STENO IS FUN!!
The answers that you seek are easy to understand and easy to employ. But they are not the answers that you expect. Let me show you the simple technique of The Shastay Way.
THIS BLOG HELPS ME WRITE. WHEN THE BOOK, THE SHASTAY WAY, IS FINISHED, THIS BLOG WILL DISAPPEAR.
Due to your requests, I will replace this blog with a new one. It will have the same name, and it will located in the same place. The only change you will notice is that the old messages will disappear. You won't have to submit your e-mail address again to continue to receive notification of new blogs.
And yup, I'll continue to talk about the Shastay Way, but maybe not as much.
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Wednesday, June 15, 2005
QUESTION: I was fortunate to have you substitute for our class a few nights ago
and wanted to thank you for offering a different perspective. What I
have been doing is not working for me.
I am confused about when we should begin building our dictionaries. I
have heard differing stories. What is your opinion?
ANSWER: In the old days, dictionaries were built from scratch, word by word by word. Nowadays,
all CAT software comes with a pretty big dictionary. A lot of work is saved.
But not all of the work is saved. We could both start with the standard dictionary, but we both
must tailor that dictionary to our individual writing patterns. We need different strokes in our
dictionaries.
Any standard CAT dictionary needs modification before it is ready to support you. Even the guys
who write the theories need to modify their own individual dictionairies. Here is what I imagine
happened on one fine day during development of the theory that I teach.
A guy stands up and says to a group, "Okay, we have six votes for Choice A, four votes for
Choice B, three votes for Choice C, and one vote apiece for Choices D through L." We are going
to use the top three choices and the rest of you guys just shut up."
I believe that my theory book shows me three ways to write "New York" because the authors had
a wild meeting like that. Nobody was willing to budge. Each had their own personal preference.
They appeased those who liked Choices A, B and C by putting their strokes in the theory. But I will
bet my bottom dollar that the guys who liked Choices D through L did not change their strokes.
Working on your dictionary will pay off big. You will learn to write realtime. That is a huge benefit.
This is the computer age. CAT software can be an unparalleled teaching tool, and it should be utilized.
The computer is a steno student's best friend.
The more that you work on your dictionary and the more you write realtime, the more you will
focus on getting your translation rate up to par. You will become exasperated when common words
continue to be misstroked; subsequently, you will focus on them and clear them up. You will look
for material that contains new words so that your tran rate stays high on all material. Imagine
that!! Building your dictionary whets your appetite for technical and medical dictation.
All kinds of good things happen when you build your dictionary, and absolutely no bad ones happen.
Truthfully, I think that almost all of your practice could involve dictionary building. You can only
build your dictionary if you write a lot, read your notes a lot, and focus on clarity a lot.
I like that idea a lot.
Steve Shastay
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