Unique integrated shorthand method for professional note-takers. Two-level approach based on frequency of use. Few rules, common to both levels; easy to learn, fast to write.

A unique approach to fast-writing for both professional and general note-taking. The primary textbook of this method of contemporary shorthand, presents the two levels of the system; Basic mode for professional and frequent shorthand writers. Alpha level for the general or occasional note-taker (this is the 'alphabetic' version which uses familiar longhand letters), Basic mode uses only simplified letters written as single pen-strokes. A special Keyboard level is included for those who wish to take quick notes on a keyboard or laptop computer. The system is particularly easy to learn in only a few hours. The few simple rules are common throughout the integrated system. This unique approach to shorthand enables the method to be used by all categories of note-takers. Students choose their starting level according to anticipated frequency of use -high frequency by professionals, or occasional use by the general note-taker. The two levels can be combined to meet personal needs. This is a preferred shorthand system for reporters, journalists, secretaries and all professionals who need an accurate system of rapid writing which can be acquired in a matter of hours. The system is equally suitable for all student note-taking, from high-school to university and beyond.

Variously identified as an art, a technology, and a professional prerequisite, forms of shorthand have been in use from Antiquity to the modern day. Far from a niche corner in manuscript studies, shorthand represents an almost global phenomenon that has touched upon many aspects of everyday life and of scholarship. Due to its immediate illegibility, however, and the daunting task of decipherment, shorthand has long been neglected as a research object in its own right. The immense quantity of extant and unread shorthand manuscripts has been downplayed, as has the technology's place in cultures of learning, religious devotion, court practice, parliamentary procedure, authorial composition, corporate life, public and private writing, and the academy. As the first ever peer-reviewed volume on the subject, this book presents a much-needed introduction to shorthand, its history, and its disparate historiography, alongside eight contributions by shorthand specialists that showcase some of the many lines of inquiry that shorthand inspires across a range of disciplinary and methodological perspectives. For readers with a vested interest in shorthand, this volume provides a range of approaches to shorthand in the Latin West, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, upon which to orient, substantiate, and inform their own work. For general readers, this publication invites scholars to consider ways in which historically overlooked or underestimated forms of writing facilitated a variety of writing cultures in different contexts, periods, and languages.

The year 2008 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the first publication of King Lear, and for four centuries the play has remained a consummate bibliographical mystery. Winner of the 2007 Jay L. Halio prize for best manuscript in Shakespeare studies, Shakespeare in Shorthand demonstrates that many textual anomalies derive from the play's transcription in Elizabethan shorthand. The shorthand system of John Willis, Stenographie (1602), shows a high correlation with the unusual textual features found in the first quarto of Lear (1608). The patterns of variants in the quarto conform to Willis' rules regarding the reduction of diphthongs and digraphs and the omission of aspirated, doubled, or unsounded letters. In the past two decades the textual interrelation of quarto and folio (1623) Lear has proven one of the most contested issues in Shakespearean studies, and an examination of Stenographie reveals that some of these textual differences result not from authorial revision, but from transmission in abbreviated writing. Bibliographical evidence also indicates that some textual omissions from the folio version are neither authorial nor theatrical, but derive from the printing house.