do both after writing the main part of the word. you don’t go on to the next word till the first is complete. Sometimes you do forget but not often. it takes no more thought that writing in general. its just all part of it.

When something becomes “second nature” like writing, it is impossible to know exactly what your brain is doing to do it, because it is doing it automatically without you being consciously aware. (I think that is what some other comments mean in calling it “muscle memory”.)

So asking people this is not going to get you reliable answers, it is going to tell you what people think their unconscious brain is doing.

However the word you just wrote is right there in front of you, and you know mentally what word you just wrote, so seeing or knowing that there are t’s and i’s that need completing, seems pretty much a no brainer. Of course this is the sort of observation we use to make up answers about what our brain must be doing…

I’d be interested to know how often people miss their dots and crosses.

People who "cross the T’s and dot the I’s

Is there somebody who doesn’t?

keep track in your head […] then remember

In theory yes, but that’s kinda muscle memory. Nothing to really think about.

other languages like accents from other languages too, e.g. á, à, ü…etc

I live in such a language :) and therefore I think ASCII is stone age and all software that still has exceptions with some characters is buggy AF.

You literally just finish writing the letters as you write i guess?

I need a ton more weed for this one

I think it’s like reading. You don’t read individual letters, but rather recognize entire words at a time.

When I write cursive I also write entire words before sprinkling some dots over the squiggles.

I think you are overthinking writing. How do you visualise tying your shoelaces?

No, we do not pluralize with an apostrophe.

I also dot my lower case “j’s” and cross my lower case “f’s”.

About the only mental processing going on when I’m writing is what word I want to use next. In school, writing the letters was drilled in to me so that it is simple muscle memory to make them. That goes for both print and cursive writing.

Now when I took French in high school, I did have to stop and remember when the accents were required. I never reached a fluent proficiency with the language.

Contrast that with my wife who is fluent in French, both speaking and writing and she writes the accents with no additional thought.

how do you visualize a word when you write?

I don’t, I just write.

So for the letter t, do you just keep track in your head to write the vertical curve first then remember the horizontal dash after?

It’s not really something to remember, past like… pre-school where they first teach you to write, it’s just instinctual to write it that way

For longer words, do you sometimes forget these final touchups?

Can’t say that I have :p

Also does signing a signature come natural for you, i.e. due to the non stop motion?

Most people I know have a signature that consist of multiple strokes, so it’s not really any more non-stop than any other kind of writing.

And not just “t” and “i”, if you do the same thing for letters from other languages like accents from other languages too, e.g. á, à, ü…etc. Then please share your thoughts too.

We don’t write accents typically in my native language, but we do have some special characters (ą, č, ę, ė, į, š ų, ų, ž) for the diacritic marks that aren’t attached you’d treat them the same as writing dots on i’s and j’s in terms of write order, for ą, ę, į, ų the final stroke or the letter is in place to write the diacritic in the same stroke

This is how cursive was taught to me in Austria: Here it only makes sense to cross the “t” to flow into the next letter. Usually I kept track of the various dots and accent marks for each word, though sometimes I would write them immediately.

I don’t write in cursive any more, so it doesn’t really make a difference if i do the accents immediately or later.

Interestingly, cursive is now taught slightly differently in Austria:

You may know this but the saying is referring to cursive writing, in which one would never lift one’s pen mid-word to cross a t.

I didn’t. It was just muscle memory.

So for the letter t, do you just keep track in your head to write the vertical curve first then remember the horizontal dash after?

I would do them right after finishing the letters, not at the end of the word.

Honestly it feels like it’s just 2nd nature, I don’t even really have to think about it. Every time the pen comes off the page (usually every word, but it can happen mid-word in some cases), I just go back and finish off any letters that need it.

My signature is a personalised scribble I learned a long time ago, it comes naturally due to the number of times I’ve signed things, rather than anything linked to handwriting in general.

I’ve not hand-written in an accented language for a while, but I’m pretty sure I treat the accents similarly

Depends what kind of cursive you were taught as a child. Mine had the pen up basically after every character, and that’s when you just did it.
Different version of cursive: the whole word is one line, then you go back and finish the word. You are supposed to read a finished word, double-checking what you wrote so that’s the time you do it.
And there is no visualization, just you and the letters shaping a word on the paper.

Block writing, do it with the letter, linked/cursive do it at the end of the word. Many linked writing words turn into a block-linked hybrid for legibility. Idk, just picture how well it will be read and write accordingly. Single strike-out if you mess up, it lets the reader see what you were trying to write but messed up, helps with homonyms…