A study was undertaken to determine the effects on essay scores of intermingling handwritten and word-processed versions of student essays. A sample of 32 examinees, each of whom had produced both a handwritten and a word-processed essay, was drawn from a larger group who had participated in a pilot study of item types for The Praxis Series: Professional Assessments for Beginning Teachers (TM). Students' original handwritten essays were converted to word-processed versions, and their original word-processed essays were converted to hand-written versions. In a preliminary study, essays were intermingled and rescored. Analyses revealed higher average scores for essays scored in the handwritten mode than for those scored as word-processed, regardless of how they were originally produced. Several hypotheses were advanced to explain the discrepancies between scores on handwritten and word-processed essays. The training of essay readers was modified based on possible explanations for the discrepancy, and the experiment was repeated. The second study showed about a 25% reduction in the discrepancy. The effects in the second study were small and were predicted to have little if any impact on certification decisions. It is recommended that the scoring be monitored and that the modified training be adopted. Two tables and two figures present study findings, and the appendix contains writing samples. (Contains eight references.) (SLD)