Download Georgia Ref and Palatino for best viewing - p.2

The Handwriting eGroup
Promoting the 3R's ~  Readable Rapid Ryting
Improve your handwriting - Join the discussion group
Learn to write rapidly without the loss of style and readability

The first step in improving your ability to quickly produce readable written messages is to identify your handwriting problem

You can read through the information provided on this website or submit a sample for a free analysis.

To submit a sample, scribble something on a piece of paper and scan it. [see the example above].
Save the scan as a .gif file and attach it to an email message to handryting@yahoogroups.com.  GIF files are compressed graphic files that can be read by any Internet browser.  

Alternatively, fax the document in a message to Kate or Nan.  Send a message to handryting@yahoogroups.com and request a phone number.
 
 

This is Step #1 Do you see an improvement in legibility? 
This note was written well before the new handwriting style became second nature.
By trying to follow 8 guidelines, you can also improve your handwriting speed and legibility.
It is easier than you think to get rid of bad habits you may have had since grammar school.

Poor handwriting can be hazardous to your health:  7 horror stories
The problem of poor handwriting may be more widespread 
and more problematic than you think:  Time magazine estimates that business losses from illegible handwriting are over $200 million a year.

research | --- | --- |

Ways  to improve your handwriting

• Combine speed with legibility - the purpose of a cursive style

* cursvie means running but it need no mean always connected
* No need to connect all letters - just the ones that naturally connect
 
• Limit the use of loops in forming individual letters

* excessively loopy characters are harder to read
* adopt a writing style closer to printing
• Your primary school teacher was probably no expert on handwriting

* how many bad habits did you pick up in primary school?
* how many have you  picked up since?
* what happened when you tried to add speed 
   to the style you learned in your primary years?

• Examine your current writing style
* can you achieve speed with legibility? 
* can you read your own notes?
* can anyone else read your scrawl?

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The objective - Readable Rapid Writing
What are the topics that need to be discussed?
1. Improving legibility and speed by simplifying your handwriting
2. The principles of a better hand are easy to pick up
3. Unlearning the bad habits you picked up in primary school is the hard part
4. The purpose of handwriting as opposed to hand printing is speed
5. Some people like the look of a cursive hand and some are quite attractive
6. The great calligraphers were creating art - not a rapid hand
7. Chances are you never studied the great calligraphers in primary school
8. Instead you assumed that your handwriting teacher knew the right way
9. Handwriting is seldome taught correctly, today, it is hardly taught at all
10. How many students have trouble reading their own notes
11. Half the time, the person who has to try to read our scrawl is the writer
12. We often are in a hurry, and our writing style is not adapted to speed
13. Speed in transcription that is limits reading speed is counterproductive
14. Equal attention has to be given to encoding and decoding
15. Few are able to write as fast as they can talk - this is the goal of shorthand
16. World Script - a simplified script for world understanding
17. Toward a pan european alphabet
18. Trying to transcribe at speech rates cannot be done without both simplifying handwriting and simplifying spelling.
19. The most popular shorthands were phonemic - copied speech sounds not traditional spellings. 

Seven Ways to Simplify Your Cursive

1. Cross lowercase t's as you write them. Don't wait to go back after the entire word is written.

2. Emphasize the downstrokes of letters and use only about a 5 to 15 degree slant to the right (too much slant causes poor legibility).

3. Eliminate loops wherever possible. Simply retrace your initial stroke on ascenders, or lift the pen without looping on descenders. (Most adults who write fast but legibly normally eliminate some or many loops and joiners in their handwriting.)

4. Join letters with straight lines, not curves. For examply, join o to n with a straight, short horizontal line.

5. Use "print" forms of capitals in cursive writing, with the same slant as the cursive, especially for twisty letters like S, G, J, and others. Remember, capitals form only 2 percent of ordinary prose text.

6. Strongly consider print-like forms for the lowercase letters
b, f, r, s, andz.

7. Position the paper in front of the writing-arm's shoulder.

                                               Kate Gladstone

Extracted with permission from the Farmer's ALMANAC