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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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Steno is Fun blog is back
This is the last entry in the original Steno is Fun blog.
This is also the first entry in the replacement blog of the same name.
The reason for the switch is that CourtReportingHelp.com is now hosted by Yahoo. They have a nice blog setup. It will make it much easier to manage the blog.
We can't automatically add you to the new signup list. This is for your protection. Only you can add your e-mail addresss to our subscription list.
To sign up for the new blog, go to CourtReportingHelp.com. Click the link to the blog. Look for the register button. Add your e-mail address.
Below is the first blog on the new Steno is Fun blog.
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Hello Steno dudes and dudettes
May 15th, 2006
This is the first post of the new “Steno is Fun” blog. I am Stephen Shastay. I teach stenography. My philosophy of writing involves three rules. They are easy rules. If you follow them, you will write at the maximum of your abilities. Your test scores will improve. You will improve.
If you use my rules, you will know exactly what to do in each and every situation. Why? Because there are only a few things that you really should be doing. In every bad situation, you will find that the root of the problem can be traced to one of three things. Every problem. Every single one.
Here are the three rules.
1. Clarity. At all times, you must be able to read 99 out of 100 words that you stroke. Forget perfect notes. The standard is readable notes.
2. The hands must move at all times. Hesitation must be removed by adopting one of several solutions. Forget hand speed. Concentrate on removing the inactive periods between strokes.
3. Thou shalt not drop more than three words in a row. Forget the number of times that you drop. Concentrate solely on keeping the number of words in each drop to a minimum. This is a lot simpler to do than you think. I will give you step by step instructions on how to learn the method. You must do two things: 1) You must do a little bit of simple practice 2) You must do that practice my way. The drill won’t be hard, and the instructions will be clear. All you have to do is follow my directions.
I don’t believe in complicated techniques. The problems are always simple. The answers are always simple.
We start tomorrow.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Magic Drill is ready to use
On the home page of CourtReportingHelp.com is a link to three free MP3 drills. I call them the Magic Drills. They are relatively easy to perform, but they will frustrate you at first.
Strictly follow the rules that are given for the drills. They address all of the problems that you can have, and they solve them for you very easily.
However before you begin the drills, it might be nice to run through the full list of steno problems that affect students.
The Terrible Triumverate of Joseph Kinaim, Anna Mae Tedley, Barb DeWitt and myself came up with four possible problems and their subsets: 1, Clarity; 2, Hesitation; 3, Carrying Words; 4, Editing (thinking about whether your last stroke is clear, rather than concentrating on the next stroke)
On my own, I came up with the three rules of stenography that will guarantee improvement in every writer: 1, You must have clarity; 2, Your hands must be moving at all times; 3, You must never drop any more than three words in any one place.
Those rules are simple and easy. They produce quality students who turn into quality professionals.
1. Clarity. If you aren't writing clearly, then you must slow down until you are writing clearly. Clarity should never be defined as anything less than 99 percent readable strokes. Your strokes should be as perfect as possible, but a readable stroke is a stroke that can absolutely be correctly translated without guessing. No dropped endings, no partial strokes, no ambiguous outlines.
2. Your hands must always be moving. Allow your hands to write slowly when they hit the hard strokes. Forcing them to write faster will fracture your clarity. Don't worry if the hands move slowly, but never ever ever let them completely stop.
3. Never drop more than three words at a time. Ignore how many words you drop. Concentrate only on how you drop them. Correct drops of one or possibly two words at a time indicate that the student is not trailing the speaker and consequently, is able to concentrate on the next stroke rather than on retaining a large string of words in their memory.
A large drop indicates that the student dropped those words because a failure of memory. The student was carrying so many words that the train of thought was lost. The words that are dropped are not the problem. The problem is that the student did not recognize that he/she was falling behind.
When you fall behind the speaker by five or six words, you have a hard choice to make. You must either write faster or drop a few words.
For the most part, writing faster is not a viable option. If it is possible to write faster, then you should have done that before you fell behind in the first place.
The hard choice usually entails dropping a few words. If you are good at dropping, then you should look for the biggest or most difficult word and drop that. If you have trouble dropping, forget about looking for the best word to drop. Just make sure that you drop before you fall seriously behind.
Stenography really isn't any harder than that, folks. You don't need 80 million rules. You don't have to learn a million briefs. You don't have to constantly drill at high speed.
Now, let's get back to the Magic Drills.
The rules for the Magic Drills are very simple.
1. All strokes at all times must be readable.
2. You must write at least two words in every four-word sentence.
If you do those things, you will have great clarity in your regular drills and you will learn not to fall behind the speaker.
Go to CourtReportingHelp.com and look on their home page for the Magic Drills. There are three of them. Read the explanation for each drill, and follow the two rules. It won't take you long before you see the results.
Take care.
