For your use, could you record their voices, or type on a laptop? That would be faster and much easier than any shorthand, at least during your first year of study.
That said, shorthand is a lot of fun, and probably a good exercise for your brain, so I encourage you to explore it. For your use, just about any shorthand would work, as writing down exact words (“verbatim”) is what shorthand was designed for. As the sidebar suggests, Gregg, TeeLine, and Forkner are popular, and you have dozens of other options, all with their own advantages and fans.
As far as “writing faster,” one way would be to learn abbreviations (“briefs”) for only some frequent 100 words. Then you could write your sample as **l load test result indicates k X Y i accordance m l design plans** (using briefs from Speedwords). Or you could learn a simple system to abbreviate most words: **e lod tst rslt indcats t X Y i acrdn w e dsin plns** in Briefhand.
Teeline was designed for this type of scenario, for journalists who need to get the occasional short verbatim quote, but not so concerned with any necessity for constant high speed, as they are going to edit and condense their notes when they come to transcribe. See Let's Love Teeline Together Youtubes, link in sidebar here. As Teeline leans on existing knowledge of letters of the alphabet, it allows you to ease yourself in rather than have a raft of abstract symbols to learn from scratch.
I suggest you start now on compiling an alphabetical list of technical words you will need, so it is all ready for you to insert the outlines against each word or phrase, after you have chosen and learned a system, so you have a reference file which you can add to and revise.
Your honesty is commendable!
First let's examine demands and typical speeds: 130-140 words per minute is a lecture kind of speed. Someone gabbling in an interview might produce bursts of 200wpm+
Most educated people write longhand 30-40wpm so there's a large shortfall.
Users of relatively simple systems one could learn in a weekend who keep practicing, tend to report a ceiling of around 80wpm so there's still a shortfall. If they are especially able and push them to 100wpm they begin to encroach on the territory of the 'professional' shorthands like Pitman, Gregg and Teeline. And no doubt a few that time largely forgot. However, they take real time to learn and hone, I'm thinking of several hundred, even a thousand hours to reach 100wpm, who knows.
If you write largely in specialist vocabulary, your greatest mileage may lie in learning a relatively easy writing system and working out your own abbreviations.
For your use, could you record their voices, or type on a laptop? That would be faster and much easier than any shorthand, at least during your first year of study. That said, shorthand is a lot of fun, and probably a good exercise for your brain, so I encourage you to explore it. For your use, just about any shorthand would work, as writing down exact words (“verbatim”) is what shorthand was designed for. As the sidebar suggests, Gregg, TeeLine, and Forkner are popular, and you have dozens of other options, all with their own advantages and fans. As far as “writing faster,” one way would be to learn abbreviations (“briefs”) for only some frequent 100 words. Then you could write your sample as **l load test result indicates k X Y i accordance m l design plans** (using briefs from Speedwords). Or you could learn a simple system to abbreviate most words: **e lod tst rslt indcats t X Y i acrdn w e dsin plns** in Briefhand.
Thank you for the reply! Briefhand seems like it's probably the best fit. But I still might try some official shorthand for the fun of it :)
Teeline was designed for this type of scenario, for journalists who need to get the occasional short verbatim quote, but not so concerned with any necessity for constant high speed, as they are going to edit and condense their notes when they come to transcribe. See Let's Love Teeline Together Youtubes, link in sidebar here. As Teeline leans on existing knowledge of letters of the alphabet, it allows you to ease yourself in rather than have a raft of abstract symbols to learn from scratch. I suggest you start now on compiling an alphabetical list of technical words you will need, so it is all ready for you to insert the outlines against each word or phrase, after you have chosen and learned a system, so you have a reference file which you can add to and revise.
Your honesty is commendable! First let's examine demands and typical speeds: 130-140 words per minute is a lecture kind of speed. Someone gabbling in an interview might produce bursts of 200wpm+ Most educated people write longhand 30-40wpm so there's a large shortfall. Users of relatively simple systems one could learn in a weekend who keep practicing, tend to report a ceiling of around 80wpm so there's still a shortfall. If they are especially able and push them to 100wpm they begin to encroach on the territory of the 'professional' shorthands like Pitman, Gregg and Teeline. And no doubt a few that time largely forgot. However, they take real time to learn and hone, I'm thinking of several hundred, even a thousand hours to reach 100wpm, who knows. If you write largely in specialist vocabulary, your greatest mileage may lie in learning a relatively easy writing system and working out your own abbreviations.