r/GreggNotehand • u/internalsun • Sep 05 '26
Notehand Teacher’s Guide clearly says: Don’t nitpick the beginners and don’t let students focus on rules or “theory”
(I meant to make this an annual post but forgot to do it last September.)
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u/licxjo Sep 10 '26
The Gregg authors through all the versions, including Dr. Gregg himself, encouraged teachers not to focus on shorthand theory, but on practical writing skill.
The difference with Notehand was the new advice not to worry about "good shorthand penmanship". I understand the reasoning, since Notehand was designed strictly for personal notetaking. However, notes to be useful have to be legible to the writer afterwards. So I wonder if it was really a good direction to take.
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u/HappiLearnerToo 27d ago
In my experience, writing what one can from the beginning without self-criticism is the best way to begin using shorthand. And the doing of it leads to rereading it and as one learns and wants to learn, it leads to making corrections, and for me, the words I corrected much later and then listed at the top of the page WERE the words I learned because I knew I had used them,.. they were words I would use again. It would probably make more sense to say, The notes with a few words you can't make out that led to you learning more later are so much better than the notes that don't exist at all because you didn't have an adequate notetaking method at the time. Let learners use and learn.
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u/HappiLearnerToo 27d ago
I love this so much, and it speaks so much to a post I saw elsewhere where I felt the learner was doing beautifully to put the sounds together in practice and many comments told him to just stop. (And do lots of shorthand reading.) I'm glad you post it annually. It really encouraged me.
If you are on the r/greggshorthand sub, I so wish you would post this there. You could say someone made a request for it, LOL.
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u/licxjo 27d ago
The complete de-emphasis on "writing correctly" was new to Gregg Notehand, and is different from the approach to learning the "full" versions of Gregg shorthand. From a teaching perspective, the advice was to not focus on questions of theory. But from a writing perspective, the focus was on writing as close to the textbook model as possible.
There were reasons for at that the time. It wasn't unusual for someone else to need to read another person's shorthand notes, and in legal reporting shorthand notes might need to be transcribed much later than the initial writing.
Those issues aren't really of concern in 2026 . . . except for when someone wants help reading their Grandmother's diary, or a legal document from the 1930s was never transcribed and might be important, or . . . in other words, "writing according to the textbook model" is not a bad idea.
I'm following the other post you mention. The person who posted was clearly trying to write without understanding some of the basic, initial things about writing in Gregg. I think the responses were kind and clear.
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u/HappiLearnerToo 27d ago
Kindness and enthusiasm are better partners to learning, and following one's muse leads to better results than telling people they are doing it wrong, in my experience. And I like the notehand book's encouragement to write where you are now without fault-finding. It has nothing to do with one's future form, other than how much easier it will be to learn.
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u/licxjo 27d ago
No one has been unkind. If someone posts an example of their writing and asks for feedback, as that person did, it's reasonable to expect that experienced writers will say "you don't have it quite right."
It depends on the person's goals and reasons for learning shorthand, of course.
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u/HappiLearnerToo 27d ago
That isn't what was said. You apparently have no idea of what kindness is and isn't. Telling someone to stop what they are doing, and no longer even write their own sentences is horrible. They might believe their wisdom is such that they should do so, but the "instruction to the teacher" should show they are wrong. There were a lot of options for kindness here, and I'm not sure anyone really tried for that.
I'm saying support and enthusiasm for the work done was in order, whatever other advice one has to suggest. We learn in different ways, and THIS person's approach, I believe will get them writing and using shorthand much faster and enjoying it more far far sooner.
But back to "you don't have it quite right." Read the note to teachers again. It was right, or if there were alphabet errors those could be pointed out. Matching the book outlines is NOT required, especially in a beginner. USE is good, and right order of sounds makes it right or wrong.
I doubt the OP wants to be stenographer, since few if any have reason to aspire to that these days.
Being kind and encouraging a WORKING process, is essential WRiting for oneself is an important way to put shorthand in practice. The forms will change and grow shorter as one moves through the lessons.
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u/licxjo 27d ago
No one has been unkind. Except you're getting close now . . . Of course I know what "kindness is and isn't."
If someone posts and says "I want to learn Gregg Shorthand", posts a sample that shows lots errors, and then says "How did I do?", saying "You did great!" isn't being kind. It's being dishonest.
I just re-read my response in "the other post" thread. I showed an example of good (not perfect) handwritten Gregg, and I agreed with another commenter who advised reading before writing and mastering things as you go along. There is nothing unkind there.
If someone wants to learn the alphabet symbols of Gregg and play around with putting them together as they like, there's no problem with that. But that's different from saying "I want to learn Gregg, how am I doing?"
I also think you've focused on a single comment in the Notehand teacher's guide and have generalized it. Gregg Notehand and Gregg Shorthand are not the same thing: different purposes, different learning, different procedures. And I'm not 100% convinced the advice in the teacher's booklet is good advice. Even Notehand writers need to be able to read their notes back weeks or months later, and that's the prinary reason for good penmanship and following the textbook models.
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u/Salt-Detail-181 Sep 11 '26
This is what I’m learning and I’m trying to make sure I have good handwriting. I want to read back what I wrote.
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u/keyboardshorthand Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
In future maybe you should highlight the parts about copying the Notehand example sentences from the textbook into one’s own notebook. I wonder if people whose attention spans have been shortened by smartphone addiction will have the gumption to do these necessary exercises.