Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of handwriting on the writing assessment, according to whether the handwriting is excellent or bad. Methods: A total of 24 elementary and middle school teachers participated in this study and assessed 6 original writings and 6 transcriptions of the same original writings using the HWP 2007 program. Six writings were collected from elementary students of 4th to 6th grades, 3 of 6 students presented with excellent handwriting and 3 of 6 with bad handwriting. The assessments were done according to the standards of propositional knowledge assessment (You & Jeong, 2008). Results: In the excellent handwritings, the rules of orthography and the contents of introduction of the original writings were scored higher than those in the transcriptions. The difference between transcription and original writing showed minus scores in original writing assessments and plus scores in transcription assessments. In the propositional knowledge score and its subscales scores - content knowledge, text knowledge, language knowledge and text context knowledge -, were differences in transcription assessments significantly higher than those in original writing assessments. Several assessment indices - clarity of the ending, contents of introduction, appropriate contents, rules of orthography, structured composition and various vocabularies showed significantly higher differences in transcription assessments than those in original writing assessments. Conclusions: The excellent handwriting could be assessed high and the bad handwriting could be assessed low. These results suggest that we should consider the effects of handwriting factors on the results of writing assessment and that the transcription could be used for an accurate writing assessment.