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Steno Question No. 4

Disorder is always in a hurry. Napoleon I

The Situation: Your writing is not smooth. Sometimes, you will be writing extremely well and extremely fast, but then you will hesitate. At other times, you hesitate after every couple of strokes. Rat-a-tat-tat, pause, rat-a-tat, pause, rat-a-tat-tat, pause.

The Question: How can you stop hesitating?

The Solution: It depends. Are you hesitating on easy words or hard words? If you are hesitating on easy words, are they briefs or phrases? If they are hard words, are they simply multi-syllabic words that are fairly simple or are they tough strokes?

No matter why you hesitate, your top priority should be to reduce all hesitation before you start to stroke a word, a brief, or a phrase.

Your second priority is to write clearly, even if you must write very slow.

Your third priority is to write as quickly as possible.

If you are likely to pause on a string of simple, easy words, find a drill that is composed of easy strokes. Drill until you hesitate. Don't continue after that. Take a break. Stretch your arms. Breathe deep. Think about why you hesitated. If the stroke wasn't hard, then it was probably concentration. Reduce the speed. Try to write for as long as possible without hesitating. Look for smoothness. Drill to break the hesitation, rather than to gain speed. Increase the speed when you write without hesitation. Reduce it when you start to hesitate. This drill technique is useful to all students, not just those with hesitation problems. Concentrate entirely on reducing hesitation.

If you pause on easy multi-syllabic words, you have the same basic problem. Luckily, you can often make up for lost time by using a brief or by squeezing the word down to one or two strokes. However, this hesitation is still not to be tolerated. The hesitation is canceling out any benefits of a brief or a squeeze. If you are always going to hesitate on such a word, it may be better to write it out the long way. Writing it out the long way is clearer; and hopefully, it will cut down on your hesitation.

If you pause on briefs and phrases because they are difficult finger patterns, you have several choices. You may decide to practice the outline until it isn't difficult. You may decide to change to an easier outline. You may decide to drop that stroke. Whatever you do, your goal is to reduce hesitation on these strokes because they are useless if you hesitate. For instance, I have a brief for the word "rehabilitation." I know the brief by heart, but I find it difficult to write. If I two-stroke that word, I can write it faster and clearer than if I use my brief.

If you pause on briefs and phrases because you can't remember them soon enough, you also have several choices. You can practice them until you remember them. You can stop using them. You can ignore the problem. If you decide to keep them, make up a list of all of the briefs, phrases, and squeezes which you have trouble remembering. Practice this list until you have no trouble remembering them. If you decide to stop using a brief or phrase, then you should practice writing it the long way. The worst thing you can do is ignore the problem. Consider this: Writing a word out the long way is clearer than using a brief, but it is slower than using a brief. We use briefs because they are faster, but they are not as easy to read. If you have a hesitation problem with a brief, you are not gaining any speed advantage, and you are giving up clarity. By ignoring the problem, you are losing all around.

If you pause on hard single-syllable words, you have a simple problem. You haven't learned your theory book. You have trouble with outlines. Practice these outlines and reduce your hesitation. When you are drilling on these outlines, you will write these words slower than you write simpler single-syllable words. It is natural for the hardest strokes to be slower than the easiest strokes. You need to practice them until you become comfortable with all of the outlines. You can turn those hard strokes into easy ones. And when you do that, you will be writing them much faster. So practice these for clarity, and you will gain speed. What a concept.

If you pause on hard multi-syllabic words, well, join the club. Everybody will. A hard word, such as, "onomatopoeia," will slow down even the best reporters. You can't stroke it before you figure it out. The best advice to cut down this type of hesitation is that you should try to cut down the hesitation before the first stroke. That is where most of the hesitation will be. Sometimes we spend too much time trying to figure out how to write a word. Sometimes we just have to stroke them out.

Your goal is to reduce hesitation. You will never free yourself of it entirely, but do not accept it. It hides your natural speed.