BY NATHAN DASILVA, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
As students, we all know that the primary exercise of day-to-day classes is note-taking. I prefer to use my laptop, but when I’m most serious about the subject matter, I’ll take hand-written notes. That’s because writing notes by hand takes more concentrated effort, but to do it effectively, you need the right implementation.
After many years of heavy practice, I can say this: Not all pens are created equal. A good pen can make the difference between a legible, quickly written statement and a barely decipherable series of scratches that took 2 minutes and distracted you through part of the lecture.
A bad pen doesn’t only stop your notes from looking nice; the shape can tire out your hand faster, break more easily even with gentle use and even create misshapen lines depending on what side of the point you tend to write on. That doesn’t mean you need something expensive; the worst pen I’ve ever owned was an expensive designer Italian pen.
It was a gold engraved monster that was heavier than any fountain pen I’d ever used, much too heavy to control easily while I quickly moved my fingers across a page. To get a decent line, I would have to push so hard that I would often tear the page, and I must have only used it for a couple of weeks before I couldn’t take it anymore. That’s because it didn’t have the qualities that actually matter to a pen’s functionality.
A good pen needs to have a smooth texture, moderate weight and the right ink output. If your writing can stay in clean lines while your pen glides across the page, then you’ve got everything you need, whether that’s for notes or longer professional works, or even for recreation and art.
As for the ink output, that varies a little, but the concern is always going to be smearing. If you have too much ink and you drag your hand across the page, you’ll smear your writing and ruin the line. This is very easy to do if you’re in a hurry, so many people prefer to get pens with a smear guard, but I contend that you benefit much more from a pen with more output. Greater output means thicker, darker lines and less of a chance that you’ll have faded sections.
I find that the danger of smearing encourages me to slow down a little when I take notes, as well as making me breathe for a half-second and absorb what I’m writing. It can even serve you in that way if you acclimate to the delay.
Now, for some people, a cheap BIC pen can satisfy these requirements just fine, and I was of the same mind for a time. They’re a basic option, and they get the job done in most cases, but you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t try a better option.
This semester I switched to a new pen brand, and after having used them, my preferred pen brand is the Signo Uni-ball Bold 207. They’re a little more expensive than the BIC variety, but the increase in quality is well worth it, and they’re still very moderately priced.
That’s my recommendation, but I would also suggest looking around and finding the right variety for you. If a heavy fountain pen lets your hand glide across the page, then that’s what you need to become the most effective you can be. They say a bad craftsman blames his tools, but don’t underestimate the advantage that comes from proper utilities.
