Best to take notes by hand

[carlos.q]

I know similar articles have been posted before but this info is worth repeating:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...tes-is-by-hand

[azkid]

For me this rings true but neither anecdotes nor "common sense" equate to scientific evidence.

I am curious if other such studies have been conducted and their result.

I'm also curious about the parts of the brain involved in writing and typing. Are they different? There's surely a lot more motor planning involved in writing letters than typing them, and does that play into memory? Or is it just being forced to write slowly and summarize.

I would love to do an experiment where students use manual typewriters (usually half the typing speed as a laptop), laptops, and notepads. The slow typing would force more summarization but would it be equal to handwriting for comprehension?

[carlos.q]

Here is a link to the original article:
https://www.psychologicalscience.org...tetakingbyhand

[Empty_of_Clouds]

University students in a lecture hall typing furiously to record verbatim a lecture that is available as a recording through our BlackBoard online system. I take notes by hand, and this forces me to do a number of things. Firstly, I have to listen carefully in order to assign priority to parts of the lecture, then summarise well to the page, and then (often, though not always) diagrammatically link various parts of my notes where appropriate. The typists don't seem to do any of that, and this is quite notable in immediate post-lecture discussion groups, where the typists are often unable to form coherent links between ideas. Of course, after a bit of home revision much of the difference may be attenuated. Hard to say or measure, I would think.

Anyway, I have observed this in almost every lecture and at every (year) level in tertiary education. Yes this is anecdotal, but that doesn't make it invalid.

Note, there are always exceptions though.

[Pterodactylus]

It’s quite a long time since I was at the University.
At this time I was very advanced equipped because I owned a (quite heavy bulky) notebook but almost never used it for note taking.
It was just too inconvenient.

These days (I work in IT) I intentionally take often notes by hand because of several reasons.
I like using my pens (of course I use a FP).
I also prefer the increased freedom to draw, write, combine things freely (also graphically) on paper compared to digitally note taking (admitting that also digital note taking advanced).
I feel that I can remember complex circumstances better when writing them with hand, kind of developing the context better.


But I also take digital notes depending on the use case, e.g. when I have to copy/paste text, numbers, source code, graphics or similar.
Or when working together with others online, either to work something out or when sharing my desktop or writing the meeting protocol.
I also like to use Mindmaps, here digital is imo clearly superior to analog.

What I also do e.g. during telcos is scribbling with my pen, or writing words I or others said (not for note talking), or sketching a bit.

So for me it’s a mixed approach depending on the use case.