Learning Shorthand - How to Take Faster Handwritten Notes

A Way To Transcribe The Spoken Word Quickly

Before digital audio recorders became widely used the process of writing in shorthand was basically an art that had to be learned, and to this day it is still being used by journalist, secretaries and many other professionals or students.

It’ll be no surprise that many people will have taken to developing their own system.
But, in many cases it is a necessary skill which can be really useful.

Most people are not even aware that they are already using this type of messaging system on their text messages, on social media and why not make something out of it for you to practice for handwritten notes.

It's fun, it's practical when it comes to speed and getting to invest something structured, unique and useful for yourself.

The origins of shorthand dates back to Ancient Greece in the 4th century B.C., though before that, scribes in Ancient Egypt developed two different systems – the Hieratic and then later Demotic, which allowed them to write more quickly than using complicated hieroglyphics.

In the past couple of centuries two dominant shorthand systems came to be which required the learner to go through tons of structured learning and months of difficult practice, but with great value, these are the :

Gregg shorthand (the most popular system in the U.S.)
Pitman shorthand (the most popular system in the U.K.)

People who want to become proficient at these shorthand techniques will understand that it's too time-consuming and unless you really want to do it, there are other options by using some easier system that will work for you in shorter time.
There are three basic categories of written shorthand:
Speedwriting, Stenoscript, Stenospeed, and Forkner shorthand.

Best known are pure symbol (stenographic),
Shorthand systems with higher symbol content generally could be written faster than those with fewer symbols.
These systems use phonetic symbols designed to represent how words sound when they’re spoken with the complexity of symbols to memorize and practice writing.

Then newer alphabetic shorthand were created, with the goal of being easier to memorize (it cannot be written as fast as symbol shorthand) but the learning time is drastically reduced.

Some examples of alphabetic systems include:

Personal Shorthand - is a completely alphabetic shorthand.
Speedwriting - was designed so that it could be written with a pen or typed.
Stenoscript - is a phonetic system using only longhand and common punctuation marks.

Another option is to utilize a system with its own custom character set:

Teeline - is a streamlined way by removing unnecessary letters from words
Ford Improved Shorthand - written in an encrypted way so the meaning is confusing.

Here's a tip to help you decide and give you some confidence to challenge yourself to become a wizard with your shorthand.

Firstly, since you’re going to be the only person who will ever need to make use of the notes you’re writing, why not customize the way you write them either by using the alphabet or shortening words that will make sense to you when you read them back.

The process you create will be unique to you and with enough practice may make your writing quick and private.


Quote for us:
A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it - J. R. R. Tolkien