User:Antistic/Learning Stenography

This is a guide to learning stenography with Plover theory. It provides its own, but if you would prefer to follow a textbook instead, see. It also provides a list of, which may be useful while learning. Lastly, it provides a list of potential for after you have learned Plover theory.

Before you start
Before you start practicing stenography, you want to make sure that you have Plover installed and working on your machine.

The Plover community
Learning stenography can be a long (but rewarding!) process. If you prefer to learn with a community, or have questions or feedback, you may want to check out.

Plover theory syllabus
This syllabus is intended as a jumping off point for your journey into learning stenography. The How stenography works and The keyboard layout and basic words sections should be done first. After that, it's up to you what parts you want to learn — feel free to skip things, do it in a different order, follow one of the textbooks instead, or do something else entirely.

Each section contains a list of useful materials which are all freely available, including the textbooks.

Multiple items are listed, but often will cover the same subjects (especially the textbooks), so you don't need to read or use all of the tools listed. Start with what you like — you can always come back to get a different perspective later.

There's a lot to learn, so don't feel discouraged if you feel like it's taking a while — it's very normal!

How stenography works
Here you'll learn what stenography is, how it differs from typing, and how it can be so much faster than typing. You'll also learn how chording works, and how you can write anything with a keyboard with only 23 keys.

Useful materials:


 * Stan's Quick and Dirty: How Stenography Works, a video by Stanley Sakai
 * How Steno Works At 200 WPM, a video by Aerick
 * How steno works from the textbook The Art of Chording
 * Glossary of terms

The keyboard layout and basic words
The steno keyboard has 23 keys. You'll learn where each of these keys are, which fingers to use for each key, and how to position your fingers.

You'll also learn how to press these keys together in a chord, and learn your very first words.

You will touch upon what steno order is, and why it's important.

Useful materials:


 * Plover Theory Basics Pt. 1 | Layout, Fingers, Steno Order, a video by Aerick
 * Learn the Steno Keyboard from the practice tool Steno Jig
 * These exercises are popular because you can learn the key positions for each hand separately, rather than simultaneously using your left hand, thumbs, and right hand from the beginning


 * You need to use raw steno output (follow the instructions at the top of the page) for these exercises


 * Lesson 1: Fingers and Keys and Lesson 2: Steno Order from the textbook Learn Plover!
 * The second lesson on steno order also talks about ways around steno order, but that is beyond basic words and you may want to skip it for now


 * One syllable words from the Learn Plover Exercises section of the practice tool Steno Jig
 * The Layout from the textbook The Art of Chording
 * The Layout groups from The Steno Grind, a practice tool made as a companion to The Art of Chording
 * The Intoduction and One-syllable words with simple keys lessons from the practice tool Typey Type

Other sounds
Here you'll learn how to write the "missing" sounds, like M or V which aren't on any key of the steno keyboard. You will also find out how to write long vowels, diphthongs (like th), and compound sounds (like nch).

You'll learn how to "fingerspell" — which is how you can write each letter to spell out anything. Fingerspelling covers many of the sounds on the left hand, so it can be an easy way to practice those sounds.

Useful materials:


 * Plover Theory Basics Pt. 1 | Layout, Fingers, Steno Order, a video by Aerick
 * Lesson 3: English Sounds from the textbook Learn Plover!
 * Hidden sounds and Compound sounds from the textbook The Art of Chording
 * User:Slide_By_Mode/Plover_vowels_for_five-vowel_speakers
 * Useful if you're having trouble with all the different vowels and how to write them. It's written for people who know languages which only have 5 vowels (like Spanish), but can still be useful if you don't

Briefs and basic briefing techniques
You'll learn what briefs are and common briefs. You'll also learn basic briefing techniques like inversion and dropping syllables.

Useful materials:


 * Plover Theory Basics Pt. 1 | Layout, Fingers, Steno Order, a video by Aerick
 * Briefs from the textbook The Art of Chording
 * This is a quick introduction to the idea of briefs. The Art of Chording introduces briefs as you go through its lessons, rather than giving them all in a separate section

Punctuation and numbers
Useful materials:
 * Lesson 8: Non-Letters and Lesson 9: Numbers from the textbook Learn Plover!
 * https://github.com/didoesdigital/steno-dictionaries#punctuation-dictionary

Multistroke words
Useful materials:

More briefing techniques
You'll learn more briefing techniques like the OEU wild card.

Useful materials:
 * Designing Briefs from the textbook Learn Plover!

Formatting
Capitalisation etc.

Useful materials:

General learning tools

 * Anki
 * Finger drills
 * Plover lookup
 * how to avoid misleading words
 * finding words that are not in the dictionary but instead made with affixes
 * Spectra
 * Plover suggestions
 * Clippy
 * other useful plugins
 * typing sites
 * cheat sheets (put these in the sections above?)
 * dictation
 * Steno Arcade

Dictionary building
Although Plover's dictionary is quite large, it won't cover all the words and phrases you might use. Eventually you'll find yourself wanting to add entries to the dictionary, for example:


 * If there is something you want to write that doesn't exist in the dictionary
 * If you would prefer to write something a different way

Adjust your hardware
Although it's possible to reach 100 WPM on a keyboard that is not optimized for stenography, it can become uncomfortable and affect your endurance. At this point, you may want to invest in a Category:Hobbyist Machine or a Category:Stenotype Machine.

Explore other theories
Plover gives you one set of rules that determines what strokes you use to write words (a theory).

You may have found that you don't like some of these rules. For example, you might want to brief everything, or you might prefer more phonetic briefs, or more orthographic. Or maybe you want to see different ways of writing the same thing to see what you would prefer. There are other (mostly commercial) theories which have different rules which you could explore.

This doesn't mean that Plover theory is insufficient, or bad — it's based on the StenEd, which is taught in many court reporting and captioning schools, and it's been used professionally. What theory is good is often down to personal preference and how it works with your brain.

See Choosing a steno theory and Theories and dictionaries (from The Art of Chording) for more about different theories and why you might choose them.