Pen facts for kids

A dip pen

Sharpening a quill

A cheap ballpoint pen

A pen (Latin: pinna, feather) is a tool used for writing or drawing. The ink of the pen is pressed onto paper and dries very fast.

Reed pens are the oldest known type of pen. They were made from reeds growing in the delta of the Nile. The ancient Egyptians invented them, and also invented black ink, using soot and gum arabic. Their pens had split nibs to regulated the flow of ink to the writing tip. This simple design is still used in calligraphy today.

Quill pens are one of the oldest type of pens. A quill pen is the feather of a bird, usually a goose. The end of the feather (the quill) was kept very sharp and had to be dipped into ink after every few words.

Reed and quill pens are dip pens because they have to be dipped in ink many times during writing or drawing. Modern dip pens have nibs made of metal.

Fountain pens are like dip pens, but can hold enough ink inside to write several pages before being refilled. Inside, the ink is held in a sac or cartridge.

A ballpoint pen is generally cylindrical plastic shaft that holds ink and is smaller than a fountain pen. It has a small hard ball on the writing end that rolls the ink onto the paper.

A stylus is a pen that cannot write on paper, but can write on clay or wax. Styli of wood or metal have been used for thousands of years, for example in cuneiform writing. A modern computer stylus is usually made of plastic and may have electronics inside. It is used with a touchscreen.

The coming of the personal computer much reduced the need to write on paper. All the same, a personally written letter suggests "I think so much of you that I took the effort to write a real letter."

Related pages

• Pencil
• Ink
• Paper

Images for kids

• 

  A luxury pen

• 

  Writing tip of a ballpoint pen and 1mm white bar for scale

• 

  Historic pens

• 

  M. Klein and Henry W. Wynne received US patent#68445 in 1867 for an ink chamber and delivery system in the handle of the fountain pen.

• 

  Lines created by a gel pen (top) and a ballpoint pen (bottom)

• 

  A gel-based rollerball pen

• 

  A brush pen

• 

  The writing tip of a fountain pen

• 

  The writing tip of a marker

• 

  Computer with computer stylus

• 

  An ink brush

• 

  Quill and ink

• 

  A reed pen

• 

  1915 advertisement for "Vulcan" Ink Pencils.

• 

  Modern marker pens.

See also

In Spanish: Pluma (escritura) para niños