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comment by kithpendragon · 2021-03-30T13:18:28.023Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I seem to remember reading that the active ingredient here is actually speed. When typing, it's easy (with practice) to note most of what is presented almost verbatim. But handwriting is inherently slower, resulting in a condition where you have to do a lot more summarization. The act of summarization leads to better learning because you have to assimilate the ideas more completely in order to condense them into just a few words. Then, you have to unpack those few words into the complete idea when you study, leading to better practice. With a little discipline, you can go through the same steps on a keyboard and achieve the benefits of both styles.

I think I know where I read that, let's see if I can find the source...

There it is. Sönke Ahrens gives a very similar explanation in his excessively named book How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking - for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Writers in chapter 10.1, and he cites Mueller and Oppenheimer 2014.

Anti-clickbait note: The book is about the Zettelkasten method, and focuses on heavily cross-referencing notes so you can follow the logic chains in situ instead of having to reconstruct them every time you want to remember a thought. The arguments he makes for taking structured notes are pretty good, but Zettelkasten is far from the only note-taking method that does the things he likes.

Replies from: Kaj_Sotala
comment by Kaj_Sotala · 2021-03-30T18:55:49.835Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Similarly, if I'm writing something original, then if I'm typing I can type relatively close to the speed of my thought - it feels like my words are only somewhat trailing behind the shape of what I'm about to say [LW · GW]. But if I'm writing by hand, there's more "lag", with it feeling like it takes much longer for my writing to catch up to the thought.

On the other hand, this feels like it has positive consequences; the words taking longer to write out, means that I also spend more time processing their content, and maybe the writing is a little better as a result. But having to wait for so long also feels frustrating, which is why I mostly don't do it.

Replies from: kithpendragon
comment by kithpendragon · 2021-03-31T17:25:12.779Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yeah, that echoes my experience too. Also, I notice that writing on my phone is partway between the two: a bit more thoughtful than typing on a keyboard, a good bit faster than pen and paper. Screen size is a big downside, though.