It isn't often that you find shorthand in the news - despite the fact that, in the UK at least, it is nearly always behind the news in the form of reporters' notes. So I was really chuffed to see one of the UK's regional papers pay homage to a shorthand coach who had been training its staff for the past 11 years. The Plymouth Herald story in question is about 78-year-old shorthand teacher June Barker who has retired 62 years after first learning shorthand. As with many people, June first learned Pitman and then Teeline. For the full story>>

I frequently get asked what single action should a practitioner take to improve their speed. Being a holistic type of chap, I find myself immediately spouting off a ream of suggestions rather than just one - more practice, looser grip, less white space, tighter outlines and so on. But it has sparked an idea. What if, in and amongst the composite approach to speed improvement, we focused on improving a single aspect of our shorthand each week? It's the type of thing athletes do all the time - they'll focus on stride pattern one week, elbow movement the next and so on. Perhaps it could work with shorthand too, and build better long term style discipline by focusing our minds on a single aspect of practice above all others for a given week, rather than bombarding ourselves with too many things to concentrate on. If there's something in this (and it is only an idea), then the next thing would be to put together a programme. Now I've been thinking about this for a little while. And, in the self-help style,  I've come up with a 12-week programme! It would run more as a guidance list within existing classes, providing an area ...

One question I get asked a lot is  "where can I learn shorthand these days?" I learned Teeline in classes with the National Council for the Training of Journalists here in the UK. Because shorthand is still THE skill editors want from new recruit reporters shorthand training remains a "live" subject taught in classes here in the UK. The NCTJ is still thriving and each year hundreds of newly tooled-up reporters armed with shorthand head out of training ready to start their reporting careers. I know of others too who teach shorthand primarily to those entering the media. But what if you're not a journalist and have no interest in becoming a reporter? Are people able to sign on for a short course in shorthand whether in Teeline or Pitman? I'm hoping to compile a database of shorthand training centres which I hope will be of use to Shorthand World visitors. If you've had a good (or bad) experience of shorthand courses run in the UK please drop me a line. Equally, if you are a training provider who offers shorthand training, please get in touch using the "Contact Us" button and tell us more. Thank you to Will Smith for providing the following: Darlington College ...

Hi everybody. Just a few days until Christmas and it is now snowing in the UK. These are some passages which have been on the site before but were taken off line during a complete site rebuild. Hopefully they'll be useful - either for those visiting the site for the first time or for those who have tried them before (though hopefully forgotten about them)... They're courtesy of WaveMedia and are taken, in Mp3 format, from the CDs which are available in the shop.

Just a quick note to let everybody know that the Shorthand World team (yes, both of us...) have finally added Google Checkout as a payment option for the Shorthand World CD shop. We've always used Paypal because it is so simple but my wife used Google Checkout recently to buy a desk and said it was even simpler to use than Paypal so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm pleased to say it seems unbelievably straight forward so we're now offering that system as well. Hope everybody is looking forward to Christmas - we'll be blitzing some posts up on the site in the run-up to the New Year! In terms of other developments, some have noticed the look and feel of the site has changed periodically. This is because of a complete rebuild of the website behind the scenes. A number of test sites and themes are being explored and tinkered with and in the next few weeks (possibly months) I'd like to post some of the options up on the site for people to choose.

I’d always used notebooks for shorthand. Sure they varied in size over the years from the standard reporter’s pad to bound notebooks resembling the types flipped open by police officers at crime scenes. The one thing they all had in common was paper. So when I began to hear fellow shorthand practitioners waxing lyrical about Wacom’s range of tablets, at first I assumed they’d stepped back into the dark ages and had taken to writing on great slabs of stone. Ultra-traditionalists, chalk and slate. The Flinstones. The fools. But, as time went by, it emerged that tablets were no longer made of a naturally occurring aggregate of minerals but high grade plastics and lots of smoothe glassy bits. So this was what they’d been harping on about. Installing the software is simple enough (as are the instructions). The pen, though it felt a little light and a tad chubby, sat correctly in the hand. Setting up the pen to interract with the screen was similarly simple. Then came the sheer thrill of writing shorthand across a 19″ screen rather than a notepad page. Great. A computerised manifestation of Teeline grafitti. But something occured to me. What about Pitman? Because of the importance of stroke ...

