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SPEED STUDY IX
NINTH LESSON

Methods of Learning Wordsigns.—When we consider that more than half the words used in spoken and written language are made up of the words we know in shorthand as "wordsigns," their importance is emphasized. Mr. David Wolfe Brown, the famous Congressional reporter, says:

"It is highly important that whatever the student undertakes to memorize should be memorized thoroughly. From half-recollection comes hesitation; and from hesitation comes loss of speed. Especially in the study of the wordsigns, most students undertake to learn too many at once. It cannot be too often repeated that in shorthand whatever needs to be memorized at all needs to be so mastered that it may come instantly to the mind and fingers whenever wanted."

As the best method of learning the wordsigns, Mr. Bernard De Bear, the well-known English reporter and teacher, has suggested the following:

"Take a double sheet of foolscap and fold it over into folds which will give about twelve divisions in all. Copy from the textbook neatly and carefully the signs you are about to learn, one on each line. Having thus filled the first column, close the book, and endeavor at once from memory to transcribe into longhand in column two. The words having only just been copied, this should prove no difficult task; but any blanks should be filled in from the key and underlined, to denote that the signs were not remembered. This done, fold under column one, so as to leave only the longhand words in column two visible, and transcribe those into shorthand in column three, so nearly as the memory will allow. Gaps can now be filled in from column one, which, however, should not be resorted to until the attempt has been made to work through the entire list.

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