So, you decided you want to learn shorthand. Which one to pick? Teeline shorthand is a good choice for many people because it’s easier than many other types of shorthand to learn. It is also especially adapted for the needs of journalists, so if you are a reporter, this might be the best choice for you. It is accepted by the National Council for the Training of Journalists in the United Kingdom, which is the organization that oversees the training of newspaper journalists in the UK.
What is it? Teeline shorthand is a streamlined way of writing, sort of like simplified and extreme cursive writing. It is based on the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Unnecessary letters are left out – this means vowels and silent letters are quite frequently not written. This makes it much quicker to write the words. Certain common letter combinations are condensed into a single symbol. These include prefixes and suffixes and frequently used grouping such as “ing” or “tion.”
Teeline shorthand was a type of shorthand invented by James Hill in 1970, according to Wikipedia. Hill was a teacher who taught Pitman shorthand, another popular type of shorthand. The difference is that while most other popular types of shorthand are phonetic, teeline is based on the alphabet. This makes it easier and more intuitive to learn, but it also has its limitations. Gregg shorthand, for instance, will result in a higher words per minute rate of recording compared to Teeline shorthand once fluency has been reached. It all depends what type of goals and requirements you have and what your personal shorthand preference is.
Some phonetics are involved, however, even though Teeline shorthand is primarily an alphabet-based shorthand. For example, “ph” is often replaced by an “f” when writing in Teeline shorthand.
Many users of Teeline shorthand come up with their own symbols and abbreviations to speed up their note taking even more. The system is very flexible without many strict rules, so it is easy for users to incorporate their own notations into the framework.
How to learn Teeline? There are many tutorials offered online that will help you learn the basics of Teeline shorthand. The important thing is to practice as much as possible. At first it is frustrating, like learning all types of shorthand, when you are not yet familiar with the notations because you’ll be writing a lot slower in shorthand than in longhand. However, it is important to persevere through this period. The results are worth it. Keep practicing and you’ll soon increase your speed and have a useful skill that will save you time and sore-handedness and also look really good on your resume (especially if you’re a journalist!).
Many Web sites offer online courses in Teeline shorthand, most of them for a fee, so if you’re looking for more structured instruction, that would be where to go. Free resources like library books and free tutorials might not offer you as speedy results in a class, so you’ll want to decide whether the results are worth what you would have to pay.
For more information on why journalists should learn shorthand, check out this article:
