Methods For Shorthand Notetaking?

sabrewulf asks: "I've searched the 'net for 20 hours straight today and found not a single site to learn some symbolic shorthand writing. I would prefer to learn Pitman's shorthand or Gregg but unfortunately all sites point to Amazon and those books are either out of print or on back order. Anyone have any URLs/Suggestions to where one could learn shorthand over the net, especially for a student headed off to college this fall? Phonetic shorthand (lk ths!) is not(!) an option."

Comments

Step away...

[CrayDrygu]

Step away from your computer for a while, and go to your local library. If they don't have any books on shorthand (and I'd be damn surprised if they don't, even my library has some, and it's tiny), then they can probably get one from another local library (or you could drive one town over). And hey, bonus, it's free!

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Re:Palm Pilot + GoType Keyboard

[mckwant]

RAVE ON! Easily the best investment I've made recently. I've got a Targus keyboard hooked up to a handSpring Visor, which does the job tremendously. Two or three gotchas exist:

1) The memo pad only goes up to 4K characters. That's probably OK for most 1.5 hr classes, but it's WAY too small for longer ones. There are a number of different "notepad replacement/word processors for Palm" out there that will let you ramble on to your heart's content.

2) If you're carpal tunneled, these will aggravate that. The keyboard is not split (at least on the Targus), and the keys are at the desk level. I got a cheap, foam wrist rest, cut it down to size, and it works fine.

3) I don't know what you're studying, but if you've got lots of things in equations or diagrams, forget it. Use a notebook. Text only need apply here.

Other than that, it's beautiful.

Why?

[coyote-san]

Why do you need to learn shorthand?

If you want to use it for class notes, a verbatim record of what the professor (or more likely, grad student) says is pretty much worthless. You'll retain *far* more information is you make the effort to paraphrase the information and jot that down -- even if you record only one tenth the information and drop your notes in the trash can on the way out the door.

The reason is simple: paraphrasing what you are hearing engages the verbal part of your brain... and verbal memory. Writing that down engages the motor skills, visual and possibly spatial parts of your brain... and visual and spatial memory.

In contrast, if you simply act like a human tape recorder you aren't really engaging the verbal part of your brain - you're doing word recognition, but this is very shallow understanding that won't give you insight into how disconnected parts of the lecture relate to one another. Worse, if you use an unfamiliar writing technique (shorthand - a few months of practice vs. a decade of printing/cursive?) you're physical senses will be focused on producing good shorthand, not what you're actually writing.

Overall, I think using shorthand to take class notes is about the *worst* possible thing you can do. Even listening passively is probably better, since you aren't distracted by trying to get the exact wording or paying attention to your transcription pad.

In those cases where you *must* record the information accurately, the professor will either hand out pages or give you plenty of time to copy it down. But that's fairly rare, especially in your underclassman years.

My perspective: BS math, BS physics (both fields which require painstaking care with mathematical notation) and MS comp sci.