This article is for you if you have ever had someone have to ask you what something says that you wrote.

Let's cut to the chase -- if you have bad handwriting, there is a certain stigma our society places on you. On the other hand -- if you have good handwriting, you will be judged as a person of precision, one who is careful, exacting. If you set your bad penmanship alongside the good penmanship of even a lesser skilled real estate agent, a consumer could likely select the other agent and not you, just based on handwriting.

If nothing else, that scenario should make you think about writing neater and more legibly.

Sloppy handwriting can be frustrating and wastes people's time. And studies abound showing that students with better handwriting get higher grades on papers they hand in. (Students who hand in papers with good handwriting often get better grades -- all other things/answers being equal -- than students who use a computer and TYPE their papers.)

Penmanship is an art form, and believe it or not, there are still state and national contests in penmanship.

So you're not neat, right? That may not matter. You can be a messy writer and still be legible. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand. If you are someone who writes prescriptions, you likely need to be at least legible, even though most would call what you do "sloppy."

However, I think that everyone ought to write neatly and legibly just out of demonstrating respect for others and thus, showing good character in life. When you look at it that way, your sloppy writing could be insulting to others.

There are four factors in handwriting that add up to legibility:

• Shape

• Slant

• Spacing

• Size

What area is your weakest? Once you access that -- here are a few tips to take you on the road to beautiful and legible penmanship.

1. Stop being unconscious and "on automatic" when you write. From now on notice what you are scrawling on the page and think, "orderly, legibly," when you form the letters and words. Think of the person who must read whatever you are writing.

2. Don't write with your fingers and "draw" the letters ... a finger writer plunks his wrist on the paper then picks it up and moves it repeatedly as he moves down the line. Your fingers should serve as guides, driven by much larger muscles than just your wrist.

3. Notice what muscles you use when you write … go ahead, try it now, and then come back here. You should be using your forearms and shoulders in a great, coordinated flowing motion.

4. Be sure to hold the pen between the thumb and index finger. The barrel should rest on the middle finger. Do not hold the pen almost evenly between the thumb and the index and middle fingers, because that gives you wobbly control and stresses out the underside muscles of your wrist.

5. Don't strangle your pen by squeezing it to death. Grip the pen loosely.

6. Writing at an angle leads the eye across the paper -- so whether you are writing in print or cursive -- your note will be a fast read.

7. Practice making "air letters." Yes, just form the letters in the air in front of you. By making them big this way, you start getting the feel of using the bigger muscles in your arm and shoulder that you should use when writing.

8. Never again lapse back into rotten writing! Much of the writing that agents do is on important contracts that, because they can lead to legal action, need to be explicit in meaning and understandable to all.

Lesser writing is done on sticky notes to assistants, team members, family, and as fax cover sheets, but should still be given the same considerations.

Sloppy writing is not the mark of a master marketing communicator. Follow the seven exercises above and you, too, can become a legible, maybe even a neat and tidy, cursive writer. If you do, the world will surely give you a nice hand!

Published: April 6, 2006

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Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .