There was a post on the Eclipse FB group about being able to search the transcript for times when multiple words had been deleted, in order to help find things that needed to be globalled/worked on. It hadn't ever occurred to me before, but Julie pointed out that you could just search for the steno **. Duh! I started doing it a couple days ago, and it's been absolutely amazing.
It takes me five or six times longer to scan through a transcript now, but I'm also finding (and fixing) five or six times more mistakes than before, so it's worth it. It makes it really easy to see mistakes that you make repeatedly, and it's also easier to pick out patterns with stacking or splitting. I'm getting a *lot* more splitting than I was aware of. When I was writing and something would come out wrong, I wouldn't necessarily know why at the time, but I figured the most likely reason was that I stroked or missed an extra key. It turns out a lot of it is splitting!
I think there are lots of settings I can adjust on the IE to address splitting. One that I know about is minLR. I had tried to adjust it down to fix stacking, but it never worked, and I started getting noticeable splitting. I've been gradually turning it up every time I recognize splitting, but it turns out there were tons of times when I didn't know it was happening. I've been turning it up more over the past few days, and I think it might be causing more stacking.
I'm interested to really look into all the things I can tweak for splitting and stacking, but I'm going to wait until I get the Gen O. Then I'll call support and have them help me out.
Tons of other things are also coming from searching for double-deletes. It reminds me about words I knew I was consistently misstroking, but never seriously thought about changing, like TEPD. It should be "tend," but it translates as "tepid." Whenever I've seen it before, I thought, "well, it's a valid outline for tepid, so I'm going to leave it." But the odds are good that I would write "tepid" as TEP/ID, anyway, and I know it's come out wrong over and over again when I meant to right "tend," so I finally changed TEPD to "tend" and made T*EPD "tepid."
Another one I did it with was APS for "Annapolis." It's a great brief, and I do IPS for Indianapolis, too, but I frequently get "Annapolis" when I was trying to write "answer." When it happens, I just think "that darn Annapolist again" and delete it, so it doesn't show up in the transcript and I don't think about changing it. But when I found it this time, it didn't take long for me to realize that I should make A*PS "Annapolist" so that APS can just be "answer."
That's the real beauty of it. There are so many mistakes that I erase, so the consumer never sees them, but that means I don't see them to fix them in my dictionary, either. And I certainly don't remember any of them by the time I'm done writing. Another "hidden" thing that I can see now is briefs that I tried, but hadn't entered into my dictionary yet. I knew I had a brief for "Boca Raton," and BO*EK/RA*T made perfect sense, so I stroked it, but that wasn't right. I wrote out "Boca Raton" instead, and I would normally have no way of remembering I should go ahead and enter in BO*EK/RA*T, too. But this way I can see things like that and enter them.
And it's not just for briefs - it works for new ways of writing things that haven't been assigned to all the words yet, like SAIRBL for the "-sational" in sensational. I had really stopped trying to write things the short way, because they never came out right. But now at least if I write them and they're not in my dictionary yet, I'll know I can catch them later and put them in.
I'm also finding tons more words to add to my practice list. It's mostly not words that were difficult to stroke, because I often misstroked those and am able to add the misstroke to my dictionary. But what I am getting is reminders about words that I forget how to write, like "upwards." I could write it as *UP/WARDZ, UP/WA*RDZ, or *UP/WA*RDZ, but because it takes more effort to include the asterisk, the last time I wrote it, I just did UP/WARDZ, which is "up wards." So I put it on my practice list, and hopefully the week of reinforcement will be enough that I reflexively include the asterisk next time. Even though I know it needs to be there, the fact that I didn't put it in and had to back up to re-write it means it needs to be reinforced.
I've already recognized some misstrokes that I make a lot, but always erase, so I never fixed them, and I just keep writing them and having to delete and re-write them all the time, like REP/SHIP for relationship. I found that twice in one transcript, and then REG/SHIP in the next one. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was one that I get wrong all the time, but it never stuck with me long enough to define it.
