What is the difference between writing and speaking?

Writing and speaking involve different cognitive processing. The author suggests that thoughts move faster than typing speed, creating a potential blocker. Writing requires deliberate composition, while speaking allows for more spontaneous expression. The distinction becomes more complex when differentiating between typing and true writing, as typing may impose different limitations on how ideas flow compared to longhand writing.

Why does typing feel limiting compared to thinking?

The author experiences thoughts moving faster than typing speed can accommodate, creating a cognitive gap. This limitation affects how quickly ideas can be captured and expressed through typing. The author acknowledges this as a blocker to their creative process, suggesting that the physical act of typing cannot keep pace with the speed of mental processing and idea generation.

Is there a difference between typing and writing?

Yes, the author suggests there is a meaningful distinction between typing and writing. They acknowledge the irony of exploring this difference while typing their article. The author recognizes that typing and writing represent different forms of composition, implying that writing may offer different cognitive or creative advantages compared to the mechanical act of typing.

How can you capture inspiration while writing?

The author captures inspiration through stream-of-consciousness writing with minimal editing. They intentionally post quickly to force themselves to share unfiltered thoughts, which helps capture the natural flow of ideas. This approach prioritizes capturing authentic inspiration over perfection, allowing thoughts to develop organically during the writing process itself rather than being pre-planned.

What does stream of consciousness writing involve?

Stream of consciousness writing is the author's method of exploring topics without pre-planning content. It involves writing in real-time, following thoughts as they naturally develop, accepting grammatical imperfections and incomplete ideas. The author uses this approach to articulate thoughts at faster speeds and avoid overthinking, presenting raw, unfiltered thinking patterns to readers as part of their live learning process.

The Difference Between Writing and Speaking

This is part of my live learning process. I apologize for any grammatical errors or thoughts that seem unformed and incohesive. I am learning to articulate better at fast speeds. I am trying to do these articles with limited editing to force me to post. You are getting my stream of consciousness here.

My Google Search: “The Difference Between Writing And Speaking”

This is something I think about a lot. My thoughts have always moved fast. I can’t type as fast as I think. Sometimes it feels like a blocker. Intuitively, it also seems there must be different cognitive processing taking place when we speak as people versus write. I’m sure it can go another layer: are you typing or are you writing. Maybe I need to rephrase my Google Search to specify between the two. For this post, I will then focus on writing and not typing. Which, frankly, is odd, because I’m typing this.

You can also see from that train of thought I have no idea what I’m really going to write before I go in. It’s part of trying to capture inspiration. This is a topic I’m interested in so I want to explore it. I’m doing that here with you. Already, with typing, I can feel the limitation.

On another note that is important for the live learning: I am also multitasking and cooking. I am making paneer which I have a deep love for. I’m going to be sharing more on paneer and my journey of becoming a vegetarian. Or, at least as close as I can be.

So, to the goods (thank you as always to TabCopy):

Here is my Google Search below. Typically, I am selecting from the results on the front page. I have trust that Google is surfacing valuable information because that is their job. I cherry pick the ones that seem especially good and start skimming to see if I find anything really worthwhile. I have not yet read these yet I have only begun the search so I apologize if they are not useful to you or anyone 😂

the difference between writing and speaking – Google Search
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+difference+between+writing+and+speaking&oq=the+difference+between+writing+and+speaking&aqs=chrome.0.0l8.5952j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Right now, I have to manually hyperlink which is frustrating. Trying to find a better way. Links are important for SEO and for you to follow my train of thought and what I am learning. Undoubtedly, some of these resources will be much more valuable than what I am creating:

Speaking vs Writing
https://www2.wmin.ac.uk/eic/learning-skills/literacy/sp_vs_writ_dif.shtml#:~:text=Here%20are%20some%20of%20the,as%20a%20writer%20and%20speaker.&text=Speaking%20is%20often%20spontaneous%20and%20unplanned.&text=Writing%20on%20the%20other%20hand,With%20fewer%20explanations%20and%20digressions.

Differences between written and spoken language
https://omniglot.com/writing/writingvspeech.htm

Additionally, I want to make it open in another tab so that you don’t leave my website. Ya, that’s right. I love that you’re here. Thank you. Here’s what that looks like:

You are able to change the link text there but I like giving you the description for more relevance on the link. Images are easy to add on WordPress. Remember to add an alt tag! It’s important for accessibility and search engines. Google is working a lot on image recognition soon and I imagine the need to add alt tags manually may go away soon. Microsoft is already doing that in some programs.

