Handwriting is a personal issue. Students should not all be expected to use exactly the same style, despite copying exercises like the one above. Nevertheless ba letters may influence the reader against the writer, something which is undesirable whether the work is the product of some creative task or, more seriously, work that is going to be assessed in a test or exam. We should encourage students with problematic handwriting to improve it Though more and more written communication takes place from a computer keyboard, handwriting is still important for personal letters, written assignments, and most (but not all) exams (see the Chapter notes on pages 333-334). 255