Essay

Should handwriting be an emphasis?

Gone are the days where writers of imminent stature or those wanting to be one used to sit under a tree and write a poem with the juices of their mental geniuses and dexterous abilities placed high. What takes now for a written piece of article to exist is merely the tip of fingers! Thanks to computer revolution.

Technological innovation and our heavy dependence on them, as thought by many, makes us disconnected with the conventional ways of human lives. Conventional methods are assumed to be more important than the new. This concept incorporates the example of our gradual indifference towards the habit of writing with our hands. This habit used to be a matter of our ability to shape beauty in not just what is written but also the way it is written. Beauty, therefore really seemed to be shaped by the way a thing looks like and not merely what it contents.

Sit in front of the computer and move your fingers ferociously, your work is done – the benefits - less time consumed and an additional advantage of auto spelling correction and being able to cut and paste, add and subtract anything and anywhere in the article unlike having to tear off the entire handwritten page if a little error is committed!

But no! Things have not changed too drastically. Not everything that we write in life can be done away with the speed of your newly adjusted fingers. What about the examination? We still need to write with our hands and taking a chance of ignoring the importance of handwriting could seriously hit us hard! Needless to mention, those friends of us who came to us lamenting about the low marks that they got in their papers for a major reason of lack of neatness and good handwriting and other dexterous techniques of beautification; are documentation of this fact!

But the question which is rather a mysterious one and more hard-hitting than this, is that whose mistake it is exactly? It is wrong for the teacher to expect one’s students to present one’s paper neatly? Yet it is the students’ mistake that they have chosen to move along with the time and they neither have good handwriting nor do they chose to have it, having realized that they have now a better choice of writing better, faster and easier – in a computer? Is it the teacher’s mistake having to correct hundreds of papers of the students who have left their handwriting no more comprehensible or it is the students’ mistake who, having influenced by the computer, no more remember how to be neat? It is the teacher’s irresponsibility or the students’ carelessness?

It is most unfortunate for a student to have scored less in a very important examination just for the messy handwriting that he writes in. Yet neither the age, nor the computer; neither the teacher not the student can be blamed for this. However, there are categories of students who inherently are born with lack of basic art such as neatness or carefulness. Computer’s influence isn’t much the determinant of their state. What about them? Not all questions can be answered.

However, the important thing to remember is that trying to evaluate whose mistake it is, is not going to take us anywhere near our goal. It is us who needs to pass the examination and not the teacher. It is therefore extremely important in our part to rectify our limitations and write things better. A solution could be by limiting our dependency on computer and practicing writing in the paper more than just being carried away by the mere joy of speedy fingertips!

In the process there are much more benefits that we can avail. Using computer less will save much of the electricity! It will improve our handwriting and what more – it will help us pass our examination!!!