What’s the Difference between Speech and Writing? | Linguistic Society of America
https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/whats-difference-between-speech-and-writing

3 critical differences between writing and speaking – The Business Journals
https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/growth-strategies/2017/04/3-critical-differences-between-writing-and.html

The Difference between Writing and Speaking – 1496 Words | Bartleby
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/The-Difference-between-Writing-and-Speaking-P3TNTNECDB6A

Difference Between Writing and Talking | Difference Between
http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-writing-and-talking/

Spoken Versus Written Communication | Introduction to Communication
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-introductiontocommunication/chapter/spoken-versus-written-communication/

The Difference Between Speech and Writing
http://soundcommunication.holdcom.com/bid/92640/the-difference-between-speech-and-writing

Personal Thoughts Before Research

Writing

There is something really valuable about writing something down on paper. I have done previous research on this, and nothing can seemingly replace real writing. Retention is much lower if you just type.
Bulleted lists are important for organization. I started out with just normal paragraphs but I thought this would be better. It also represents the thought different in a way. Makes it more concise and focused.
Writing is slow. I’ve already stated that. Sorry lol, it frustrates me.
There is a lot of power in formatting things on paper. There is more creativity.
Writing makes it hard to retrieve and make information valuable later I find. I lose notebooks, forget where in them I wrote specific sections and more. I know this is different then just comparing speaking and writing but these are thoughts surfacing for me.
I refuse to write this article. I never like writing notes and then retaking them even when I am conscious of the retention issue. Typing is much more enjoyable in a sense and I am relatively fast at it. I’d like to time how long it takes to write this in a better way. More than that, what was the quickest words per minute I reached. Where did I slow down? Why did I slow down? All that is lost in writing on paper (for now hehe).
The pen you have makes such a difference in how you feel writing. Nothing is worse (okay things are) then a pen that isn’t working. I don’t like other colours than black myself really.

Speaking

I love speaking. No doubt about it. Wish I could just speak this right now in a way. After this, because I am feeling inspired, I will likely record an audio note. With Speak Ai, I will transcribe the post and create another article. That is also the power of speaking and capturing it in native format. You could maybe use OCR to extract writing from paper but I haven’t seen that built smoothly into a system yet. I will look into that 🤔
You have a lot of control over how you say words when you speak. It gives you more ability than writing sometimes where it is hard to read the tone. I have always struggled with this and overcompensate with a lot of Lol’s, haha’s, hahaha’s, and more. In my mind someone reads text from me and I can’t help but wonder “can you tell I’m trying to make a joke or do you hate me now”?
Great speakers have so much control over their voices. Actors, singers, public speakers, politicians etc. One thing I found out is that you basically hear when people are smiling when they talk. That is how sensitive our ears are. It unlocks a lot.
Speaking is often with other people. But, a lot of people record audio and video notes by themselves. They may keep them to themselves or share it online after. The experience of speaking changes a lot based on if you are doing it privately versus publicly or live or if it will be shared later (the knowledge of if you can edit it or not before it is shared changes things too).
I speak fast. That is fun. But, that can be too much information for people. It is not enjoyable for me to talk slow and I wrestle with that.

Images courtesy of Pexels.

Flow State

One of the important themes in my life that has emerged has been keeping myself in flow state. You want to feel inspired, lose sense of time, and throttle the line between something difficult and easy that is enjoyable and worthwhile. Right now, I am feeling friction on writing so I will leave this article for now. I will be back at some point I swear!

It is currently 10:39 PM on July 7th, 2020. I recently returned from Vancouver. That has given me a lot of inspiration. I am going on a walk outside in Toronto now where it has been so warm. I’m trying to limit the use of the word “so”. It’s difficult.

Before I go on the walk in downtown Toronto (Lakeshore & Bathurst Area) I will add an image, optimize a few things and publish the post. I will share it at some point this week.

A few last notes for this first session:

There is so much potential for named entity recognition in here. For example, you see Toronto, that is a location. When I write in Speak (I used interchangeably with Speak Ai it’s horrible for branding consistency I know and hate it but can’t help myself 😂) it will soon automatically detect that location and hyperlink it for me. We can do the same thing with people, topics, keywords, phrases. Another example I just saw which is flow state, which could be linked to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. We could link to his Wikipedia. Or we could generate an affiliate link with Amazon and his book and even maybe produce an affiliate sale at some point. It really blows my mind. I can’t wait to share that with you.
Below, I will share my standardized (well maybe one day haha) conclusion/call-to-action. What should I call it? I did a post earlier today on identifying customer needs where I included the title and the link but it looked really messy. You can see what I mean here:
Not great right? So, you will see an updated version below now. I also need to do some work on the headers and what size they are. I believe that is an H3.

Thank you for live learning with me!

Please feel encouraged to:

Related: everything you need to start a podcast goes into the practical side of choosing your medium, and important questions to ask yourself is a piece I’ve kept updated as my own thinking has evolved.

The Difference Between Writing And Speaking