Shorthand Transcription Studies

I haven’t heard mention of this book here before, although I’ve encountered it for sale a few times. I wonder if anyone has seen it uploaded online to share or has information about its contents (I’ve found no descriptions of it yet). At first glance there is nothing to suggest it is specifically Gregg related, however, one of the opening pages reads “The Gregg Shorthand outlines in this book are printed with the permission..”


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  1. Shorthand Transcription Studies was published for Anniversary, Simplified, and DJS by South-Western Publishing. These books were intended for the transcription class. The lessons were geared for the preparation of typewritten material. The shorthand in the book is very nice, unfortunately, it doesn't say who wrote it. It is also one of the few Anniversary books that show shorthand outlines written on lined paper. However, it seems that the ruling was overlaid on the shorthand at printing time, because in some instances the characters are slightly under the line. It is not a common book, and I have not seen it uploaded either. It is still under copyright, since the last edition was in 1968, and unfortunately, openlibrary.org does not have an electronic copy for borrowing either.

  2. Oh! There is a typewriter key on the cover! Well that explains that. Excellent description Carlos, thanks. You said it is one of the few Anniversary books with lined paper, can you name any others? If not in Anni. are there any others outside of Anni. with lines that can be used for referencing. I don't currently have much outside of Anni. in my collection. It is a shame about the lack of lines in Anni. books, as a beginner I could sure benefit from that. Why do you suppose they were made this way? I can only speculate that it might detract from stroke identification, or that it lacked the aesthetics they were after, perhaps it was a technical challenge though I don't see how?

    1. Notice that, because it was a transcription book, the binding of the book is on the top, so the book was designed to be placed in a document holder. You then open the book from the bottom up (just like a steno notebook) and flip pages to continue your transcript. At the end of the book, you will turn it around to continue with the other lessons on the back side of the pages. It's a nifty concept.

      The same idea about opening the book like a steno notebook was used in the 80s with the publication of "Gregg Shorthand for the Electronic Office: Short Course, Series 90, Parts 1 & 2." These Series 90 books were written on ruled paper, with Jerry Edelman's penmanship. They are very nice books and can be used as a guide on how to place characters on ruled paper. Ruled paper was also used in the Series 90 versions of "Taquigrafía Gregg", Gregg Shorthand in Spanish, and in all Centennial books.

      I don't know the actual reason for the lack of ruling. I can only speculate. In the old books, the plates were written on a very shiny paper with faint lines. The paper was meant to be photographed. Given the faintness of the line, those lines would not transfer to the picture and eventually to the printed page. I don't really know if this was done by design (for aesthetics), or because of the claim that you can write Gregg on any kind of paper, or because it wasn't thought as necessary to have lines on the actual printed book. I think at the time it would have added to the printing process putting the additional lines after the fact, if they followed an overlay process (first printing without the line, then putting the lines on top). Again, I'm just speculating here.

      However, you can tell the spacing that was used in books by actually measuring the distance between the "lines" (imaginary, in this case). In most cases, for books, it is not the 1/3" Gregg ruling, but actually 3/8" spacing, which makes the writing very pleasant and not crowded. In the Centennial books they used 1/2" spacing, though I don't recommend those books as a good example of penmanship, because of the unevenness in the electronic splicing that was done to produce the outlines.

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