A new segment of electronic handwriting is provided to a handwriting recognition module to obtain a plurality of textual interpretations of the new segment. The textual interpretations obtained from the handwriting recognition module are scored based on how each respective electronic handwriting representation would change a display of existing electronic content when the respective electronic handwriting representation is displayed substantially at the user designated position within or adjacent to the existing electronic content. Based on the scoring, an electronic handwriting representation corresponding to a respective textual interpretation of the plurality of textual interpretations is selected, and the existing electronic content is modified to include the selected electronic handwriting representation located substantially at the user designated position.