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Gregg Notehand: A Personal Use Shorthand With Integrated Instruction In How To Make Notes
Shorthand Written By Charles Rader. Illustrated By David W. Corson.
320 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 12, 2017
Content-wise, this is a very good and useful book for students. It teaches the valuable skill of shorthand combined with notemaking. The shorthand is a scaled-down version of Gregg shorthand... by scaled-down, I mean that there are only 42 brief forms and a modest amount of phrasing to learn (contrast that to the 300+ brief forms required for the Anniversary edition of Gregg shorthand that court reporters used to learn!) This type of shorthand is meant for note-taking and not verbatim dictation, so it is not quite as speed-oriented as the other editions of Gregg shorthand (i.e. the ones that the court reporters and transcribing secretaries from the steno-pool days learned to use). Notehand is, however, much faster than longhand and it will serve the student well if they take the time to practice and make it their own. Not only does this book teach Gregg shorthand, but it also teaches the student how to distill information and take notes from lectures and from their readings. It teaches how to be an active rather than a passive learner. I am currently teaching this to my 13-year old son. We are working through the book together and are really enjoying it. There are 70 lessons, and it is intended for a semester's worth of study.
This particular edition of Gregg Notehand is published by Literary Licensing. It is basically a scanned-in black & white photocopy of the original 1960 book by Gregg Publishing. Also, it is reduced down in size quite a bit from the original; and the margins are nearly non-existent compared to the original (this became a problem for me... see next paragraph). Overall, it is a clean photocopy, though there were some smudges on a couple of pages and pen-markings on page 17 that were obviously on the original used copy they scanned in, that they didn't bother to edit out before printing it. But there were only a few such instances. Since the Gregg Publishing version is out of print, this is the only way you will get a nice clean new copy of this book, so I'm glad to see someone is still offering it. I think it is worth keeping the book alive. The book does come with a key in the back-- not many of the shorthand books out there do, so that is a real plus.
I admit I ended up buying a used copy of the original 1960 book, too. I made the mistake of adding a spiral-binding to the new Literary Licensing copy so that the pages would lie flat while we worked from it. With the way they printed this book, there is very little margin around the pages, so the spiral binding ended up cutting off a lot of the text on the inner margins. So I opted to buy a used copy of the original to read from and I'm glad that I did. That's when I discovered the Literary Licensing version is also missing the handy charts for the shorthand summaries, brief forms and common words. I recommend tracking down an inter-library loan copy of the original to make a copy of those charts, which are supposed to be found on the inside covers. They are very helpful.
All in all, I do recommend this book and will comment more when we complete it. One could argue that there is no longer a need for shorthand in today's high-tech world, but I still find value in using simple tools, like paper and pen. And so far in this book, I like how they combine the shorthand with teaching strategies for note-taking. I would especially recommend this for homeschoolers or anyone who is college-bound.
By the way, if you can find a copy, there is a companion booklet called the Teacher's Guide for Gregg Notehand , though it is hard to come by.
Update: (7/12/17) I write almost entirely in Notehand since learning this method. The Gregg outlines flow well, with fewer pen-lifts, making it less tiresome for my hands. I'm so glad I took up shorthand again! Both of my children are learning it as well.
This particular edition of Gregg Notehand is published by Literary Licensing. It is basically a scanned-in black & white photocopy of the original 1960 book by Gregg Publishing. Also, it is reduced down in size quite a bit from the original; and the margins are nearly non-existent compared to the original (this became a problem for me... see next paragraph). Overall, it is a clean photocopy, though there were some smudges on a couple of pages and pen-markings on page 17 that were obviously on the original used copy they scanned in, that they didn't bother to edit out before printing it. But there were only a few such instances. Since the Gregg Publishing version is out of print, this is the only way you will get a nice clean new copy of this book, so I'm glad to see someone is still offering it. I think it is worth keeping the book alive. The book does come with a key in the back-- not many of the shorthand books out there do, so that is a real plus.
I admit I ended up buying a used copy of the original 1960 book, too. I made the mistake of adding a spiral-binding to the new Literary Licensing copy so that the pages would lie flat while we worked from it. With the way they printed this book, there is very little margin around the pages, so the spiral binding ended up cutting off a lot of the text on the inner margins. So I opted to buy a used copy of the original to read from and I'm glad that I did. That's when I discovered the Literary Licensing version is also missing the handy charts for the shorthand summaries, brief forms and common words. I recommend tracking down an inter-library loan copy of the original to make a copy of those charts, which are supposed to be found on the inside covers. They are very helpful.
All in all, I do recommend this book and will comment more when we complete it. One could argue that there is no longer a need for shorthand in today's high-tech world, but I still find value in using simple tools, like paper and pen. And so far in this book, I like how they combine the shorthand with teaching strategies for note-taking. I would especially recommend this for homeschoolers or anyone who is college-bound.
By the way, if you can find a copy, there is a companion booklet called the Teacher's Guide for Gregg Notehand , though it is hard to come by.
Update: (7/12/17) I write almost entirely in Notehand since learning this method. The Gregg outlines flow well, with fewer pen-lifts, making it less tiresome for my hands. I'm so glad I took up shorthand again! Both of my children are learning it as well.
May 26, 2020
This book is like a sunken spanish galleon: lost to time and full of gold. I will fight the temptation to keep the location of the sunken treasure a secret. Actually, I feel like evangelizing it from the rooftops to anyone who will listen.
The two techniques this book covers are writing shorthand and taking notes. Now, I'm still learning shorthand, and I barely took notes in school. My suspicion, though, is that the combination of the two skills is a secret weapon in this day and age. This book was written in the fifties, that pre-google era. You took notes in your lectures, or on your readings, because the fastest way to find things always involved flipping through paper. As we have shifted the burden of memory onto computers, we have forgotten the old ways.
Now, whole encyclopedias, centuries of videos, lectures, podcasts, are out there for us to listen to whenever we feel like it. And most of us do. Except it is a passive form of study: I let the voices wash over me, parse them superficially, zone out for long stretches. I listened to dozens of hours of the 'Age of Napoleon' podcast, and I still could barely tell you about him. If I had taken notes, though, i'd remember more. People have known this for a long time.
But notetaking allows you to actively learn! I'm going to take notes on Youtube lectures, philosophy podcasts, journal archives. And, god willing, with enough practice in Gregg Shorthand, I can take those notes at 100+ words per minute.
The two techniques this book covers are writing shorthand and taking notes. Now, I'm still learning shorthand, and I barely took notes in school. My suspicion, though, is that the combination of the two skills is a secret weapon in this day and age. This book was written in the fifties, that pre-google era. You took notes in your lectures, or on your readings, because the fastest way to find things always involved flipping through paper. As we have shifted the burden of memory onto computers, we have forgotten the old ways.
Now, whole encyclopedias, centuries of videos, lectures, podcasts, are out there for us to listen to whenever we feel like it. And most of us do. Except it is a passive form of study: I let the voices wash over me, parse them superficially, zone out for long stretches. I listened to dozens of hours of the 'Age of Napoleon' podcast, and I still could barely tell you about him. If I had taken notes, though, i'd remember more. People have known this for a long time.
But notetaking allows you to actively learn! I'm going to take notes on Youtube lectures, philosophy podcasts, journal archives. And, god willing, with enough practice in Gregg Shorthand, I can take those notes at 100+ words per minute.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews