Since I took up pre-anniversary Gregg shorthand a couple months ago, I have been using it in my daily life instead of longhand. At the moment, I have not done much dictation, since I have not put much emphasis on speed yet, only correctness of theory, but have tested my ability to take dictation, and upon finding that it is approximately 50 words per minute, I would like to begin to emphasise on speed.
However, there are a few words that I find difficult to write, not because they are difficult to construct, but rather they are just awkward to write fast.
One of these words is “Japan”, written j-a-p-n. I generally find that when I write faster, my J’s and other straight strokes tend to curve, and my curved strokes tend to straighten out. In addition, I find the P in this word tends to straighten out and there is a pause between writing the P and the N. If I try to write any faster p-n looks more like p-r (and the P sometimes can shorten). Are there any exercises that you can recommend to remedy this situation, or should I just accept that my writing will get harder to read as it gets faster?
In addition, what should one focus on when practising dictation? Should one insist that all the forms that are written have good penmanship and are theoretically correct, or is the only thing that matters is that it can be transcribed correctly?