Hints and Help Wanted

I am wanting to learn the Anniversary Gregg Shorthand.  I have accessed this site:  Anniv. Gregg but am not sure how to actually start practicing/learning.  Do I just write the consonant sounds and practice them over and over?  Is there any kind of workbook out there?  I really hope you experts can help me!!

(by Kari-Lyn for everyone)


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  1. Hi, Everything you need to learn Anniversary is located on the same site (see the PDF links on the left nav). Start by reading the Anniversary manual, and practicing examples as you go along. Read and reread, drill and redrill those sections you're unclear on. After you finish working through the manual, read though the Fundamental Drills and the Fables. (As your reading skills improve, write up your own 'translations' of the materials in these books, and test yourself by reverse-translating into GA.) At the same time, start doing your own writing exercises, making constant reference — as necessary — to the manual and to the Outlines and Phrases lists. These will give you a very solid foundation. There are many additional Speed Studies kinds of books to help you with anniversary (available at Amazon or through Ebay; look for items published before 1949). Reading through these will help reinforce the learning you've already done, and will introduce you to many new short forms (both words and phrases) that employ GA's abbreviating principles. But even if you only worked through the materials on the site you noted — and practiced your own writing — you would have pretty much everything you need to learn GA. The information you'll find in this chat room is also hugely helpful. Good luck!

  2. Welcome! Andrew's site is a teasure-trove, isn't it?

    There are all sorts of exercises out there, and I'm sure more advice will come soon (and if not, there's tons in the archives). As far as I know, there isn't a good self-instruction book.

    Try to do a lot of reading. You should be able to read twice as fast as your writing goal. Reading will help you learn the accepted variation in shapes and help you read your own material. It will also cement the relationship between word/phrase and outline and give you confidence that the the chicken scratchings are actually readable.

    Andrew's site has Fundamental Drills, which has good material. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=(gregg%20shorthand) has some other books. Graded Readings is good. Make sure you get the Anniversary edition. When you're ready to put out money, Gregg Speed Studies is good, in synch with the text, and has some good penmanship pointers. The 1941 printing is best for Anni. (Earlier printings have typos.)

    When copying, sometimes go for penmanship, and sometimes for speed. Always end a session with penmanship. I often copy from the text to the left column, then the left column to the right — it makes me read my own writing and see my mistakes.

    That will give you a start. There's lots of advice out there, including some great articles by J.R. Gregg himself.

  3. I'd also be very interested in seeing that. 2 other items I'm curious to know if you have — or have any idea where one might find them:

    Charles Swem, Intensive Exercises in Shorthand Vocabulary Building
    Charles Swen, Gregg shorthand reporting course, Congressional record vocabulary

  4. abebooks.com has about four copies of Progressive Exercises in Gregg Shorthand. Make sure you get the Anniversary edition.

    I set myself a series of tasks for each unit:

    1. Write out words 3-5 times each, until fluent, including words in 5000 words.
    2. Read Fundamental Drills or Speed Studies until fluent. Reading out loud is good for catching hesitation. So is following with your finger and not letting it stop moving.
    3. Write out all passages in Fundamental Drills, twice.
    4. Write the Reading and Dictation practice, from dictation, at 95% accuracy (which I've been told is too high since it leads to hesitation), at target speed.

    I set a goal of 85 wpm by the end of the book and divided that by 13 chapters, to get an approximate goal for each chapter.

    When speed building, start at your target speed (just above your top comfortable speed), then add 10 wpm, then another 10 — so fast your outlines are almost shattered and you miss a few words. Then go back down to your target, and you'll be amazed at how easy it sounds. That way really breaks hesitation.

    My biggest problem is discipline — so many things to fit into each day, all more interesting or urgent than the middle chapters.

    Hope this helps.

  5. Welcome Kari-Lyn!

    You may want to check this post: http://greggshorthand.multiply.com/journal/item/947/how_to_study_gregg_shorthand. It contains good information.

    With respect to the workbook, there is a softcover book called "Progressive Exercises in Gregg Shorthand: Anniversary Edition", which is a small workbook. It shows up in eBay once in a while. I don't have it scanned at the moment, but if this is something that you're interested in, let me know.

  6. Abebooks is another good source for these old books. The reporting course was just today on eBay — I didn't bid because I have the book, but some lucky soul got it already. The Congressional Record Vocabulary appears once in a while in eBay too.

  7. If you click on one of the links, it brings up a page with data about it. There's often a "Year" in the first section, or further down there's Copyright Evidence. It depends on who uploaded the file. Failing that, you need to actually download the book and look for the page with the publication data.

    The home page of this group, http://greggshorthand.multiply.com/ lists the official dates for each edition (version) of the system. (Is anyone else annoyed that they used "edition" for different versions of the system, as well as different printings of the same text that differ only by typos?)

    Cricket

  8. That's why I make a distinction between series and editions when speaking about Gregg. Edition can also mean whether the book was made for high school or college.

  9. My Anniversary edition has copyrights listed for 1893, 1901, 1916, and 1929.

    The printing date is April 1948, followed by this: NP-100.

    There is no "Third Edition" noted anywhere. Have I got an edition with the typographical errors corrected?

    Thanks.

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