Centennial Books

Ok, I’ve decided to use Centennial for any number of reasons. Please no razzing 😉

Well I should point out that speed is only of limited importantce and I think 70-90 wpm should be within the limits of centennial from what I’ve read here.

The thing is I just ordered the Centennial 1 college book. But it occured will I need the workbook, or something else to provide the keys?

I’ve also seen some other centennial books “Gregg Shorthand Dictation : Transcription” and Gregg Shorthand Basic Principles” and last but not least “Gregg Shorthand for the Administrative Assistant”

Are any of these more selfcontained than the college textbooks? Being a self learner and all I suspect I could spend some real dough on these but so far I’ve found the above centennial stuff for $8-15

Anyway thanks for any advice on these or other Centennial books and yes I know I really should put in the time to learn DJC, Anniversary and Pre-Anniversary etc. 🙂

(by trbloomer for everyone)


Previous post:
Next post:
8 comments Add yours
  1. Glad you'll learning Gregg.  Centennial is fine — I'm sure you will start abbreviating even more once you become proficient.   McGraw Hill published text sequences for college and high school.  The "Gregg Shorthand Basic Principles" corresponds to College Book 1; the "Gregg Shorthand: Dictation and Transcription" corresponds to College Book 2.  The "Gregg Shorthand for the Administrative Assistant" is a combination transcription and speed building text (from 70-110 wpm), and is arranged by types of business (real estate, travel, etc.) to introduce vocabulary.  There is no college book corresponding to this one — in fact, if you cannot get this book, not much is lost — you could go with the S90 equivalents (Gregg Shorthand for Colleges: Transcription, S90 or Gregg Shorthand for Colleges: Speed Building, S90), or learn other series.  The material in the college books is somewhat different, but the principles should be the same.   I thought the college books had the key printed in the back.  The high school books do.  The workbook reinforces the lessons and give you more practice, they don't contain the key.

  2. Thanks for the reply. If I read you correctly the book I ordered should have the key in the back of the book. Thats good news. I suppose I might still get a workbook.

    I'd been thinking that the non textbooks would more likely have a key in the book for self study. Anyway thanks for the info.

    If I stick to it, your probably right about learning more of the shortforms.

  3. Don't feel bad about learning Centennial–it's the current official version, after all. I can't wait to hear how you like it.

    ____________________________________
    Praise the Lord, I saw the light line!

  4. That might be a first for me "Official" well I guess not really I'm pretty sure I've been called an Officials behind 😉 before.

    I should get the book tommrow. I almost went with S90 because there are a lot more cheaply available books available but I'm assuming (thus making an ass of u and me) that Centennial is closer to DJS making it easier if I want to move up? down? for shorthand beyond simple notetaking. I even looked for some books on Notehand but they aren't as common as either S90 or Centennial. But it actually souned good enough for me.

  5. I'm not sure that you can say that going from Centennial to DJS is moving up.   There are 129 brief forms representing 148 meanings in DJS; in Centennial, there are 139 brief forms that represent 162 words (according to Andrew Owen's site).   Frankly, I'd be surprised if Centennial would be much slower in terms of speed potential than DJS, and would certainly prove faster than S90.

  6. Just a correction. I found out that there is a college version of the "Gregg Shorthand for the Administrative Assistant" book, with the same number of pages as the high school book.

  7. Thanks, maybe in the future I'll try and get one. For the awhile though I'm sure the college book 1 will be plenty.

    Since you taught the subject. How do you feel about the workbooks?

    Do they provide enough structured extra practice to be worth tracking one down?

  8. Yes, they provide extra practice.  Send me an e-mail, and I may be able to arrange something for you.  My e-mail address is in the Penpals section of the forum.

Leave a Reply