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CrowdScience listener Azeddine from Algeria has had bad handwriting since he was a child. In fact, it was so untidy that, when he later became a chemistry lecturer, his university students complained that they couldn’t read his lecture notes. That was when he decided he had to do something about it.

And it got him wondering… why do some of us have very neat handwriting while other people’s is almost unreadable? Why do his sisters all write beautifully when his natural style is quite the opposite?

Presenter Alex Lathbridge – who admits that his handwriting isn’t always the tidiest – sets out to answer Azeddine’s question. He explores the different factors which determine how well we write. How much of it is inherited? What part does family and education play? And what’s actually going on in our brains when we apply pen to paper?

Alex talks to anthropologist Monika Saini in Delhi who has analysed writing styles within families and in different regions across India. She tells him about the genetic and cultural factors which seem to influence our handwriting.

We also hear from neuroscientist Marieke Longcamp who uses MRI scanning to find out which parts of our brains are involved when we write by hand. She’s looked at what’s happening in the brains of people who write in more than one script – for example in French and Arabic, like Azeddine.

Another neuroscientist, Karin Harman James, has been looking at the link between learning something by writing it down compared to typing it on a tablet or laptop.

And Alex meets handwriting tutor Cherrell Avery to find out if it’s possible to improve your writing – even as an adult.

Contributors:
Cherrell Avery, Handwriting Tutor, London, UK
Dr. Monika Saini, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi, India
Prof. Karin Harman James, Indiana University, USA
Prof. Marieke Longcamp, Aix Marseille Université, France

Presenter: Alex Lathbridge
Producer: Jeremy Grange
Editor: Cathy Edwards
Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Studio Manager: Emma Harth