LET us begin the school year by stating the obvious: American handwriting is in a woeful state. Schools’ insistence on teaching looped cursive handwriting has left a generation of Americans with script they dislike or is often illegible.

The Palmer method and subsequent 20th-century methods were based on an ornate style that was difficult to learn and broke down under pressure. The loops and curlicues of Palmer and other similar methods obscure legibility. For good reason, one rarely finds looped cursive in print media or computer fonts. We have become a “Please Print” nation. Even worse, we have failed to find a replacement.

But there is hope. We can stop mumbling on the page and become legible writers by turning to a style that existed long before Palmer rendered our world illegible. We can embrace letterforms born in the Italian Renais-sance. We can go italic.

What follows is a guide to help you get started — whether you are in elementary school, graduate school, in between or beyond. Think of it as an emergency first step to improve American handwriting.

Trace and copy these basic italic lowercase family groups:

If you want to join some letters, it’s easy to do. When you move between letters, you are lifting the pen or pencil, so the “join” is the air. If you want to report that “join” on the paper, you can connect the letters with no change in the letter shapes (see dotted lines below):

Think of cursive in a new way. Cursive does not necessarily mean con-tinuously joined or looped letters. The root of the word “cursive” is the Latin cursus, past participle of currere, “to run.”Ö Hence, cursive writing means “a running hand.” Letters do not have to be relentlessly connected, as with the looped cursive of Palmer and its relatives. Many people find this to be a relief. Your running hand can have rapid, legible handwrit-ing that is semi-joined or perhaps uses few, if any, joins. The choice about joining is yours.

The Write Stuff

Op-ArtBy Inga DuBay and BarBara getty

LET us begin the school year by stating the obvious: American handwriting is in a woeful state. Schools’ insistence on teaching looped cursive handwriting has left a generation of Americans with script they dislike or is often illegible.

The Palmer method and subsequent 20th-century methods were based on an ornate style that was difficult to learn and broke down under pressure. The loops and curlicues of Palmer and other similar methods obscure legibility. For good reason, one rarely finds looped cursive in print media or computer fonts. We have become a “Please Print” nation. Even worse, we have failed to find a replacement.

But there is hope. We can stop mumbling on the page and become legible writers by turning to a style that existed long before Palmer rendered our world illegible. We can embrace letterforms born in the Italian Renais-sance. We can go italic.

What follows is a guide to help you get started — whether you are in elementary school, graduate school, in between or beyond. Think of it as an emergency first step to improve American handwriting.

Trace and copy these basic italic lowercase family groups:

If you want to join some letters, it’s easy to do. When you move between letters, you are lifting the pen or pencil, so the “join” is the air. If you want to report that “join” on the paper, you can connect the letters with no change in the letter shapes (see dotted lines below):

Think of cursive in a new way. Cursive does not necessarily mean con-tinuously joined or looped letters. The root of the word “cursive” is the Latin cursus, past participle of currere, “to run.”Ö Hence, cursive writing means “a running hand.” Letters do not have to be relentlessly connected, as with the looped cursive of Palmer and its relatives. Many people find this to be a relief. Your running hand can have rapid, legible handwrit-ing that is semi-joined or perhaps uses few, if any, joins. The choice about joining is yours.

The key, though, is to avoid loops.Why?Because we recognize letters by reading the top of letters, rather than

the bottom of letters.

Also, always be sure to close up the tops.

In English, we read and write lowercase letters most of the time, so practice lowercase first.

Next come the capital letters.

Be sure to close up the tops of capitals for the sake of legibility.

For more comfort, hold your pen or pencil lightly, without a “thumb wrap” or a “death grip.”

Try an alternative hold by placing the pen or pencil between your fore-finger and middle finger, with those fingertips and thumb resting near the pencil tip. This hold can help alleviate an aching forearm as well as wrist or thumb pain.

And now pick up a pencil or a pen (if you’re really courageous) and practice on this very page. Then practice more. With each stroke, you will bring our nation one step closer to legibility.

Inga Dubay and Barbara Getty are co-authors of a series of books on italic handwriting.