A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing

Writing

Writing 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 non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...

. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of 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, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

 and technical drawing

Technical drawing

Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....

, but writing instruments generally have the unique requirement to create a smooth, controllable line.

Another writing implement employed by a smaller population, is the stylus used by blind users in conjunction with the slate

Slate and stylus

The 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 Braille

Braille

The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...

.

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 Lascaux

Lascaux

Lascaux 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 department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

.

The ancient Sumerians

Sumerian language

Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...

 and their successor cultures, such as the Babylonians, produced their cuneiform

Cuneiform

Cuneiform 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 stylus

Stylus

A stylus is a writing utensil, or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example in pottery. The word is also used for a computer accessory . It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styli 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 Greece

Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age 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 B

Linear B

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...

 corpus from Minoan Crete was accidentally preserved by a catastrophic fire which hard-baked those tablets. The Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 used lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 styli with wax tablet

Wax tablet

A wax tablet is a tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax, often linked loosely to a cover tablet, as a "double-leaved" diptych. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages...

s which could be "erased" by rubbing the beeswax

Beeswax

Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. It is mainly esters of fatty acids and various long chain alcohols...

 surface smooth again.

In the modern era, hand held computers and certain other computer input device

Input device

In computing, an input device is any peripheral used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system such as a computer or other information appliance...

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 engraved

Engraving

Engraving 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 silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic 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 Cup

Stanley Cup

The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...

 or the Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the most well-known speeches in United States history. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery...

 carved into the stone wall of the Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

The 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. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior...

, but the requisite tools are not exclusively considered to be writing instruments.

With inherent pigment

The original form of "lead pencil

Pencil

A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....

" was the lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

en 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. The concept has been revived in recent times as the core of the "inkless pen": a lead-based metal alloy that leaves dark markings on paper by abrading small pieces of core onto the surface.

However, most modern "lead pencils" have a nonpoisonous core of greyish-black graphite

Graphite

The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...

 mixed with various proportions of clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

 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 chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

 has been traditionally used in schoolroom

Schoolroom

A schoolroom is a regular classroom in any school that has multiple purposes apart from holding classes....

s to write on a main blackboard

Blackboard

A chalkboard is a reusable writing surface.Blackboard may also refer to:* Blackboards are synonymous with "boards of infamy", an element of agitation-propaganda in the Soviet Union in 1930s, coincidental with Holodomor...

 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 slate

Slate (writing)

A writing slate is a piece of flat material used as a medium for writing.In the 19th century, 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 porcelain

Porcelain

Porcelain 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 glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

.

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 pen

Pen

A pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but...

 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 nib

Nib (pen)

A nib is the part of a quill, dip pen or fountain pen which comes into contact with the writing surface in order to deposit ink. Different types of nibs vary in their purpose, shape and size, as well as the material they are made from.-Quill:...

 point from the end of a thin, hollow natural material which could retain a small reservoir of ink by capillary action

Capillary action

Capillary action, or capilarity, is the ability of a liquid to flow against gravity where liquid spontanously rise in a narrow space such as between the hair of a paint-brush, in a thin tube, or in porous material such as paper or in some non-porous material such as liquified carbon fiber, or in a...

. However, these ink reservoirs were relatively small, requiring the pen to be periodically dipped back into an external inkwell

Inkwell

An inkwell is a small jar or container, often made of glass, porcelain, silver, brass, or pewter, used for holding ink in a place convenient for the person who is writing...

 for replenishing.

Reed pen

Reed pen

Reed 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 regular 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 papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus 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....

. Quill

Quill

A 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 calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . 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 bank

Bank

A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

 transactions. The most common quills were taken from the wings of geese or raven

Raven

Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...

s, although the feathers of swan

Swan

Swans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae...

s and peacocks were sometimes favored for prestige.

A dip pen

Dip pen

A 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: copperplate

Copperplate script

Copperplate, or English round hand, is a style of calligraphic writing, using a sharp pointed nib instead of the flat nib used in most calligraphic writing. Its name comes from the fact that the copybooks from which students learned it were printed from etched copper plates...

 writing, mapping pens, and five-pointed nibs for drawing music staves. They 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 pen

Ballpoint pen

A ballpoint pen is a writing instrument with an internal ink reservoir and a sphere for a point. The internal chamber is filled with a viscous ink that is dispensed at its tip during use by the rolling action of a small sphere...

 (often called a biro

László Bíró

László József Bíró was the inventor of the modern ballpoint pen.Bíró was born in Budapest, 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 highlighter

Highlighter

A highlighter is a felt-tip pen which is used to draw attention to sections of documents by marking them with a vivid, translucent colour.A typical highlighter is fluorescent yellow, coloured with pyranine.-History:...

, the rollerball pen

Rollerball pen

Rollerball pens are pens 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...

, and the gel pen

Gel pen

A 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 pencil

Mechanical pencil

A mechanical pencil or a propelling pencil is a pencil with a replaceable and mechanically extendable solid pigment core called a lead . It is designed such that the lead can be extended as its point is worn away...

 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 unless it has been specially designed for that purpose.

Brushes

Although in Western civilization writing is usually done with some form of pencil

Pencil

A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....

 or pen

Pen

A pen is a device used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Historically, reed pens, quill pens, and dip pens were used, with a nib of some sort to be dipped in the ink. Ruling pens allow precise adjustment of line width, and still find a few specialized uses, but...

, other cultures have used other instruments. Chinese

Chinese written language

Written Chinese comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language, and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary...

 characters are traditionally written with a brush

Ink brush

Ink brushes are used in Chinese calligraphy. They are also used in Chinese painting and descendant brush painting styles. The ink brush was invented in China, believed to be around 300BCE...

, 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 eraser

Eraser

An eraser or rubber is an article of stationery that is used for rubbing out pencil markings. 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 ruler

Ruler

A ruler, sometimes called a rule or line gauge, is an instrument used in geometry, technical drawing, printing and engineering/building to measure distances and/or to rule straight lines...

s and related drawing instrument

Stationery

Stationery 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 paper

Blotting paper

Blotting paper is a highly absorbent type of paper or other material. It is used to absorb an excess of liquid substances from the surface of writing paper or objects. It is also commonly used as a beauty tool to absorb excess oil from the skin.-Manufacture:Blotting paper is made from different...

, being a dispenser for powdery material for drying the paper. Stencil

Stencil

A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to...

s can be used to create standardised letters, patterns or signatures.