Handwriting

[Mick F]

Daughter1 is staying with us. She's an English teacher. She's sitting at the big kitchen table surrounded by GCSE papers as she's a registered marker. She gets paid per paper she marks, and quite handsomely too.

English, when I was at school, was marked on handwriting and legibility. She's got a "difficult pile" at one end of the table because some of the handwriting is illegible, and it's taking a great deal of her time deciphering squiggles.

You can't lose marks for handwriting these days.

It was explained to us back then that there was no point in writing anything (no matter how good the info was) if no-one could read it. Seems that it's not the case any more.

Why?

[kwackers]

My handwriting isn't great, but it is legible(ish). Can you tell?

(Can't remember the last time I wrote something with a pointy stick that anyone other than me was meant to understand.)

[Mick F]

I agree about that!
I write lists and notes, but anything important is done on the computer etc.

My handwriting has never been good, and perhaps it's worse now, but if I have to write so it has to be read, it is legible.

Surely in an exam, you'd at least try to make it readable?
If they lost marks for it, it may spur them on to legibility.

[700c]

If she's got my boys paper to mark ... nudge nudge wink wink ... I'll slip you a fiver

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
My handwriting was so bad that I had to stay on after class and do lines. (repeated sentences) At infants school 5-7 yrs
I would say that was like kicking someone for having a disability, my writing never improved and took to writing in blocks.
So I never do joined up writing, I write notes but I have to understand it so I read the sentence / line and go over key letters.

I would only give others a printed computer text, never my writing.
You could call it impatience but this is the only thing I do quickly, everthing else I take my time.

[PDQ]

The older generation were much more schooled in handwriting.
Sometimes I am amazed how beautiful their script is. I used to go to an old boy for MOT tests and his writing was like copperplate.
He's dead now but the last reminder sticker in his writing is still on the windscreen. It's a work of art almost and it reminds me of him. Old school!

[Audax67]

At school we had a teacher who not only docked 1% per spelling error but also considered an unreadable word as missing. What that did to a sentence could be quite catastrophic. In consequence, I learned to write something like copperplate, with flourishes & so forth. Nerve degeneration from diabetes & wretched road-surfaces put paid to that a long time ago. A while back I developed an interest for fountain pens, but I had to give it up because there's no point in owning the things if your writing looks like a dog's dinner.

[LollyKat]

You can't lose marks for handwriting these days.

Oh yes you can!

My husband works in higher education and has similar problems with exam papers. He does his best but if he can't read the argument he can't assess or give credit for it. A few years ago he showed me a paper which was totally illegible from start to finish. Neither of us could make anything of it, nor could his colleagues - they had to fail it.

He thinks it has got worse as students mostly type these days and are not used to producing legible writing under pressure. Also, since now all coursework is printed out the staff don't have a chance warn students with potential handwriting problems. This shouldn't apply in schools, though.

[Mick F]

This morning was a case in point.
She had a paper to mark and there was a word or two she found unreadable. I had a look, and could offer no help.

What she does, is photograph the paragraph with the unreadable bits underlined. She emails the picture to her supervisor and a decision is made - either deciphered or ignored, or perhaps a guess is made.

Marks are lost, not docked, through illegibility ........... as marks are not increased for good handwriting.

[iandriver]

By this wisdom of my 1970's education, I was forced to write in italics in junior schools. Senior school, no italics allowed

[Audax67]

Marks are lost, not docked, through illegibility ........... as marks are not increased for good handwriting.

Good handwriting is the norm: you don't get extra for being adequate.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

By this wisdom of my 1970's education, I was forced to write in italics in junior schools. Senior school, no italics allowed

We all had fountain pens to do our super writing skills too.

[tatanab]

In grammar school and in college my handwriting was very good and also quick; I still have some so I can tell. I always used a fountain pen, and I was very proud of them. Same at work in the days when I had to write things for the typing pool to type for me. By the mid 80s the typing pool had just about disappeared because of word processors and we were expected to produce our own documents. From that point onwards any writing I do has tended to be short notes to myself and my hand writing has become quite slow and shoddy to the extent that if I leave something more than a week I might not be able to understand the note myself.

These days I sometimes find it hard to understand the writing of people in their 20s. Lack of capital letters and punctuation, and of course they don't do joined up writing any longer so sometimes it can be hard to see where one word ends and the next begins.

Same as in speech - if you wish to be understood then write clearly.

[iandriver]

Hi,

By this wisdom of my 1970's education, I was forced to write in italics in junior schools. Senior school, no italics allowed

We all had fountain pens to do our super writing skills too.

Boy oh boy, was my mother a fan of white shirts and fountain pens, the poor woman.
Change to italics and blue just for nostalgia

[iandriver]

In grammar school and in college my handwriting was very good and also quick; I still have some so I can tell. I always used a fountain pen, and I was very proud of them. Same at work in the days when I had to write things for the typing pool to type for me. By the mid 80s the typing pool had just about disappeared because of word processors and we were expected to produce our own documents. From that point onwards any writing I do has tended to be short notes to myself and my hand writing has become quite slow and shoddy to the extent that if I leave something more than a week I might not be able to understand the note myself.

These days I sometimes find it hard to understand the writing of people in their 20s. Lack of capital letters and punctuation, and of course they don't do joined up writing any longer so sometimes it can be hard to see where one word ends and the next begins.

Same as in speech - if you wish to be understood then write clearly.

What gets me is you can now be told you are wrong for using too much punctuation in the workplace. I blame word processors rather than education. It seems a simple thing such as an indent after Dear Sir/ Madam can raise eyebrows now.