Shorthanded

I'm currently learning to use Teeline shorthand for an NCTJ distance learning journalism course that I intend to complete June/July-ish. I'm just working on my own and it's not exactly riveting but there is definitely something generally uplifting about learning a new written language, if you can call it that. It looks kind of nice when you get used to drawing those curly shapes in gentle soothing motions. Another plus is that hardly anyone will be able to read any non-existent love notes I forget to tidy away.

I'm learning as much as I can on my own before attempting the collection of tapes and ring-bound information that the NCTJ have sent me. The great thing is that you don't even have to send of for anything at all to learn shorthand as long as you have the internet to hand. I was looking around at 43things.com and someone was asking about online versions of shorthand manuals. The reply listed a site with some Gregg Shorthand manuals which is well designed but these are only online by virtue of being past their copyrights and, more importantly for us UK journos, the UK standard systems are now Teeline and Pitman.

Luckily for me a quick Google resulted in another complete book online - Teeline for Journalists by Vivien Saunders. She's a lecturer at Harrow College, part of the University of Westminster and she's written a book, I believe as yet unpublished, which is the only guide ‘specially adapted [...] to the needs of journalists.’ So far I've found the book to be a very good way of learning - for every two or three symbols you are given to learn, an exercise is set, so you learn nice and gradually even though you're writing in shorthand right from the first chapter. The book is current and therefore has lots of nice journalistic vocab that you're likely to find yourself using today, and the exercises are written as parts of amusingly hammy news stories.

●Download Teeline for Journalists as a Word document.