Comment by crazygringo
4 days ago
I'm very curious what that's like.
Like, handwriting doesn't do a thing for me. It doesn't help me learn at all.
I can't help but wonder if there's some advantage that I'm missing?
But on the other hand, I don't seem to have any problems paying attention or learning. So I'm still just so confused as to how it helps. Like, is my brain already doing the things that some other people need handwriting for? Or is it not, but handwriting doesn't do those things either?
I think I'm extra-baffled because I can't even imagine how it could help. Like, I can't think of any analogy to anything else that would help me understand. I already understand the things and listen to and see, I don't have any issues with concentration or anything... so what does the handwriting add?
I see a lot of people say that it forces you to think more deeply about the material, but I'm kind of always on "maximum thinking mode" already.
It's hard to describe. In upper level math (real analysis and the like) in college I would write every single thing the professor wrote on the chalkboard down in my notebook. I didn't really study or do much homework, but copying down those proofs made the concepts stay in my brain.
Do you write when you do math? Math and handwriting are so intertwined in my experience, I can't imagine doing math past high school without at least jotting some parts of the process down.
Math is different, because most people aren't quick/accurate enough with LaTeX to take notes with a keyboard.
And taking notes in math is different from other subjects anyways, because you are literally just copying verbatim. You're not doing any of the summarization and selection that people talk about being so important to do, because handwriting is slower.
So I think that copying down math notes verbatim is not really what people are talking about at all when they talk about the benefits of taking notes by hand.