section_path: Tools, materials, and motivations to write
section_name: Tools, materials, and motivations to write
paragraph_text: Tools, materials, and motivations to write
  
  Any instance of writing involves a complex interaction among available tools, intentions, cultural customs, cognitive routines, genres, tacit and explicit knowledge, and the constraints and limitations of the writing system(s) deployed. Inscriptions have been made with fingers, styluses, quills, ink brushes, pencils, pens, and many styles of lithography; surfaces used for these inscriptions include stone tablets, clay tablets, bamboo slats, papyrus, wax tablets, vellum, parchment, paper, copperplate, slate, porcelain, and other enameled surfaces. The Incas used knotted cords known as quipu (or khipu) for keeping records. Countless writing tools and surfaces have been improvised throughout history (as the cases of graffiti, tattooing, and impromptu aides-memoire illustrate).
  
  The typewriter and subsequently various digital word processors have recently become widespread writing tools, and studies have compared the ways in which writers have framed the experience of writing with such tools as compared with the pen or pencil. Word processors include, often multi-document, text editors or note-taking apps, Web systems (search engines, Wikis, etc.), messaging software (chat apps, e-mail UIs, etc.), or their underlying operating systems ' code supporting the text input device (s).
  
  Advancements in natural language processing and natural language generation allow certain tools (in the form of software) to produce certain kinds of highly formulaic writing (e.g., weather forecasts and brief sports reporting) without the direct involvement of humans after initial configuration or, more commonly, to be used to support writing processes such as generating initial drafts, producing feedback with the help of a rubric, copy-editing, and helping translation.
  
  Writing technologies from different eras coexist easily in many homes and workplaces. During the course of a day or even a single episode of writing, for example, a writer might instinctively switch among a pencil, a touchscreen, a text-editor, a whiteboard, a legal pad, and adhesive notes as different purposes arise.