Anybody who has ever learned shorthand has, at some stage, experienced the “speed plateau”. It’s not a nice place. No matter what you try, it seems you’re stuck with a certain speed. We blame our hands (they just can’t go faster), we blame our brains (it just can’t go faster) we may even blame shorthand (why did I learn this lousy system in the first place). First things first. Plateaus with shorthand speed are natural. You’ll get them in pretty much any activity you could think of – sprinting, piano playing or ping pong. I believe plateaus are where knowledge and skill consolidate, levelling and steadying the ground for further progress. The key is to use our plateaux as a srpingboard for the leaps forward we are about to make. If we don’t do this, we run the risk of our plateaux becoming a rut. So what’s the plan? Essentially, breaking out of a plateau is a two-fold process – consolidating what you know and pushing yourself onto pastures new similtaneously. Sound difficult? It needn’t be. First, establish your maximum speed – the speed at which you can only just keep up with the speaker, where you only get down a hint of an ...

Imagine the scenario… Your editor gets a letter threatening legal action over an article published some months ago – they are claiming the article is not only defamatory in nature but their client has been repeatedly misquoted. Understandably, your editor is nervous and demands to see your shorthand note of the interview and all notes taken down at the time in relation to the story. It’s a situation no journalist wants to find themselves in, but sadly it happens from time to time and, if you don’t pay attention to the way you organise your notebook, it can be disastrous. shorthandYour notebook (if you can find it amongst that swollen bottom drawer stuffed full of notebooks which have not been taken home or destroyed) is your best line of defence against legal action, and can carry a great deal of weight in court. What follows is a set of simple guidelines that all notebook users should take on board. We’ll start with a golden rule: think of your notebook not as your workbook but as evidence on which a major defamation trial depends. What I mean by this is that you need to think not only about your notebook’s practicalities, but also about the ...

This is surely a first for shorthand on the web – a newsheet web-page rendered entirely in shorthand. Prof Waldir Cury runs the excellent Taquigrafia website in Brazil and is an expert shorthand practitioner. Keen to help his students improve their shorthand skills, he has now taken the plunge and developed an entire web page in shorthand. And he now plans to release a new newspage entirely in shorthand each month! In his note to the MSN Gregg Shorthand group, Prof Cury said: “I invite you to take a look at the new page of my website: a whole page in Shorthand. “Its name: “Shorthand Newspaper”.  Every month a new page will be launched.  The aim: to help the online students to develop their shorthand reading. “I hope you like the idea.  And I also hope that many other shorthand website owners will do the same, so that we can have in a very short time many shorthand pages like that – using different systems. “The system used in the “Shorthand Newspaper” is the Maron System, a Brazilian one.  So, I hope you will like it.” Waldir – for what it is worth I think it is an inspired idea and the only thing quite like it ...

Okay, so they’re not the most fascinating items in the world (for most people), but choosing a good pen can play a vital role in ensuring your shorthand flows smoothly, your note is neat and legible and your wrist doesn’t ache after prolongued use or practice. Moreover, as Shorthand World found in testing some of the following pens, picking the best point can boost your speed by up to seven words a minute. In preparing this article, Shorthand World asked a number of experienced shorthand practitioners for their views and recommendations. Here are the four pens which stood out from the rest. Pilot V5 Extra Fine Needlepoint Rollerball Blue Box of 12 The Pilot V5, is an excellent pen. The ink runs smoothe, feels great in the hand and glides over the page. On our test, this pen improved shorthand speed the most – a staggering 7wpm over the standard disposable ballpoint at 100wpm. A great buy. Bic Velocity Gel Rollerball Pen Comfort Grip Retractable 0.7mm Tip 0.3mm Line Blue Ref 820566 [Pack 12] Again, this is a great pen. The gel ink is smoothe and it feels incredibly comfortable in the hand. Although on our test the improvement on speed was not as ...