I am starting to learn Japanese, and a question struck me:

If I were to write a note to a friend, or perhaps an extended essay, when
would it be appropriate to write vertically?

From my experience trying to read books/manga it seems there is a massive
preference for vertical writing, but most of my instruction books use the
horizontal.

Are there any considerations for choosing which style to write in? Does the
choice have much meaning besides readability? I imagine vertical writing has
traditional connotations.

What would you do for a:

  * Hand written note
  * College essay
  * Business document
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handwriting
When writing Japanese when is it appropriate to write vertically?
Once you get used to it, there's no real readability differences between
horizontal and vertical.

"Hand written note" is ambiguous between two meanings. I've never seen my
students take their notes vertically if that's what you mean. Most of the post
cards we get from Japanese friends are vertically-written. Hand-written notes
on post-it notes are almost always horizontal in my experience. Letters are
commonly vertical.

"College essays" written by students are almost always horizontal. "College
textbook" is a little harder since 教科書 is used in my experience both for what
we would call a "textbook" and what we might call a primary source. Older
primary source materials are almost always vertical (often published by 岩波).
"Essays" like in a literature journal are generally vertical.

Business documents are almost exclusively horizontal. Or at least they are in
my spheres (university, realtor).

Government treaties appear to be vertical. At least that was my experience
having to correlate [the US-Japan tax
treaty](http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/usa/keizai/jyouyaku.html) between the
English and Japanese. I was slightly surprised that a contemporary treaty is
written that way. But I think that goes to show the signaling that something
is formal that vertical writing invokes.
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