A
writing implement or
writing instrument is an object used to produce
writingWriting is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as magnetic tape audio.In Eurasia writing began as a...
. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as
paintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete...
,
drawingDrawing is a visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, chalk, pastels, markers, stylus, or various metals like silverpoint...
and
technical drawingTechnical drawing, also known as drafting, is the academic discipline of creating standardized technical drawings by architects, interior designers, drafters, design engineers, and related professionals...
, but writing instruments generally have the unique requirement to create a smooth, controllable line.
Another widely-used writing implement is the stylus used by blind users in conjunction with the
slateThe slate and stylus are tools used by blind persons to write text that they can read without assistance. Invented by Charles Barbier and Louis Braille as the tool for "writing" Braille, the slate and stylus allow for a quick, easy, convenient and constant method of making embossed printing for...
for punching out the dots in
BrailleThe Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Braille was devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character or cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each...
.
Autonomous writing instruments
These have an inherent functionality in that their useful life corresponds to their length of their physical existence, i.e. they cannot "run out" and persist as useless objects.
Without pigment
The oldest known examples of writing were created by incising a flat surface with a rigid tool rather than applying pigment with a secondary object, e.g., Chinese jiaguwen carved into turtle shells. However, this may simply represent the relative durability of such artifacts rather than truly representing the evolution of techniques, as the meaningful application of pigment is attested in prehistoric cave paintings such as the ones at
LascauxLascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the Dordogne département. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
.
The ancient
SumeriansSumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BCE . It was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary...
and their successor cultures, such as the Babylonians, produced their
cuneiformCuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
writing by pressing a triangular
stylusA stylus is a writing utensil. The word is also used for a computer accessory . It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styluses are heavily curved to be held more easily...
into soft clay tablets, creating characteristic wedge-shaped marks. The clay tablets were then baked to harden them and permanently preserve the marks.
Several other ancient cultures such as
Mycenaean GreeceMycenaean Greece is a cultural period of Ancient Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
also inscribed their records into clay tablets but did not routinely bake them; much of the
Linear BLinear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It predated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization. Most of the tablets inscribed in Linear B were found in Knossos, Cydonia, Pylos, Thebes...
corpus from Minoan Crete was accidentally preserved by a catastrophic fire which hard-baked those tablets. The
RomansAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
used
leadLead is a main-group element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metals. Lead has a bluish-white color when freshly cut, but tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed to air...
styli with
wax tabletA wax tablet is a tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. Cicero's letters make passing reference to their use, and some examples of wax-tablets have been preserved in waterlogged...
s which could be "erased" by rubbing the
beeswaxBeeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites on abdominal segments 4 to 7...
surface smooth again.
In the modern era, hand held computers and certain other computer
input deviceAn input device is any peripheral used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system...
s use a stylus to enter information onto a screen by applying pressure rather than by depositing pigment.
Words and names are still commonly inscribed into commemorative objects, such as the
engravedEngraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
winners' names on the
silverSilver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
Stanley CupThe Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club cup trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion. It has been referred to as The Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...
or the
Gettysburg AddressThe Gettysburg Address is a speech by Abraham Lincoln and one of the most quoted speeches in United States history. It was delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, during the American Civil War, four...
carved into the stone wall of the
Lincoln MemorialThe Lincoln Memorial is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and was dedicated on May 30, 1922. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French,...
, but the requisite tools are not exclusively considered to be writing instruments.
With inherent pigment
The original form of "lead
pencilA pencil is a writing or drawing device consisting of a slippery, thin stick of pigment and clay, usually encased in a thin wood cylinder, although paper and plastic sheaths are also used...
" was the lead stylus used by the ancient Romans, who also used it to write on wood or papyrus by leaving dark streaks where the soft metal rubbed off onto the surface. However, most modern "lead pencils" have a nonpoisonous core of greyish-black
graphiteThe mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Greek γραφειν : "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead, as distinguished from the actual metallic element lead...
mixed with various proportions of
clayClay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired...
for consistency, enclosed within an outer wooden casing to protect the fragile graphite from being snapped apart or from leaving marks on the user's hand.
White
chalkChalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. It forms under relatively deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. It is common to find flint and chert...
has been traditionally used in
schoolroomA schoolroom is a classroom particularly in a private house. It was often a recreation of a nursery, when the children became old enough for a governess....
s to write on a main
blackboardBlackboard may refer to:* Chalkboard, a reusable writing surface* Blackboard system, an area of shared memory, or workspace, in Computer Science* Blackboard bold, a style of typeface often used for certain symbols in mathematics and physics texts...
at the front of the room. In the 19th century, and indeed well into the 20th century, when paper was less readily available, individual students also wrote with chalk on their own small
slateA writing slate is a piece of flat material used as a medium for writing.In the 1800s, writing slates were made of slate, which is more durable than paper and was cheap at the time when paper was expensive. It was used to allow children to practice writing...
s.
