<p>papermate phd ftw.</p>
<p>I hate mechanical pencils. I’d rather have a pen or a regular pencil.</p>
<p>Mechanical pencils are the only true “good” in this world. I use only 0.5 mm lead. You never have to worry about a bad eraser or your pencil becoming dull. Though it can be annoying to have to put in a new piece of lead, it certainly beats having to sharpen your pencil every 5 minutes. Pens are ok sometimes, but you can never quite get over the look of a perfect, neat line of writing done by a mechanical pencil.</p>
<p>I only use pens. I don’t think I ever used a pencil once last year.</p>
<p>Mechanical pencils ftw. My dad’s used the same stainless steel one for 25 YEARS, and it still works like a beauty. Great for the environment too!</p>
<p>So here’s the consensus (as far as I can tell)</p>
<p>Pencils: Ticonderas: if you want to be old-school/traditional and bother with pencils</p>
<p>Pens: Uniballs: if you want nice, dark marks and don’t want to bother erasing</p>
<p>Mechanical Pencils: Cheap BICs/Pentel: If you want to be able to erase but don’t want to bother sharpening</p>
<p>Now my next question, how do you salvage/avoid having problems with each? For example:</p>
<p>Pencils: how do you avoid smudging everything you’ve written?</p>
<p>Pens: what do you do when you make a mistake – white out or cross out?</p>
<p>Mechanical Pencils: how often do you run out of lead, and do you just throw it away after you completely run down the eraser to the point where you can’t get it out?</p>
<p>Pencils: I only use these for sketching and shading, so smudging is a good thing. =P</p>
<p>Mechanical: I usually have extra lead and buy them either in bulk or packs with extra erasers, so I can use them for longer.</p>
<p>Pens: I cross out when I’m doing something timed, white-out when I’m doing something something that isn’t timed.</p>
<p>Pen: If its just one or two small errors I cross out, more than that white out.</p>
<p>Mechanical Pencil: When I bought mine I bought an Pentel Clic Eraser. It kinda looks like the M. pencils and they are refillable.</p>
<p>BTW: The pen I use is a Zebra F-701. Stainless Steel and I can buy refills for it.</p>
<p>i only used pencils when taking the SATs because… well first off, because it was the rule, no mech. and because it colours bubbles more efficiently.</p>
<p>i used mech all throughout high school, until come senior year, when i realized that scribbling comes out much neater in pen than pencil. significantly neater with super speedy jots.</p>
<p>Only on CC would this question ever be asked.</p>
<p>You could probably say that about almost every question on this forum…</p>
<p>actually this is probably on UPSB too. haha</p>
<p>mechanical for drawing and writing normal pencil for shading. pens for important writing</p>
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<p>So true, this is such a geek question.
We should compare which brand of pocket protector is better next.</p>
<p>Does anyone here actually use pocket protectors, I’m curious to know.</p>
<p>i always use a mechanical pencil because it makes my handwritin look a lot better and it saves time meaning if you break your lead you don’t have to walk all the way to the front of the class room and bother everyone else with the grinding of your pencil…</p>
<p>Pencil sharpeners have awkward timing.</p>
<p>MECHANICAL PENCILS!!!</p>
<p>…I’m very passionate</p>
<p>I like pens but mechanical pencils I love as well. Not a big fan of no.2 pencils!!!</p>
<p>I use mechanical pencils and pens. 
Screw regular pencils. xD</p>