Shari Wilson (The Surprising Process of Writing, Inside Higher Ed) asserts that students write better by hand than by computer. She cites work by Daniel Chandler, The Phenomenology of Writing by Hand, and claims that writing by hand directs students to the process of writing rather than assignment mechanics and physically brings them closer to their text than a computer does.

There's no question that the tool of writing influences how one writes. Haas, 17 years ago, showed that writers who use only word processing, in comparison with those who use only pen and paper, plan less overall, conceptually, and during prewriting, but do more local and sequential planning—whether expert writer or novice.

There is a question, however, whether these differences cause writing to deteriorate. In my own writing, the ability to revise without re-penning every word has led to greater clarity due to better organizing of my thoughts. Still, it seems likely that a certain threshold of revising must be reached to make up for the lesser amount of planning and conceptualizing in word processing. As it's unlikely that students will revise as many times as I do, it is possible that writing by hand may lead to better writing in their case.

Thus, another question is whether the amount of revising that students actually do will lead to better writing in the long run. That is, does the act of writing a lot lead to better writing more than the act of thinking a lot? Then again, we probably don't want to pit writing against thinking. Perhaps we should redesign our pedagogy to facilitate better conceptual planning while using a word processor.