Forming Letters Is Key to Learning, Memory, Ideas

Wendy Bounds discusses the fading art of handwriting, pointing out that new research shows it can benefit children’s motor skills and their ability to compose ideas and achieve goals throughout life.

The most interesting part of the article involves the ramifications of poor handwriting in test scores.

Even legible handwriting that’s messy can have its own ramifications, says Steve Graham, professor of education at Vanderbilt University. He cites several studies indicating that good handwriting can take a generic classroom test score from the 50th percentile to the 84th percentile, while bad penmanship could tank it to the 16th. “There is a reader effect that is insidious,” Dr. Graham says. “People judge the quality of your ideas based on your handwriting.”

As an Investigator, the reader effect may affect how judges and juries view your competence and creditability.

Please note:

I won’t tell you why I’ve been so interested in the Magic Slate, 18th Century PDA, or this gadget, but I’m sure you might be able to imagine some uses for them.

the best pen they can run down to the store and buy right off the shelf.

This writes like a normal pen, but if you heat the paper the written words disappear. Putting the paper in the freezer makes the words reappear.

RUSSIAN KGB DISAPPEARING INK PEN

This pen features a special gel ink developed by real KGB scientists during the Cold War (and made in Russia), that disappears completely. Because it is a gel pen, you don’t need to press hard which prevents paper indenting.

UV Sensitive INK PEN

I guess every good spy needs to have his missives disappear, but I  need to secretly mark documents for later reference.

Pens like this have been  around for quite some time.  The Fisher Space Pen was at one time offered with UV Sensitive Ink refills. I occasionally use UV sensitive ink to mark important documents for security purposes.

Noodler’s Ink

I have written about my quest for a waterproof fountain pen ink before. Well, I found another waterproof ink, Noodler’s Polar Blue. I found a bottle that proclaims that it is the Winter 2006 Edition and that it is made for the coldest North American, Russian, and Scandinavian winters. I guess they are saying it won’t freeze.

It survives all my tests for being waterproof. I don’t really like the pale blue colour, but it’ll do. Some of the Noodler’s ink that I have tried in the past severely clogged the pen. The Polar Blue has survived the most important test — it still writes after the pen has sat unused for a week. It also flows very freely, making my Lamy extra-fine nib pen a smooth and fast writing pen. For example the Lamy Blue-Black iron gall ink makes this pen scratchy and unpleasant to use and both the iron gall ink and the Kiwa-Guro clog the pen if it sits unused for about a week. Neither of those inks flows freely enough for me to write at full speed, whereas the Noodler’s Polar Blue does.

This ink will smudge when it first encounters water, but after the surface ink that did no fully bind with the paper washes away, you are left with very black, permanent writing. How much surface ink exists seems to depend on the paper. In Molskine notebooks it smudges a lot, but unlike the Aurora and Jentle inks, the writing remains legible. It smudges less in my police notebooks.

Kiwa-Guro also makes my extra-fine nibs glide across the page as nicely as the silky Aurora ink. This ink will be another ink I will use for a decade or more.

Moleskine Paper & Fountain Pen Ink

A large Moleskine notebook is always at hand and so too is a Lamy 2000 fountain pen, either an extra-fine nib or the stout, reliable, medium nib. Current Moleskine notebooks are renown for paper that dislikes some fountain pen inks and the horrid recycled paper in office pads defies description. For over a decade, I relied on the silky smooth Aurora ink as it makes very fine nibs glide across the page and it doesn’t bleed through or feather on this paper. Unfortunately, the slightest dampness and Aurora ink becomes an unreadable mess.

Sailor Ink

I next discovered Sailor Jentle ink. The yellow is wonderful, but hard to read; the red-brown is a superb colour; and the black is a rich, true black. Alas, these inks are not much better than Aurora when confronted with a small drop of moisture from the bottom of a cold beer glass.

Lamy & Mont Blanc Blue-black Iron Gall Ink

Then I discovered Lamy’s blue-black iron-gall ink. It makes the extra-fine nib scratchy and unpleasant to write with, but in the medium nib it works wonderfully. It goes onto the paper as a very pale blue and darkens on contact with the air. Its colour is not uniform, slow writing is darker as there is more ink on the page. Best of all, it is waterproof. This type of ink is sometimes called registrar’s ink. It also comes in two very convenient bottles from Lamy and Mont Blanc. I think I found an ink to use for the next decade or more.