information on a digital device.
Part of the reason is that longhand note-takers can’t write as fast as a typist can type, so they must be more prudent about the information they choose to prioritize. This may sound counterintuitive because you end up with fewer notes, which must surely be bad, but actually, it’s been proven to be a better study method. It forces the longhand note-taker to participate more actively and put the content into their own paraphrase instead of being tempted to transcribe the speaker.
A study conducted in 2014 found evidence that suggested that while typists’ notes have a higher word count, these students actually performed worse on quizzes than their longhand counterparts.
The act of writing by hand also activates other regions of the brain related to kinesthetic response, motor control, and spatial awareness — and the more regions of the brain that are activated during a task, the more you will benefit from the experience and the better your retention will automatically be.
Typing #1: Speed and Storage
However, let it not be said that speed doesn’t have its upsides. Typists can consider themselves more guaranteed not to miss information for lack of time or speed. It’s also helpful, when listening in on a lecture or meeting on the edge of one’s seat and hurrying to quickly organize all of the information, to have features like spellcheck that can quickly correct any typos or other mistakes that you make in your note-taking.
And let’s face it, digital devices simply have more storage space than a mere notebook. How many notebooks would it take to fill up a single gigabyte of data on a hard drive? That’s frankly too much math for me at the moment, but you get the idea. With a digital device, typists can easily copy and paste their notes, keep them in convenient folders and subfolders, back them up to a hard drive, and share them with others. In this digital age of busyness and technology, those qualities are certainly convenient for a note-taker to have.
Handwriting #2: Improves Your Critical Thinking
Lo and behold, handwriting has actually been linked with sharper critical thinking skills than typing has. Why, you might ask? Because it’s harder! As they say, nothing is free, and all good things require effort.
Because it’s physically and mentally more demanding to take notes by hand, your brain is forced to work a bit harder. You have to think more clearly about the concepts being explained so that you can find the most concise way of summarizing them on your page. This encourages the note-taker to cut through the fluff and really see the essence of what is being said. And that, of course, deepens one’s conceptual understanding of the subject.
In addition to learning how to better prioritize and understand which information is important, handwriting is a neurosensory exercise that — because it takes more time— gives you more space to analyze your thoughts and triggers greater creativity in your thinking.
Typing #2: Organization Search Perks
Digital devices have a lot more flexibility when it comes to organizing and accessing your notes. While you may have to dig through a stack of notebooks to find a single nugget of information, when dealing with a computer, you can simply hit Control+F and search for a word, and it will immediately take you to the correct place in the document. Easy-peasy.
You can also download any combination of free tools or software to organize your notes, and then search the app or entire database to find whatever your heart desires within mere seconds. It’s like a search machine, but for your personal knowledge base.
You can, of course, go to great lengths to make an index for your handwritten notes and, in so doing, form a semblance of reasonable organization and search function. But it’s simply not as efficient.
Handwriting #3: Focus and More Focus
When it comes to distractions, handwriting is the clear winner in this bout. Digital devices have access to too many distractions, with the internet obviously being the biggest culprit.
Notifications from apps will immediately break concentration and divert one’s attention. And even if the note-taker turns off the wi-fi, they may still be tempted by thoughts of Facebook, YouTube, the news media, and who knows what all people do on the internet these days.
Because, as psychology will tell you, if you’re used to using your phone or computer for these activities, then your brain will associate it with them, and it will be harder to keep your attention focused on taking notes.
Studies have shown that students who use laptops during class end up spending an average of 17 out of 75 minutes multitasking on something that is not class-related. 81% of students check email, 68% use instant messaging apps, 43% browse the internet, and 25% actually play games. That’s right, they play games.
So while digital devices can strongly interfere with the learning process, handwriting is blissfully free from these dangers. Its simplicity is perfectly suited to the human attention span’s selectiveness and limitedness.
Typing #3: Editing
Another feature of the convenience of digital devices is their ability to edit documents easily and immediately. You can move information around, restructure the entire format, copy and paste large sections, add images or other information after the fact, and more. You can resize your image, photo, video, or text, add colors and visual elements, and change the font.
If you wanted, you could rearrange the entire organization to fit a different note-taking style if you decided that mind maps were a better fit than the Cornell method. Or if you just wanted to try it to see if it made sense or prompted any new insights. Of course, you can also do this longhand, but it will take much longer.
Handwriting #4: Memory Boost
According to research, writing your notes by hand improves your retention of the material more than typing does. Studies have shown that people remember vocabulary words better when written by hand as opposed to typing them. It’s also been demonstrated that students who take notes by hand perform better than students who type notes on a laptop.
This goes back to what we discussed earlier about handwriting forcing note-takers to pay more attention to what they’re writing. The speed of typing encourages students to transcribe the exact words of the speaker, which requires very little cognitive engagement with the material and makes it that much less memorable.
And again, the more kinesthetic element of handwriting makes it a more complex task and takes the information a layer deeper in one’s working memory.
How to Choose the Best Method
This concludes the duel, at least as far as we are going to take it. Both contestants have been injured and dealt blows of their own. There’s blood on the ground—or perhaps ink is a better analogy. But which one comes out on top?
Here’s the thing: It depends on what you want to prioritize when you’re taking your notes. So let’s look at a series of factors that you should consider before you decide whether to take notes by hand or by computer.
Conceptual vs. Factual Learning
There are two types of learning to consider here: conceptual learning and factual learning. Which one you choose will help you decide how you want to interact with the material.
Conceptual learning is all about reaching a thorough understanding of the underlying concepts of the material. Meanwhile, factual learning is about just that: the facts. With this learning, you want to memorize specific details rather than underlying concepts.
