Coming back for inflected endings, WHY????

[Tami]

I believe one of the biggest injustices being taught by many CR schools today is that you have to come back with a second stroke for your -ing, -ed, -s, and -es endings. The schools are teaching their students that in order to write good realtime, that's what you have to do.

Well, I believe many of the best realtime writers in the nation will attest to the fact that that is just not true.

The school closest to my residence was nice enough to let me sit in on a lower speed class one night a while back. The students' hands were going slow enough that it was very easy for me to tell what they were writing. I about died when I saw them coming back for a -Z for the plural after a word ending with -T, like "cats."

I wanted to stand up and scream, "HELLO?? You have an -S right underneath that -T!!!"

But . . . I kept my cool, hoping I would be welcomed back if I ever made another visit. :)

(Wide keys factor into this discussion, but I'll leave that for later.)

If you are coming back for these endings, I suggest you try to convert over to include them with the initial stroke as soon as possible. (Yes, sometimes it's not possible to include an inflected ending in the initial stroke, but more often than not it is.) Start slow. Maybe take one ending at a time. Conquer it. Move on.

Pretty soon you'll be looking for more options. That's when you can incorporate a "tucked -G" for -ing, like "shooting" is SHAOGT. For those of you that say I can't do that because my -GT is my -th, perhaps you can throw the asterisk in with that -G, so you will never have a problem with "path" and "patting." (PAGT and PA*GT)

Then move on to the next writing principle that gives you the most bang in your endeavor to write shorter. Our bodies beg for us to write shorter. If you don't hear them begging now, I can pretty much guarantee they'll be begging not too far in the distant future.

After you start incorporating a few of these principles, pretty soon you will see a big difference in your hand speed. Guess what comes with slower hands?? More accuracy. Less shadowing. More speed.

It kind of reminds me of the fable of The Tortoise and the Hare. Slow and steady always beats out fast and reckless.

May the slowest hands win!!

Tami

[G. Allen Sonntag]

It's really Allen. Mr. Sonntag was my father.

Please tuck in anything that you can, that doesn't make it a conflict.

The origination of tucking was from Philadelphia Clinic Theory, Marty Fincin and Harry Foster, dating back to the late '40's or early '50's. I picked that up in 1963 at the NCRA National convention in Detroit, where I wrote my first speed contest.

Inflected endings were created to solve no trans in the realtime early days late '80's and into the '90's. The software was not as sophisticated as it is today. As I said, all you need is the root word and everything else works after you're set up properly.

This makes building one's dictionary so much easier and faaaaaaaster it's almost hard to believe.

So to reiterate: Don't inflect, please tuck.

AllenS

[tracy]

How do you set up the software to do it? I have been tucking and adding for about a year now and am about sick of globalling everything. I am on Eclipse. And since I have to write realtime for doing CART, I can't just write it and define it later. It has to be right the first time.

Thanks!

[Judy]

Tracy,

You need to go into your Metadictionary and add it there.

I also was adding new entries CONSTANTLY until I tweaked my Metadictionary. Now my untran rate is back to acceptable levels.

[Mike Rowell]

Hi, I'm really intrigued about the idea of tucking, but I don't know how I would incorporate this into my dictionary without having to define every single word. Can anybody break down (for CaseCatalyst) how I would add in tucked Rs, and Gs, and how I could add -s to words (like cats) without having to define each and every individual word that way? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Another question is whether it's even good to do this as a student that started last October. I just passed my last 140 test last week and am shooting for 160 now and my real-time is pretty clean when I upload the notes files after class. I don't have to spend a lot of time editing, but my theory (StenEd) has me coming back for endings in almost every case (except for words ending in D where I use DZ, and for briefs that I have defined, like DLAIR for declare, DLAIRG, DLAIRS, DLAIRD ect.) I've made it pretty far pretty fast, but I wonder if i should maybe review my theory more to get it more automatic before I start tucking since I've only been studying for 9 months. I really like the idea, but it seems like it might slow me down.