Both pencils and chalk exist in variants which can create marks in other colors, but colored pencils and colored chalk are generally considered to be art supplies rather than writing instruments. Similarly, although very young children may use colorful wax crayons to write words into their pictures, writing is not considered to be the primary use of crayons.
A wax pencil resembles both a crayon and a pencil in that it contains a brightly colored wax core within a protective paper casing, but its proportions are closer to that of a standard pencil. Wax pencils are primarily used to write onto nonporous surfaces such as
porcelainPorcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
or
glassIn general Glass refers to a solid, brittle, transparent material, commonly used for windows, bottles, or eyewear. Examples of glassy materials include, but are not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovy-glass, or aluminium oxynitride. The term glass...
.
Normal pencils, chalk, and crayons all share the characteristic that they cannot "run out". The useful life of these implements is closely linked to their physical existence. However, specialized accessories such as pencil sharpeners may be required to reshape the working end of the pigment core or to remove the outer casing from around the tip.
Assisted writing implements
These require the presence of an added pigment in order to write, and are useless when "empty".
Pens
The
penA pen is a long, thin rounded device used to apply ink to a surface for the purpose of writing, usually paper. There are several different types, including ballpoint, rollerball, fountain, felt-tip. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used. Modern day pens come in a varity of...
is the most common form of writing implement. It has a hard tip which applies ink to a surface.
Capillary-action dip pens
Initially, pens were made by slicing a suitable
nibA nib is the part of a quill, dip pen or fountain pen which comes in to contact with the writing surface in order to deposit ink. There are different types of nib designed for different purposes that vary in terms of the material they are made from, their purpose, shape and size.-Reed:A reed pen...
point from the end of a thin, hollow natural material which could retain a small reservoir of ink by
capillary actionCapillary action, capillarity, capillary motion, or wicking refers to two phenomena:1 The movement of liquids in thin tubes.
2 The flow of liquids through porous media, such as the flow of water through soil....
. However, these ink reservoirs were relatively small, requiring the pen to be periodically dipped back into an external
inkwellAn inkwell is a small jar or container, often made of glass, porcelain, silver, brass, or pewter, that is used for holding ink in a place convenient for the person who is writing...
for replenishing.
Reed penReed pens or kalamoi are a type of writing implement with a long history. They are made by cutting and shaping a single reed straw or length of bamboo. Reed pens with modern features such as a split nib have been found in Ancient Egyptian sites dating from the 4th Century BC...
s were used by the ancient Egyptians to write on
papyrusPapyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
.
QuillA quill pen is a writing implement made from a flight feather of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, metal-nibbed pens, the fountain pen, and, eventually, the ballpoint pen...
pens were standard in Europe and the United States up through the 18th and 19h centuries, and are still used in various contexts, such as
calligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of writing . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
and formal settings such as major
bankA bank is a financial institution licensed by a government. Its primary activities include borrowing and lending money.Many other financial activities were allowed over time. For example banks are important players in financial markets and offer financial services such as investment funds...
transactions. The most common quills were taken from the wings of geese or ravens, although the feathers of
swansSwans can refer to:*Swan, the bird.Music*Swans , the band.*Swans , an EP by the above band.Places*Swan's Island, Maine, an Island town in America*Swans, Punjab, a village and Union Council of Mianwali Tehsil in Punjab, Pakistan.Sport...
and
peacocksPeacocks may refer to:*Peafowl*Peacocks *Nickname for English football club, Leeds United...
were sometimes favored for prestige.
A
dip penA dip pen or nib pen usually consists of a metal nib with capillary channels like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted on a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and plastic, while some pens are made entirely of glass...
has a steel nib - the pen proper - and a pen-holder. Dip pens are very versatile, as the pen-holder can accommodate a wide variety of nibs that are specialized for different purposes--
copperplateCopperplate refers to the use of inscribed sheets of copper in printing. The engraved or etched sheets of copper are inked and then have paper rolled over them to produce a copy....
writing, mapping pens, and five-pointed nibs for drawing music staves-- and can be used with most types of ink, some of which are incompatible with other types of pen. Automatic pens are a category of dip pen, in which the nib is in two parts and can hold a larger quantity of ink. However, like all of its precursors, the steel-nibbed dip pens had a limited ink reservoir and a tendency to drip inkblots on the page.
Fountain pens
Fountain pens were developed in the 19th century. These consist of the nib unit, an ink reservoir chamber, and an external casing. The casing usually includes a cover for the nib, in order to protect its shape and keep the ink from evaporating dry or wicking into the user's pocket. Depending on the design of the pen, the ink reservoir can be filled in several different ways: direct addition by eyedropper, suction from an internal mechanism, or disposable pre-filled cartridges. Some cartridge-based fountain pens can be fitted with "converters", which are separate piston/suction reservoirs of the same dimensions as the pen's usual refill cartridge; these allow the pen to refill from bottled ink.
