Great Debate

Writing notes: handwritten or typed

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Handwritten notes

The process of notetaking is meant to be one that not only allows you to obtain information, but also one that makes you learn and process the information. When you write out your notes by hand, you get both aspects.

It’s a personal experience when writing out your notes. It forces you to be engaged in the class, to look and understand what you’re writing and why you’re writing it down in the first place.

You may not get every word the professor says, but this just means you have to think of a way to write only the most important information. This makes it so much easier when you look over your notes and you don’t have to sift through five plus pages of notes from a single lecture.

Of course, when you use a laptop, you can practically get every word said in the class. It may seem easier to get all the information, but there’s far less actual learning involved when you favor typing over old school chicken scratching.

University professors Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer conducted a study that found students who used laptops took more notes, but students who wrote out their notes had a stronger understanding of the information overall.

It’s also incredibly easy to get distracted on a laptop. I could be typing out notes and I’ll start looking at D2L, for instance. Oh, I wonder what my grades are. Do I have to meet up with someone today? I better ask them on Facebook. Hey, a new notification, what’s that?

It’s a downward spiral of self destruction.

Use your notebook. Never underestimate the mighty power of the pen.

— Brian Sheridan, Copy Editor
Typed notes

We were graciously born into the era of technology.

iPhones, computers, tablets and of course, the internet, gives us the entire world’s knowledge at our fingertips. So why not utilize it?Now just to start off, I would like to say doing things the old fashioned way is never wrong. Writing things down on paper helps you pace yourself, and as commits information to memory. But all in all, if you had to choose on an everyday basis between writing things by hand or typing it out, which would be a go to?Let’s get practical.

Picture this: You’re sitting in a two-hour lecture, the professor is flipping through slides like no tomorrow with oodles of information flying across the board. There is an exam next week, so, everything being discussed is vitally important to memorize.How do you take notes? Certainly not with a pen and paper, because by the time you write down even just the subject topic, five slides would have already flown by.Hand cramps would also be detrimental to your note taking abilities.
The solution: clicking into microsoft word or google drive and typing out your notes fast and furious.You’ll thank yourself later when you don’t have to spend hours on end deciphering your own handwriting and trying to trace back memories on what you didn’t have the time to write down during the lecture.
Typing is also efficient for those of us that are often forgetful.  A lot of times you have many different ideas popping into your brain faster than lightning, and if you’re writing something by hand, you could forget your grand idea before you even finished grinding out that last sentence.
In the end, if you were between sending an email or writing out a letter to your best friend from back home, I would say handwritten all the way. But we are college students; typing things is the more efficient way to go.
— Bri Hageman, Staff Writer