Anyways, any advice/insight/feedback would be awesome. Thanks


-Mike

[Brenda Rogers]

Mike, you're just going to have to add them as they come up. I built my dictionary from scratch. Every single outline, I put in myself. Dictionary growth is an ongoing process. Don't think it will ever end. Don't try to sit down and try to find every single word and spend hours to pre-add the outlines; address them as they arise.

As with anything new, tucking Rs and Gs will feel unnatural at first; but before long, you'll be bending that ring finger to catch the -G for -ing without even thinking about it.

[Tami]

Mike,

I think it's a great idea to start it now. You definitely are zooming through.

I went from zero to 160 in a little over a year, and I was taught to include all those endings right from theory. Sometimes it's not possible to include them in the initial or previous stroke, but the majority of time it is.

When I hit 160, I started learning briefs in families. That also helped me build speed. I wish I would have incorporated shorter theory principles at that speed and would not have waited a couple decades to figure that one out.

If tucking intrigues you more than including the inflected endings, start there. I personally think StenEd is the easiest theory out there to start slicing and dicing on. Just take it slow. Sometimes you take a baby step back, but you will follow with a giant leap or two forward.

Incorporating these new concepts will build speed. Your hands need not go any faster to build speed. Of course faster hands build speed, too. It's the combination that takes a lot of writers to the high speeds -- higher than CSR requirements, that is.

I've been working with another student on StenEd who glossed over some shorter writing principles right in the StenEd theory. Go back to your theory book and make sure you picked them all up.

I think a lot of us have done that. We do not pick up all the theory principles we were exposed to. I know when I taught my son theory there came a time where he just wanted to build speed, so he did just that. From about 60 to 90 he went back and learned the shorter writing concepts he had passed by. Of course since then he's never stopped learning new theory principles, phrases, briefs, and a more efficient way to write. I don't want to ever stop learning either.

Good luck!

Happy writing short!

[Patricia Babits]

Hi Tami,
I am finally starting to tuck in my endings. I came back for everything. I was led to believe changing my theory would just about ruin me. LOL. I stuck with that for a long time.

[Diane Hickman]

the tucked -G for -ing is a great theory! I'll try it. Just when it seems there's no way to go faster and cleaner, I read a blog and find out I'm thinking in a box. I'll definitely try it this week. I also found the -TD for final -ED to be helpful (I think it is a Mark Kingsley theory) as in landed LANTD. Yeah, I'll give it a try for sure. Thanks again.

[Brenda Rogers]

I learned the tucked -G for -ing 25 years ago. I think it's a crying shame that it was abandoned.

Do you tuck your -R for -er? That's another one I learned back then. The one I learned in the past year is to tuck R- for -er.

KROERN - corner
BROERD - border
BRUFRP - bumper

[Rhoda Collins]

Yeah, it is not 'Mark K' theory, he just brought it back to life, lol.
http://www.stenotypebible.com/
I believe he was introducing it in the 70s long before Mark.
I have the CD and it is very cool!
rho

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Tami, I thought of this thread the other day when I was walking on the treadmill, believe it or not. I'd forgotten my headphones, so I was watching TV and the build-up to John Edwards' endorsement (finally!) of Barack Obama. Now, I'm NOT going to criticize the captioner, because captioning -- writing it right the first time and EVERY time with no do-over's -- is the hardest job in reporting. My opinion. Harder than litigation reporting will ever be. But the captioner who was writing was obviously coming back with their final -S stroke, because there were things like "looking at the result heres today" and "everyone see theirs hard work." I wanted to scream because, as you (and MarkK) say, after all, we ARE shorthand reporters ... plus, it's so easy to fix. And look how much time you'd save by not making all those plural words plural with an extra stroke.

M.A.

[Tami]

Thanks for sharing, Mary Ann. Appreciate the backup from such an awesome RT reporter!