Stephen Shastay
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Using Quotes in your Strokes
QUESTION: Okay, Mr. Steno Rebel, the 100s speed doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as all the rumors that XXXXXX and XXXXXX told me about. For the most part, I have noteably improved on how to drop the "bad" stuff, but I can't seem to throw quotation marks in with the "good" stuff that I'm writing. Is accurately quoting something important at this stage of the game (particularaly during Q & A material), or will not doing so hinder me in the future?
Jess
ANSWER: Punctuation can be difficult, even when you are talking about periods and commas. Quotations are about the toughest.
The rule is that you must use quotation marks around quotes. Like, duh.
But how can you do that and keep up with the dictation. For the most part, you can't. It can be impossible to distinguish a quote from a regular sentence until you have heard the entire sentence.
You can't afford to wait. You must continue to stroke. And that means that you will miss the opening quotation mark a lot of the time.
On the other hand, I have found the closing quotation mark to be a valuable tool. Since we do tend to miss the opening quote, it can be a lifesaver to insert the closing quote.
It makes a teacher uneasy to argue anything other than a full unswerving devotion to the rules. But remember, I am not saying that you shouldn't use quotes. I am just recognizing reality. It can be hard to tell when to use them. Insert them every chance you can, but keep those strokes coming. No hesitation.
It will become easier over time. You are lucky that you have a good grasp of the basics. I remember one class that I had. Everybody in it was tough. One day I asked, "What comes after a period?" One guy stood up and said, "That's when you file the appeal."
Steve Shastay
Steno Rebel
Monday, October 03, 2005
I received a letter from a student who finds herself in a very common predicament.
Theory and the first speed classes were not a problem. She was writing well and
had few problems.
Now the kid gloves have been taken off. The material is much harder than it was
in previous classes, and the teachers are constantly drilling on tough material
or fast material.
She lost her rhythm and her clarity. At times, her hands shook and/or they froze up.
It wasn't fun in StenoLand.
Here is the basic answer that I gave her.
Your situation is that you are faced with dictation that is too
difficult because of speed and/or density. This is very common.
The answer lies in how you handle the material. Above
everything else, you must always write clearly. If you can
do that, then you work on ensuring that you hands do not
stop at any time. Forget how fast they are moving. Just
make sure that they never stop.
If you can write clean and if you can always keep your hands
moving, then you work on the number of words that you trail
the speaker. A person with poor control will experience
drops of five or more words on the average test. This is
unacceptable. You should not trail the speaker so much that
you must drop a five-word block of words.
A person who knows how to drop properly will drop only the
small number of tough words that show up on a dictation. If
the speed or the density of the material increases, the
student should (1) continue to write clearly, (2) continue
to keep the hands moving at all times -- even if they move
slowly (3) continue to drop words in order to stay up with
the speaker.
The only change that occurs between writing easy material
and writing fast or thick material is that the number of
times that the student drops will increase. The size of
each drop must remain small, but because the dictation is
harder, the amount of drops will increase.
So your success depends on writing clearly, keeping your
hands moving, and keeping your drops small.
Don't worry about writing fast enough. Don't worry about
how many times you have to drop in order to keep up with the
dictation. Don't worry about how fast your hands move as
long as they are moving. And last, but not least, don't be
a spaz. Chill out. You are fighting yourself. Calm down
and write the way you were writing before.
If you do these things, you will be writing like a
professional. Your strokes will be clear. Your hands will
be producing as much as they can. You won't be forcing the
strokes. And your speed will naturally increase week by
week by week.
Take care.
Steve Shastay
Steno Rebel
CourtReportingHelp.com and StenoDrills.com
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Tuesday and Wednesday homework
Tuesday's homework was very instructive. I gave a list of 25 words. The students
had to look up the definitions.
Wednesday's homework was based on Tuesday's homework. From that list of 25 words,
the students were instructed to make up silly sentences.
The purpose of the exercise is not to learn new words. I pass out 100 briefs each week.
I give them every brief-and-phrase handout I scrounge up. We review them in each drill.
They don't know all of the basic ones yet.
Tuesday's homework was to look up 25 words. That forced them to dig out the ol'
theory book or the not-so-ol' dictionary. They need to understand the importance of
searching for answers to their problem strokes.
Wednesday's homwork was to create silly sentences out of those 25 words. That gave
them an easy way to conquer those words once they looked them up.
The purpose of the homework was to teach them that they do not have to put up with
those "trouble" strokes. That is very important. Too many of us resign ourselves to fighting
very common words. Each day, we hear those words over and over. Each day, we struggle
with them.
Open the books; cure your problem strokes.
By the way, even though the exercise involved briefs, the students are not forced to use
them. They are taught that the correct stroke or strokes are the ones that they can perform
accurately at the highest speed.
For instance, I am faster if I do not brief "constitution" or "institution." I get confused
during the dictation about which stroke to use, and that slows me down. So my correct
choice is to write out those words, even though I know the briefs.
Steve Shastay
Steno Rebel
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Wednesday, August 10, 2005
An easy trick for those who drop endings
Dropping endings can have several causes, but they always lead back to attention to detail.