If you recall some of the benefits we’ve mentioned about handwriting your notes, it requires the learner to process the material more deeply. That makes it great for conceptual learning because you will walk away with a firmer grasp of the content and will have engaged with it more actively.
On the other hand, if you’re more interested in factual learning and walking away with specific details and care less about whether or not you conceptually understand the material on a deeper level, then those benefits that handwriting offers are more or less neutral to you. If the cognitive benefits of handwriting aren’t what you’re looking for, then typing might serve you just as well. But if you truly, sincerely want to deeply understand the material, then writing your notes by hand is the better choice.
Access and Distractions
As we’ve discussed, one of the advantages of computers is their flexibility and access to resources, while one of their disadvantages is the rampant distractions attached to them that you can never truly escape. Consider both of these sides when deciding whether to use a pen or a keyboard for your notes.
If the subject material is terminology-heavy or has the potential to confuse you, you might find it useful to have a laptop so you can quickly look things up during the lecture if you want to look up word definitions or examine supplemental material.
But you have to weigh these potential advantages against all of the disadvantages that we mentioned. Don’t make the mistake of declaring to yourself that you’re not part of the statistic crowd of distracted typist note-takers and won’t fall into the same habits, but as we mentioned, the associations of computers with the internet are hardwired into our minds and influence us more than we realize.
If those few possibilities of interaction that a computer or pad offers are likely to be unneeded for the session, then handwriting will greatly decrease any threat of distractions and, as a note-taking medium, will not compromise your ability to learn.
Type of Text
Another reiteration here: written notes are more succinct, while typed notes have the capacity to be longer (if your wpm typing speed allows). Consider this distinction when choosing which approach to go with, because it does make a difference.
Will you find it more beneficial to be brief and concise and lose out on some of the length of information, or to cover more quantity but lose quality? It’s also fair to note that some topics might be easier to write by hand than to type, such as formula-heavy subjects. And also keep in mind that there are ways to increase your handwriting or typing speed with a few modifications, such as speed writing or improving your hand position on the keyboard.
Conclusion
Swords down, everyone, and a good duel to you both! We saw many acts of prowess today in the world of our humble little blog post and characteristics both brave and fair. But there can only be one winner, so let’s replay the details of this fight, shall we?
We first established the solid groundwork of what effective note-taking looks like, which is altogether separate from whether one takes notes by hand or by computer. What makes notes effective is how they are structured, how well you prepare, how engaged you are in the learning process, and how much you review the material.
In short, it depends on your strategy and your commitment. With that being the case, it is possible to succeed with either longhand or typed notes—but one certainly has probability more on its side. Do you know which one? Ha! Smart cookie, you are. Let’s continue.
As for the bouts that made up this duel, the first blow was landed by handwriting. It made the excellent point (no pun intended) that handwriting engages a better encoding function, which is the process of encoding information into your brain as you perform the act of taking notes.
The act of taking notes settles deeper into your brain when you write them by hand, at least in part because it’s a slower and more engaged process that forces you to be more cognitively engaged with the topic. Studies back this up as well, with handwriters performing better on quizzes. And science also speaks to this point, as handwriting is a more neurologically involved process than typing is.
Typing countered with a declaration regarding its speed and storage capacities, both of which outshine handwriting without much contest. Most people can type faster than they can write, which allows the typist to get more information on the digital page. And its storage space is vastly greater than that of a manual notebook, since a computer can hold gigabytes of storage and can easily organize that storage to make everything quite simple to retrieve.
The benefits that computers offer the note-taker in speed and storage are difficult to ignore for the learner who has use for those features. Point for typing.
Handwriting then came back with a case for increased cognitive thinking. It may indeed be slower to write things by hand, but that is not always the disadvantage that typing claims it is. Oh no! In fact, that very disadvantage is what improves the cognitive thinking that the longhand note-taker smugly walks away with.
Handwriting may be harder and more demanding, but according to handwriting’s argument, this is actually a benefit, not a detriment. If your goal is to learn the material, then it’s going to take some effort. These are the facts, my friends! Handwriting takes more effort but also reaps more rewards, so if it’s rewards that you’re after, then handwriting is your method.
Typing then expanded its range to lay claim to ease of organization and search engine perks. And indeed, it appears that it can be quite useful to have a search engine for all of your collected knowledge in one place. You can also more easily download anything your heart desires to add to your notes, or you could rearrange them at will if a different structure seems more prudent.
The third reason for choosing handwriting over typing is that it eliminates distractions. While typists have distractions galore to either actively ignore or fall prey to, a notebook and a pen are pretty low-key. Studies back this up as well, showing the high and rather shocking percentage of students who multitask on the internet while taking notes during a lecture. Handwriting is safe from these dangers.
It is indeed good for typing to note that computers have a higher capacity for editing notes. This can be very helpful if you want to add things later or rearrange text to fit a better structure. You can also take extra time to beautify your notes (although you can do that with your handwriting as well).
And finally, handwriting swept in with a final blow by laying claim to greater recall. Research demonstrates that handwritten notes stick in the memory longer and more completely than typed notes. That’s pretty hard to beat when the entire purpose of note-taking is to learn and remember the content, isn’t it?
So there you have it, the duel as it unfolded. You may have seen this coming from the title of this blog post, but I’m going to have to dub handwriting the clear winner. Typed notes offer speed and convenience, whereas handwriting’s benefits are all related to the actual learning and remembering of the content.
But, as we discussed in the last section, there are still instances where perhaps typed notes would serve well enough or even better fit your goals. And in the end, you will do what is best for you. But here you have a case that has been made for crowning handwritten notes as the king of note-taking because they better equip the note-taker in every realm that is important when it comes to learning and mastering a new subject.