A while back I read about a study that proved young children learn letters and words far more effectively through handwriting vs keyboards/typing.
And the test results showed:
The kids who wrote by hand’s skills at recognition, writing, unfamiliar word sequences, and pronunciation blew away the kids who used keyboards/typing. It also showed freehand writing, copying words out of guides, led to the best learning outcomes vs typing.
It’s almost like Gary Halbert was on to something.
He taught “neurological imprinting” by writing world class ads out by hand. A lot of new copywriters who hear about Gary Halbert’s take on that wonder if typing is as useful as hand writing for getting that effect. And my experience is handwriting was always much better, more useful, and effective when I did it.
Something else to think about:
Gerry Spence (the trial lawyer who in his day so otherworldly persuasive he was once accused of hypnotizing a jury by the opposing attorney) talks about the hand-brain connection, too. There is something about using your hands and doing creative tasks at the same time to get this effect.
Again, my experience is it’s much stronger writing by hand vs typing.
That said:
I do not like this fact any more than anyone else.
Frankly, I absolutely despise writing by hand.
I have trouble slowing my thoughts down to capture what I want to say when writing by hand. Not to mention my handwriting is embarrassingly bad. (I was sent to a specialist about that in 3rd grade, as well as for horrible word pronunciation gaffes, but it clearly didn’t take if you’ve listened to any of my old podcasts…). And my hand cramps up fast.
But I still spent 100s of hours copying ads out by hand.
And I still do in small ways – like writing great headlines I see on 3×5 cards.
But:
I wonder how many of us who write sales copy wouldn’t be better off if we did it by hand “Halbert style” vs typing on a keyboard. The only two copywriters I can think of off the top of my head are Gary Halbert and the late Scott Haines, who wrote about how he went back to writing by hand in one of his newsletter he wrote many years ago.
Couple more things to think about with this:
1. In his April 1995 Gary Halbert Letter issue, Halbert said he knew how to type, but when writing sales copy he did not try to be or care one iota about being “efficient.” The only thing he cared about was being effective. He then gave his readers 105 world class bullets to write out by hand (one to a 3×5 notecard).
And he said after you do that, go find 500 more and do the same.
Have you done that?
No?
Then you are truly missing out.
And it probably shows in your copywriting, too.
2. C.S. Lewis used to write with pen & ink – literally write a sentence, dip pen in the ink, write another sentence, tediously, one after another, until his books were finished. His good friend JRR Tolkien, on the other hand, used a typewriter.
Both were enormously successful.
But Lewis with his less efficient and totally primitive tech (pen vs typewriter) was far more proficient.
It took ol’ Tolkien some 17 years to finish Lord of the Rings.
And, I will add, with a LOT of nagging & prodding from Lewis.
Do what you want with that.
To learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:
Ben Settle