And if attention to detail is the problem, then the solution is merely to
PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS.
The best solution for those who drop their endings (s, ed, ing) is to read their notes,
type their tests, grade and analyze. That can be hard work, but it will pay off big time.
For those who insist on instant gratification, there is a easy fix that has been
known to work like magic. When you drill at home, reduce the volume of the drill.
Do it little by little, and you won't really notice the volume reduction.
As the sound becomes lower and lower, your brain will turn its full attention to the task of
making out each word -- including endings.
It sounds ridiculously simple, but it does work. Best of all, it's pain-free. No hard drills.
No mental hoops to jump through. Just do your regular drill, but do it at a reduced volume.
Stephen Shastay
Steno Rebel
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Monday, July 25, 2005
Schadenfreude and what to do about it
In traditional sports, there must be winners and losers. That is because the
athletes are pitted against each other. If the Red Sox score 4 runs on Tuesday
and 2 runs on Wednesday, the Yankees know that scoring 3 runs will win one game
and lose the other.
Their success is directly tied the success (or failure) of the opposing
team.
As an Eagles fan, it was always thrilling to beat the Cowboys.
Sometimes it was talent. Sometimes, it was luck. Sometimes, it was simply a judge who
didn't believe in work release. If we won because we played well, that was fine. And if we
won because the Cowboys played poorly, that was fine also. Eagles fans will take a win over
the Cowboys any way that they can get it.
That's the way it has to be in
sports. Sombody must win. Somebody must lose.
We don't need the same
kind of competitive spirit in our schools. We should not associate our success with the
failure of others. This is just dead wrong. No one has to lose at stenography in order for
you to win. We can all win. We can all reach the golden land of steno
heaven.
There is no need to resent those who progress faster than you. Don't
wish bad luck upon them. Maybe they will get there first, but it won't slow you down. You
will still get there in the same amount of time.
And try a little compassion for
those who are not performing as well as you. Most students will experience at least an
occasional period of non-progress. So you may very well end up in that same situation someday.
It's not fun when it happens, and it is a lot easier to endure when you have friends who
honestly care for you.
Schadenfreude: 1) pleasure taken
from the misfortune of others or 2) guilty joy.
Yuck.
Steve Shastay
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Difficult Right-Hand Strokes
Here is a handout that I use in every class. Some students take to it right away.
A littlepractice can go a long way. All you have to do is work your way through the list a
couple of times each day. Eventually, you should replace the words with other words that
represent
those endings and/or any other endings that give you trouble.
The secret is to do a little work each day. No pain. No long drawn-out drilling. Just a little
work, but you have to do it each day. Before you know it, your list of problem strokes will
shrink, and you will have a lot less hesitation in your writing..
Difficult Right-Hand Strokes
Church
Bench
Best
Myth
Fish
Watch
Session
Mansion
Faction
Sanction
Love
Crucial
Precious
Patient
Prism
Ability
Livable
Curve
Ramp
Next
Little
Vital
Band
Fact
Given
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
QUESTION: Hello, I ordered a practice CD from your website today. I am currently
a student in Court Reporting school and I'm having some trouble with getting past the
speeds of 120(Literary) and 140(Jury and Q&A). I believe it's my whole mindset because I know I can do it; but seem to get frustrated
about it at times. You will notice that I ordered the drill in the speeds of 160 to 180.
Please let me know if that's a good speed to practice at this time. I visit your website often
and find so much of the information to be so helpful. I was really excited to place my order
today for the practice drills and I look forward to ordering more in the future.
Thank you
ANSWER: I won't get into the whole theory of how to write. The subject is too large. .
In a nutshell, we say that if you cannot write the drill professionally at a low speed, then you
have no business doing the drill at a high speed. That statement is generally true, but students must also practice how to survive the
rough passages on the test. That kind of practice requires drill that you cannot
completely master. There is a great benefit in knowing how to turn a potential ten-
word drop into a mere two or three-word drop. This kind of drill needs to be done in a
specific way with a specific purpose. You must know exactly what you are
doing. Control and clarity is necessary at all times, especially at high speed.
Don't believe those guys who tell you to crank up the speed and pound like a
madman. Those guys can't tell you why it is good to write like that or how it will make
you better or when you should expect results. We can tell you why and how and when
about our "theory" of writing. You should write clean because you are training to be a
professional who needs clarity. It will make you better by imprinting the correct
outlines into your brain. Then when you attempt these same strokes at high speed,
your brain will be able to supply the correct stroke to you. As far as when you should
expect benefits from writing clear controlled strokes, you should see improvement within a
half hour. Few people have to go a week without seeing positive tangible results.
Anyway, we will send you the disc that you ordered, but we are going to include the next
lower speed at no cost to you. When you find that a drill is too challenging, the proper
move is to practice that drill at a lower speed. When you conquer it at the lower
speed, you will also be conquering it at the higher speed.
In short, if you can't write it slow, you can't write it fast.
Stephen Shastay
Steno Rebel |
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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