Philosophy
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but then Socrates never had to grade the exams. I have a stack of logic blue books in front of me which means I will do everything I can to avoid grading them...including writing a blog post about them. The first thing that strikes every prof when grading is how different the handwriting is. It leads to an empirical question that I've not yet been amply motivated to systematically study and so will, in the worst tradition of philosophy, ask for a priori guesses.
Is there a correlation between neatness of handwriting and success on handwritten exams? There are two elements here. The first of which I am less interested in, does the ease of reading by the instructor make the instructor more likely to give better grades? But we can set this aside by taking something more objective like a logic exam as our second element, which I find more interesting, is neater handwriting indicative of a more ordered mind? There has been handwriting analysis for centuries that has sought to uncover correspondences between personality and writing style. One might think that those who take the time to more neatly compose their answers also take the time to be more composed in answering. On the other hand, doctors are supposed to have notoriously poor handwriting and yet also are supposedly among the more intelligent and educated of the culture.
So, any relation between the neatness of one's handwriting and the cogence of the content of what has been written?
- Sex And Handwriting
I was doing some grading and TheWife was looking over my shoulder. Without looking at the names, she was able to correctly determine the sex of the writer in 29 out of 30 cases. While she is quite a detail-oriented person, my guess is that this experiment...
- The Blue (but Not The Brown) Books
The unexamined life is not living, but is the unexamined course worth giving? Is there any value in giving in-class blue book exams in philosophy? Let's exclude logic and critical thinking, what is the advantage to timed exams? I give exams, but...
- Another Grading Question
It is one of those unquestioned beliefs in the world of higher ed that grading is subjective. Some instructors are easy graders and others are hard graders and there is no fact in the world about what an assignment really deserves. But I had an experience...
- What An Absurd Debate...elimination Of Cursive Writing
"State Board of Education will debate role of cursive handwriting on curriculums" by Suzanne Perez Tobias November 11th, 2012 The Wichita Eagle Should children born into a world of computers, iPads, smartphones and e-cards have to...
- Walter William Marseille...analytics Of Handwriting
Breaking news in the description of the human psyche...by handwriting analysis? Graphology (handwriting analysis), long in the same U.S. doghouse with such pseudosciences as astrology, palmistry, phrenology may not be so phony as scientists have thought...
Philosophy
Handwriting and the Examined Life
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but then Socrates never had to grade the exams. I have a stack of logic blue books in front of me which means I will do everything I can to avoid grading them...including writing a blog post about them. The first thing that strikes every prof when grading is how different the handwriting is. It leads to an empirical question that I've not yet been amply motivated to systematically study and so will, in the worst tradition of philosophy, ask for a priori guesses.
Is there a correlation between neatness of handwriting and success on handwritten exams? There are two elements here. The first of which I am less interested in, does the ease of reading by the instructor make the instructor more likely to give better grades? But we can set this aside by taking something more objective like a logic exam as our second element, which I find more interesting, is neater handwriting indicative of a more ordered mind? There has been handwriting analysis for centuries that has sought to uncover correspondences between personality and writing style. One might think that those who take the time to more neatly compose their answers also take the time to be more composed in answering. On the other hand, doctors are supposed to have notoriously poor handwriting and yet also are supposedly among the more intelligent and educated of the culture.
So, any relation between the neatness of one's handwriting and the cogence of the content of what has been written?
- Sex And Handwriting
I was doing some grading and TheWife was looking over my shoulder. Without looking at the names, she was able to correctly determine the sex of the writer in 29 out of 30 cases. While she is quite a detail-oriented person, my guess is that this experiment...
- The Blue (but Not The Brown) Books
The unexamined life is not living, but is the unexamined course worth giving? Is there any value in giving in-class blue book exams in philosophy? Let's exclude logic and critical thinking, what is the advantage to timed exams? I give exams, but...
- Another Grading Question
It is one of those unquestioned beliefs in the world of higher ed that grading is subjective. Some instructors are easy graders and others are hard graders and there is no fact in the world about what an assignment really deserves. But I had an experience...
- What An Absurd Debate...elimination Of Cursive Writing
"State Board of Education will debate role of cursive handwriting on curriculums" by Suzanne Perez Tobias November 11th, 2012 The Wichita Eagle Should children born into a world of computers, iPads, smartphones and e-cards have to...
- Walter William Marseille...analytics Of Handwriting
Breaking news in the description of the human psyche...by handwriting analysis? Graphology (handwriting analysis), long in the same U.S. doghouse with such pseudosciences as astrology, palmistry, phrenology may not be so phony as scientists have thought...