Handwritten Katherine Rowell

I sat at my cherrywood desk, staring at the block of digital text I had produced while attempting to analyze my personal connections to John Keats’ poem “When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be”. I had read my essay three times over, and still had a hard time believing that any of what was on the computer screen was my own creation. It seemed almost... hollow, and more importantly, it didn’t represent my thoughts on this rather emotionally charged poem. Sighing, I set aside my laptop, and put pencil to paper.

To be clear, I do understand the appeal and practicality of typing. A typed paper is always neat, easy to read, professional, can be passed in digitally, and can be saved in digital form as backup. Typing can also be a real time-saver, which is especially attractive to a busy student who might consider writing papers out by hand to be a laborious hassle. Often I have been reminded by my parents and teachers that expediency and the preservation of valuable work time are important components of good work habits. But despite the extra time and effort I may waste working the way I do, there remains an entirely practical reason for my stubbornness: the caliber of my writing is invariably better when the writing process begins...