Only certain types of ink can be used in a fountain pen, to avoid clogging up the nib unit mechanism. Although the larger reservoir of fountain pens requires less frequent ink replenishment, the ink may inconveniently spill out in certain contexts to stain the paper, fingers, or clothing of an unwary writer. Differences in air pressure may cause spectacular effects when travelling by airplane.
Disposable pens
A large number of new pen types were popularized in the 20th century. Some of them are not constructed to be refilled with ink after they run dry; although others can theoretically have their internal ink compartment replaced, the widespread custom is to simply throw away the entire pen when its ink is no longer accessible.
These types include the
ballpoint penA ballpoint pen , is a modern writing instrument...
(often called a
biroLászló József Bíró was the inventor of the modern ballpoint pen.Bíró was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary in 1899. He presented the first production of the ball pen at the Budapest International Fair in 1931...
in many Commonwealth countries) and the felt tip pen. Both of these have subtypes which are popularly called by their own specific names, usually based on the type of their ink, such as the fluorescent
highlighterA highlighter is a form of felt-tip pen which is used to draw attention to sections of documents by marking them with a vivid, translucent colour.-History:...
, the
rollerball penRollerball pens are writing instruments which use ball point writing mechanisms with water-based liquid or gelled ink, as opposed to the oil-based viscous inks found in ballpoint pens. The characteristics of these less viscous inks, which tend to saturate more deeply and more widely into paper than...
, and the
gel penA gel pen uses ink in which pigment is suspended in a water-based gel. Because the ink is thick and opaque, it shows up more clearly on dark or slick surfaces than the typical inks used in ballpoint or felt tip pens...
.
Mechanical pencils
Unlike the construction of a traditional wooden pencil around a solid graphite core, a
mechanical pencilA mechanical pencil is an implement for writing or drawing in which the solid marking core is not bonded to the outer casing, and is designed such that the core is to be extended as its point is worn away.Mechanical pencils are known by many alternative names, some of the most...
feeds a small, mobile piece of graphite through its tip. An internal mechanism controls the position of the graphite by friction, so that while it remains steady while writing, the graphite can be advanced forward to compensate for gradual wear or retracted to protect it when not in use. The graphite in mechanical pencils is typically much narrower than in wooden pencils, frequently in sub-millimeter diameters. This makes them particularly useful for fine diagrams or small handwriting, although different sizes of refill leads cannot be interchanged in the same pencil.
Brushes
Although in Western civilization writing is usually done with some form of
pencilA pencil is a writing or drawing device consisting of a slippery, thin stick of pigment and clay, usually encased in a thin wood cylinder, although paper and plastic sheaths are also used...
or
penA pen is a long, thin rounded device used to apply ink to a surface for the purpose of writing, usually paper. There are several different types, including ballpoint, rollerball, fountain, felt-tip. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used. Modern day pens come in a varity of...
, other cultures have used other instruments.
ChineseWritten Chinese comprises the written symbols used to represent spoken Chinese and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated. These symbols are commonly known as Chinese characters . Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary...
characters are traditionally written with a
brushInk brushes are used in Chinese calligraphy. They are also used in Chinese painting and descendant brush painting styles...
, which is perceived as lending itself to a graceful, flowing stroke.
A brush differs from a pen in that instead of a rigid nib, the brush is tipped with soft bristles. The bristles are gently swept across the paper with just enough pressure to allow ink to wick onto the surface, rather than mashing down the brush to the extent of substantial friction resistance. Although pens with semi-flexible nibs and liquid ink can also vary their stroke width depending on the degree of applied pressure, their variation range is far less obvious.
Traditionally, brushes have been loaded with ink by dipping the bristles into an external pool of ink on an inkstone, analogous to a traditional dip pen with an inkwell. Some companies now make "brush pens" which in that regard resemble a fountain pen, with an internal ink reservoir built into the handle which can be refilled with preloaded cartridges or a bottle-fill converter.
Accessories
Other implements indirectly associated with writing include
eraserAn eraser or rubber is an article of stationery that is used for removing pencil and sometimes pen writings. Erasers have a rubbery consistency and are often white or pink, although modern materials allow them to be made in any color. Many pencils are equipped with an eraser on one end...
s for pen and pencil, pencil sharpeners, inkwells, blotter paper, and
rulerA ruler, or rule, is an instrument used in geometry, technical drawing and engineering/building to measure distances and/or to rule straight lines. Strictly speaking, the ruler is essentially a straightedge used to rule lines and the calibrated instrument used for determining measurement is called...
s and related
drawing instrumentStationery has historically meant a wide gamut of materials: paper and office supplies, writing implements, greeting cards, glue, pencil case etc.-History of stationery:...
s. Pounce pots were a precursor of
blotting paperBlotting paper is a type of paper or other material which is used to absorb an excess of substance from the surface of an object....
, being a dispenser for powdery material for drying the paper.
StencilA stencil is a template used to draw or paint identical letters, numbers, symbols, shapes, or patterns every time it is used. Stencil technique in visual art is also referred to as pochoir....
s can be used to create standardised letters, patterns or signatures.