Gregg Shorthand is a phonetic shorthand system used by professionals to transcribe speech quickly. It uses symbols to represent sounds and is taught in office skills courses. It is used for note-taking in conferences, journalism, and forms the basis for stenography training. Stenographers use a stenotype machine to type shorthand symbols, and some use a stenomask with speech recognition software.
Gregg Shorthand is a shorthand system designed to help various professionals make transcriptions of dictated speech quickly and efficiently. It consists of a series of symbols that represent phonetic sounds, rather than the actual spelling of the spoken words. Gregg shorthand pen strokes are formed as straight lines, ellipses, or curved lines of various sizes; each shape is assigned a specific letter sound. These forms are then joined together to form whole words according to the same basic principle as longhand cursive writing. Along with Pitman shorthand, the Gregg method is one of the types of shorthand commonly taught in high school or college level office skills courses.
Uses of Gregg shorthand have traditionally included taking notes in conferences and business meetings, as well as some types of journalism. The speed of normal human speech is too fast for the average person to write full longhand cursive transcripts without losing obvious parts of the information. Professionals skilled in Gregg shorthand usually find that they are able to capture spoken presentations with a much higher accuracy and completeness rate. People with several years of Gregg shorthand experience are often able to transcribe at speeds over 200 wpm.
This type of handwritten shorthand also forms the basis for training stenographers. To complete accurate transcriptions, a stenographer must master the use of a stenotype machine. This type of legal professional uses this apparatus to create typewritten reports of court proceedings with a keyboard that renders shorthand symbols rather than letters of the alphabet. Since more than one symbol is needed to make a complete word, the stenographer must press more than one of the correct keys at the same time. Before learning how to use a stenotype machine, an aspiring stenographer typically needs to master handwritten shorthand to be able to select the correct symbols to type at a rapid pace.
Another device commonly used in the field of shorthand is the stenomask, which consists of a microphone built into a noise canceling mouthpiece. The stenomask is then connected to speech recognition software that reproduces text from the words spoken by the user. The resulting transcripts are then completed in handwritten script rather than Gregg shorthand symbols. While a stenomask has its advantages of high accuracy without the need for repetitive typing, this device is sometimes not as widely adopted in courtroom sessions.
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