FIDE rules require the score sheet to be used only as a score sheet, and therefore disallows a player to write his merely tentative move choice on the score sheet before the move is made on the board.
The USCF rules in this area of note taking have fluctuated, and I have lost track of the current wording. But perhaps the USCF rule still allows a player to write his merely tentative move, and to then erase the move and replace it with another, all before he finally makes his move.
However, even FIDE clearly makes and demands an exception when a player wants to claim a draw by 3rd-occurrence-of-a-position: here the player must write his move before he plays it on the board.
*** Question: Under the latest USCF rules, can a player who wants to claim a 3rd-occurrence-of-a-position draw write his intended move, call the arbiter, suffer having the arbiter reject the claim because it is only the 2nd occurrence, and then can the player erase his not-yet-played move, and finally write and play a different move in this context?
FWIWorth, the following very recent incident (at the World Cup KO tournament) and its explanation shows that saying verbally out loud your intended move before making the draw claim is insufficient; and the FIDE rules demand that the intended but not-yet-played move be written on the score sheet. This is the only exception that I know of to the general no-note-taking rule of FIDE.
{ // Copy and pasted:
Here, let us note: in fact no claim of a draw (neither correct nor incorrect) is recorded at this moment since Wang did not write down his next intended move on the score sheet. There was only wrong behavior (a procedural failure) that disturbed his opponent in time trouble. This at least was recorded by the arbiters.
- The fact that Wang Hao said the move he was planning to make could have no consequence as the move was not written down.
}
http://www.chessworldcup2013.com/news/130-explanation-to-wang-hao-dreev-incident-by-arbiter-vardapetyan