Firstly, writing in shorthand is much quicker than standard writing. Standard handwriting reaches speeds of 20 to 30 words per minute , which is too slow to record someone speaking. The average shorthand speed of some people has been recorded at over words per minute. This makes shorthand better for taking notes. Because of the difference in speed, shorthand is an important skill to learn to keep up with lecturers when taking notes.
Shorthand has also proven to be useful in many lines of work. Personal assistants and secretaries use for it for minute taking , while journalists use it when documenting a news story. Court reporters use it when typing on a stenotype machine.
Stenographers, who transcribe letters and documents, are often employed in law offices. Shorthand is helpful for taking down all important details when getting instructions from your boss or conveying a phone message. Often, voice-recognition software makes mistakes, especially if someone gets words mixed up or names wrong. A person using shorthand can identify and rectify such mistakes. Shorthand also provides personal benefits such as improving your listening, summarizing, and memory skills.
It is also good for your CV, as it shows you have commitment to learning a new skill. Overall, shorthand reduces the time you spend on writing, and the time that you save can be utilized for other tasks.
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University Documents. Essential Documents. Shorthand is a method of quickly writing down information. It has roots in the Senate of ancient Rome and allows the annotation of more than words a minute by top exponents. It enables secretaries to transcribe meetings and dictated letters.
Newspaper reporters can get down details of court case proceedings or interviews. But, in an age of electronic voice recording and instant tweeting of events, is shorthand becoming obsolete?
The UK vocational education group City and Guilds says there's been "a steady decrease in the number of people taking shorthand courses over the past 10 years". Although it's reluctant to release what it says is commercially sensitive information, it adds that "technical solutions", such as voice recording, are the "main cause for the decline". Who still writes that stuff? The art of shorthand doesn't just have one foot in the grave, it has the other planted firmly on a banana peel.
But shorthand is still mandatory in some professions. The National Council for the Training of Journalists insists trainees achieve a written speed of words per minute to pass its diploma.
It remains "indispensable for any court reporter, and a vital skill for journalists in all sectors who need an easily accessible and permanent note of every conversation in their working day", the organisation insists.
It's three times quicker to type out shorthand notes than to listen back to audio recordings, says Mary Sorene, secretary of the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters. It's also illegal to make audio or video recordings of most proceedings in UK courts, although this type of coverage has been allowed in English councils since last year.
But there are several types. It's based on a combination of outlines representing individual letters. Some sounds, usually vowels, are removed to aid speed. For example, the word "father" will involve writing simply a letter "f" and an elongated "t" representing the "ther" sound. Teeline is now the most popular system in the UK.
Formerly, the most heavily used form of shorthand was Pitman, which dates back to the 19th Century. In business, shorthand has traditionally been seen as a secretarial skill, but, according to Sarah Austin, operating director at Page Personnel Secretarial and Business Support, it's becoming more important "at the senior end of the jobs market".
Shorthand can be a tedious skill to learn. Not too bad! These are systems that vastly cut down on the characters or strokes of a pen needed to express an idea. The origins of shorthand date back to Ancient Greece in the 4th century B. Fast forward to the past couple of centuries, and you see two dominant shorthand systems take over:.
Masters of these systems have been known to write at speeds of over words per minute, which means they could take down almost any spoken word verbatim — a must for ensuring accuracy in fields like journalism and court reporting. People who want to become proficient at these shorthand systems have go through tons of structured learning and months of difficult practice. To see what I mean, take a look at this brief example of a statement written in Gregg shorthand.
Now, some shorthand purists will turn their noses up at these systems like snooty, aristocratic gentlemen with curly mustaches and pocketwatches.
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