How to improve your handwriting for Civil Services Mains and other Written Exams?

In UPSC civil services exam it is important to have decent handwriting level i.e. your handwriting should be legible and very easy to read. Even though one need to not dwell too much on making your handwriting beautiful like that of a calligrapher but still it is necessary to give it importance. Since as an aspirant you don’t want to lose marks in mains exam due to poor handwriting. Even one mark lost due to this can make or break your rank and may even become reason for not being able to clear mains exam. It is never too late to improve upon handwriting. So for UPSC aspirants studying in IAS coaching institutes in Chandigarh and India we have come up with a 2 week handwriting improvement strategy. We have come up with a new technique or strategy for each day of the month. If you follow this simple month long plan, then your handwriting will improve tremendously.

14 days strategy for Improving Handwriting
Day 1: Analyze your Handwriting
The first step towards making improvements to your handwriting begins with self-analysis. Pick any topic and then write a few sentences to form a paragraph. You should not take too much time in writing it in order to make it “perfect”; simply write at your natural pace to produce an accurate sample of your handwriting. Then you should objectively analyze your handwriting.

What to Look for
Then you should scrutinize your handwriting skills. You should look for the following attributes and factors in your handwriting:

• The shapes of loops, curves, hard corners, etc of the alphabets
• The slant’s degree of your writing (the angle in which you write the letters)
• The alignment of letters (upward or downward angle, any overlapping with other letters, etc.)
• The spacing between words
• The size of letters
• The line quality (hard to read, heavy pressure on paper, etc.)

Identify Your Imperfections
Few mistakes to look for in your hand writing are as following:

• Letters which are too far apart or squished together
• Crooked alignment
• Too steep an angle in your letters and words
• Letters which are not shaped properly and are hard to read/illegible
• Letters which are too faint or pressed to hard into the paper due to too light or too much pressure

Day 2: Right Materials
After getting an overview of your handwriting now have an idea of what you want to fix. So, the next step is to take steps to improve.

The very first step is to get good quality writing instrument. By good quality we don’t mean expensive or exotic pens or paper. You should choose whatever feels the most comfortable in writing: fountain pen, a regular gel pen, ball pen or even just your basic pencil. Then buy a plain unlined notebook to track your improvements over the days.

Day 3: Get Inspired by someone’s Handwriting
Then next step is to choose a handwriting sample which inspires and which you wish to achieve. Each aspirant will have a different handwriting style. You should not try to make your writing too fancy or calligraphy like. Choose a sample which is easy to read, simple and aesthetically pleasing to look at. Internet is the perfect place for your dose of inspiration. You can Google search for handwriting samples or use pinterest app to choose from the huge selection of different handwriting samples and get inspired.

Day 4: Stretch Your Hands and Wrists
Even though handwriting isn’t a workout but still writing for long duration can eventually tire your hands and wrists. This is particularly true for UPSC mains exam which involve writing uninterrupted for 2 sessions 3hours each over many days. So to prepare for mains in advance it’s a smart to warm up your hands and wrists before your handwriting session.

On Day 4, you should start warming up by flexing your hands and then rolling your wrists, so they’re limber and loose. Do this on regular basis before your handwriting, session. Over a course of time you will notice that your muscles will not feel sore easily or tighten up.

Day 5: Learn to Hold Your Pen or Pencil Properly
In the next step you should now focus on how you hold your pen. When you are writing hold your pen or pencil between your thumb and index and middle fingers.

Hold your pen or pencil in such a way that its end rests on either your index finger’s knuckle or the web of the hand. Your grip should neither be too tight nor too loose.

Day 6: Correct Body Posture
Your body posture has immense impact on how you write and how your writing will look. You should sit straight while writing. You should use your non-writing hand to balance yourself. This posture will give you more control of your handwriting.

In addition you should always sit at a table and a good chair (with a hard back) whenever you are writing. Don’t write while sitting on a couch or other seat with poor back and seat support.

Day 7: handwriting is not just about controlling movement of Fingers
Now you must understand that good writing is not just about the movement of fingers. Instead it is more about using your forearm and shoulder correctly.

To get in the good habit of this don’t put too much pressure on your thumb, wrist or fingers instead try to use your forearm and shoulder more.

Day 8: Get Basic Shapes right
The core aspect of having good hand writing is getting the shapes of letters right. Before you start forming letters, practice your basic lines and curves. Make sure that they look as expected and are evenly spaced. Then you can start focusing on actual letters.

Day 9: Focus on shape and size of Loops
Loops are very important aspect of the shapes of letters as we typically distinguish letters based on their loops. Also, you should make sure that you make your loops properly i.e. they are neither too big nor too small and have proper shape as well.

Day 10: Slant Your Cursive carefully
Some students have the habit of slanting or tilting their handwriting too much. This should be avoided. Since extremely slanted writing is harder to read and understand. It’s okay to slant your letters a little but not too much. You should correct your excessive slants by initially sacrificing speed to make your hand writing more legibly and readably.

Review and practice

After learning these 10 steps it is important for you to review your progress. Check your improvement and make note of your mistakes. If also keep this review a regular practice to make sure that you have adopted what you learned for long term.

Day 11: Focus on Tops of Your Letters
It is very important to make sure that your handwriting has clarity. And to ensure clear and legible handwriting it is important to close the tops of your letters. If you don’t close your letters properly then some letters can start looking like letters they’re not supposed to—such as “a” and “o” ending up looking like “u.”

Day 12: Paper Positions
It is very important to correctly position your paper which will depend on your dominant writing hand. Right-handed people should use a left-angled or more vertical page position and lefties should angle paper more to the right.

Day 13: Pressure
You should not apply too much pressure while writing. Since too much pressure creates unattractive hand writing and will also make your hand and wrist tire easily.

Thus keep your grip on the pen or pencil relaxed.

Day 14: Pace
In order to improve your handwriting you should adjust your pace. You should not rush formation of various letters since it will lead to sloppy and illegible writing. You should keep your pace medium i.e. neither too slow nor too fast.

Now, you have learned all the secret tips and tricks to a better handwriting. To maintain your progress you should periodically review your improvements and keep practicing. Ideally you should keep aside approximately 15 minutes each day for practice to write more efficiently and beautifully. You should also make sure that you follow these tips when you are practicing your UPSC mains answer writing as well. Since it’s important to check your improvement in an exam stimulated manner as well. In long term these tips will help you in scoring better marks in UPSC mains.

Best wishes.
We hope that these tips will help you. These were our views and opinions on this topic. What are your thoughts and inputs or queries on this topic? Comment below and share your views with us. We would be happy to assist you in your UPSC preparation battles and answer your queries.