Writing by Hand: The Hands-Down Winner

We’ve talked recently in our BOSS Academy Phoenix Friday mastermind group about the value of writing by hand when engaging in self development activities like fleshing out the “why” of the work you do. Having stated to the group that there’s neuroscience research to back that up, I thought I’d review it briefly here.

Before diving in, two quick notes:

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Second, I fully recognize the irony of me sitting here typing this post. But I’m old enough that I did a lot of writing by hand from childhood through college, law school, and even my early days of law practice, when we still wrote first drafts of memos and briefs on yellow pads and handed them off to the typing pool. Astounding, I know.

Writing to Read

One of the most compelling findings is that writing by hand “is important for the early recruitment in letter processing of brain regions known to underlie successful reading.” The quote is from a 2014 study that compared preliterate, five-year old children who either wrote, typed, or traced letters and then were shown the letters while undergoing fMRI scans. The scans showed that the earlier self-generated printing of the letters resulted in activation of a wider variety of brain regions than either typing or tracing.

In the literature review section of that paper, the authors also noted earlier studies that found hand writing to be directly connected to the brain’s reading circuits in both children and adults.

Writing to Learn

A 2024 EEG study focused on areas of the brain that have been shown to be “crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning.” Researchers found:

“When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns [across those areas] were far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard …”

Writing to Remember

And a 2025 systematic review of existing research comparing hand writing to typing concluded:

“Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions involved in motor, sensory, and cognitive processing, contributing to deeper learning, enhanced memory retention, and more effective engagement with written material. Typing, while more efficient and automated, engages fewer neural circuits, resulting in more passive cognitive engagement.”

While I no longer write out long form pieces by hand, I’m grateful that I learned to write that way, as it apparently helped me become a better reader.

And no, I’m not sitting here recommending that you write your book longhand — though I understand that a surprising number of successful, contemporary authors do. Stephen King has acknowledged experimenting with writing some of his books that way and is quoted as saying:

“It changed some things. Most of all, it made me slow down because it takes a long time … It made the rewriting process a lot more felicitous. It seemed to me that my first draft was more polished, just because it wasn’t possible to go so fast.”

But all this research does help convince me never to give up my habit of writing notes in the margins of books as I read. What better way to lock in what I’m learning, keeping track of the connections I notice with other books and ideas, and remembering the questions I often have about the text?

How often do you write by hand? For what purposes? Does the research inspire you to do more?