Mulholland 1

Christopher Mulholland
WR 100330
Erin McLaughlin
17 November 2015
Annotated Bibliography
Overview:
This research paper assesses the relation between handwriting and memory. The goal is to
answer the following question: What are the effects that technology has on memory in
developing minds? In doing so, I will also address these questions: What are the psychological
effects of writing by hand and typing, and how do they differ? How should the education system
approach the cultural shift from handwriting to keyboarding? How does the practice of cursive
handwriting affect the long and short term memory capacities of young students? How has the
process of memory retrieval been cheapened by technological advancements? I personally am
interested in this topic as a student myself and as someone who is trying to figure out the best
way to learn. I currently still hand write many things but I use technology for reminders,
scheduling, and typing papers, and I want to discover how I could improve my memory through
my use of technology.
Source 1:
Alonso, Mara A. Prez. Metacognition and Sensorimotor Components Underlying the Process
of Handwriting and Keyboarding and Their Impact on Learning. An Analysis from the
Perspective of Embodied Psychology. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 176
(2015): 263-69. Web.
This source is aimed at educators and anyone else concerned with the processes of

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learning. It comes from a journal of behavioral sciences. Alonso delves into the psychology
behind handwriting vs keyboarding and addresses the Common Core Standard for US schools to
no longer require cursive handwriting classes. He also describes how visual and motor
informations in the brain are related, recounting several studies that proved the benefits to tracing
letters rather than just looking and how the act of tracing significantly improves memory. The
source significantly discusses how learning to write in cursive improves the minds thinking
capacity even beyond just the material being written down at the time. I will rely heavily on this
source for the basis of my essay, which discusses a similar topic. However, I plan to expand this
knowledge to discover more about how writing affects memory in particular and why schools
should bring back the cursive standard. I will also talk about other uses of technology that
diminish the memory capacities of the developing brain.
Source 2:
Mueller, Pam A, and Daniel M Oppenheimer. The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard.
Psychological Science 25.6: 1159-168. Web.\
This Source also analyses the effects of handwriting and typing on the memory, focusing
more on the process of note taking. It identifies a shallower processing in the input of words in
a computer compared to the act of writing it longhand. While computers are extremely useful for
organization in the context of note-taking, making it easier to look back on the notes that were
taken, one loses the invaluable benefits of writing. For example, those who type notes end up
writing more rather than reframing or rewording a lecture and thus already processing the
information as it is received instead of just transcribing it verbatim. This reinforces my argument
for the power of handwriting, taking a slightly different perspective this time. This is an article
from a journal of Psychological Science, intended to provide accurate and useful information for

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the means of research and education. It is consistent with other sources I have found about the
effects of handwriting and typing on memory.
Source 3:
Kysilko, David. "The Handwriting Debate." nasbe.org. National Association of State Boards of
Education, 1 Sept. 2012. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
This is an article released by the National Association of State Boards of Education, an
organization that provides unbiased, research-based policy information and analysis of
education issues to embers of state boards of education and the broader education community. It
addresses the then recent decision for handwriting not to be included in the national Common
Core for Education, leaving it up to the states to decide whether or not to include it individually.
The first states to drop the cursive courses were Hawaii and our very own Indiana. This article
identifies the issue and lists benefits of cursive that are being lost by these schools, including:
cognitive and motor skills development, literacy development, brain development, memory,
written expression, and aiding students with learning disabilities. It suggests some solutions to
the issue as well, but the main point is that handwriting is important and ought to be a focus of
early education. I plan to extrapolate many of the points from this article, particularly the current
problem of the school core standards and the benefits of memory that cursive brings.
Source 4:
Bjork, Elizabeth Ligon, and Bjork, Robert A. Memory. San Diego: Academic, 1996. Handbook
of Perception and Cognition (2nd Ed.). Web.
This book is a collection of articles that gives a broad overview of human memory. It is
one part of a handbook of perception and cognition. For my research I will focus on three
sections in particular. The first is about Short Term/Working Memory. It breaks down how the

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brain stores memories for retrieval after a short period of time. This is the kind of memory that
note-taking and studying makes use of. It will be important to learn the processes in the brain
that allow for the storage and retrieval of materials. The next article is about the retrieval process,
going deeper into the recollection of material by the brain. I will use this section as background
on psychological processes as well. The third article is about how individuals differ in their
memory. It revisits working memory and long term memory and explains the concepts of
memory capacity, implicit and explicit memory, and how to become an expert. This is a
psychology handbook assembled by the top experts on memory. I plan to use this source to
answer the question of the psychological process behind memory and recollection. It will give
me a much deeper knowledge of the subject and prompt ideas for approaches to the solution of
how handwriting affects memory.
Source 5:
Risinger, D. M. "INNOCENTS CONVICTED: AN EMPIRICALLY JUSTIFIED FACTUAL
WRONGFUL CONVICTION RATE." Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 97.3
(2007): 761-806. ProQuest. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.
From a journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, this source claims it contains the first
ever empirically justified wrongful conviction rate for a significant universe of real world
serious crimes. It focuses on capital rape-murders in the 1980s. Obviously, wrongful conviction
is a hard thing to measure, for the goal Justice system is to convict the guilty and clear the
innocent. A conviction can only be found to be a mistake if there is information leaked after the
fact, such as a false testimony or some new data evidence. That being said, the authors of this
journal found the minimum wrongful conviction rate for capital-rape murders between 1982 and
1989 to be 3.3%. The actual number of wrongful convictions is predicted to be up to 5%, and the

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article goes on to discuss the implications of this 3-5% rate. The data is sound and this source
could certainly be useful in my argument for the importance of memory, although it will likely
play a small part. My main focus will be on the effects of handwriting, but this establishes an
issue that poor memory contributes to. Memory is really not as reliable as many people think,
and a large number of wrongful convictions come from mistaken identification or memories of
witnesses.
Source 6:
Tversky, Barbara and Fisher, George, ed. The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony. Presentation
given on April 5 1999 at Stanford Law School. Stanford Journal of Legal Studies,
accessed 13 November 2015. Web.
This presentation was given by a professor of Psychology and and a professor of Law at
Stanford University. The main point is that the Justice system puts too much weight on the
testimonies of eyewitnesses in court. The human memory is not as reliable as we make it out to
be, and the introduction of false cues plays a huge role in the misremembering of details.
Witnesses will identify incorrect perpetrators in a lineup because of incorrectly filled gaps in
their memories. This is the kind of thing that leads to the wrongful conviction rate that was
brought to our attention in the Risinger article. I will use this knowledge to complete my
argument from the perspective of the justice system and tie it back into memory and technology.

Willis, Judy. "The Brain-Based Benefits of Writing for Math and Science Learning." Edutopia.
The George Lucas Educational Foundation, 11 July 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.

Bishop Article

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