So now when I edit a transcript for my own improvement (which I do with every event that I write), I follow these steps:
-Do separate searches for glued A and E to find most fingerspelled words
-Search for */*
-Search for untrans and unresolved conflicts
-Spellcheck in Eclipse
-Spellcheck in Word
I could also just search for * and I'm sure I would find even more strokes to fix, but I think correcting things that really tripped me up and forced me to delete multiple strokes is a good starting place for now. I've made 404 entries in three days using that technique!
Showing posts with label Misstrokes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Misstrokes. Show all posts
Bloopers
I can't remember the last time I actually got to the point where I had written everything I could think of; I always run out of time to write before that happens. But, here we are. I've been saving up some errors that I thought were funny, and now that it's been so long since I actually made these mistakes, I can post them without feeling bad about my work.
I was also trying to write that someone "was a Carolina Cobra" and it came out "was a kookaburra" thanks to TM, although when you think about it, it's not any more silly for someone to be a kookaburra than to be a cobra.
Apparently, I also noted that I learned the word exoteric (commonplace). Previously, I only knew about esoteric, which means the exact opposite (confidential).
- the line is beefing up = the shine beef (dragged S in "line")
- "Malinowski was going to be put in the camp as an Emmy alien" (EM instead of EN)
- "I'm going to go bang to my paper" (dragged P in "back")
- contradict trialternative (same stroke for tri- and -try)
- cyber operations = quiche operations (hit K instead of S)
- "Anything else on your ox vacations -- observations?" (dragged G)
- Forgot my stroke for "-ment" and wrote about the Garmin industry in 1911
- Evolution = "evil Louis that we've seen in workload scheduling" (dragged L)
- Santa Day O'Connor (missed K)
- motivation = meat vacation (A for O)
I was also trying to write that someone "was a Carolina Cobra" and it came out "was a kookaburra" thanks to TM, although when you think about it, it's not any more silly for someone to be a kookaburra than to be a cobra.
Apparently, I also noted that I learned the word exoteric (commonplace). Previously, I only knew about esoteric, which means the exact opposite (confidential).
Learn Your Software
I've learned some pretty cool stuff from the Eclipse FB group. I strongly recommend checking it out if you're on Eclipse. I also watched the full 8 hours of Eclipse basic training tutorials (bo-ring!). It was mostly about title pages and auto indexing and stuff I don't use, or stuff I already know how to do, but I did pick up a couple ideas.
I have a stroke that takes me to the bottom of my realtime feed/has me follow it, and it was always bad when I forgot to hit that after I scrolled up to look at something. But I found out about the "follow always" checkbox in the realtime tab, and now that's not a problem anymore.
I learned that you can make conflicts if you want a certain thing to happen after a number. I use P-KT for % and PER/KRENT for percent, but sometimes it's so much easier to hit P-KT, that I just don't get PER/KRENT in there. I think I've got it set up now that I can write "a large P-KT" or something and it will come up "a large percent," so that's cool. I've been trying to see new opportunities for conflicts overall. Sometimes I miss the F in I've (AO*IV) and get "aye," but why not make it a conflict with the first choice being "aye"? Just today I changed YO*U from ewe to \ewe\you're, because I miss that R so often.
The best idea I got from the FB group was about suffixes. I think someone just said something about their suffix rules table, and it reminded me about how I keep getting things like "organizationtion" when I accidentally drag an extra G into ORGS/S, making it ORGS/GS. So I made a rule that when the word ends in -tion, the suffix should delete the -tion and add an -s, and voila! ORGS/GS is organizations now, and I won't get orientationtion or objectiontion or anything like that, either.
I've come up with tons of applications for that now that I've realized I can do it. No more defectiveive if I already tucked the V and forgot about it (DE/F*EFKT/IV), no more passageage if I got confused and did PAJ/AJ, no more strategicically, or longerer if I didn't realize I tucked the R (LORNG/ER). I don't think -tor was in there as a real suffix; it was in my dictionary, but it wasn't in the suffix table, so it didn't have any suffix rules. I kept getting things like compacttor and reacttor because instead of RE/AK/TOR, I'd write RAEKT/TOR.
But I fixed that rule, so it works for -tor and -tors. And I was getting things like "humorral," so I told it if you're going to add -ral and the word already ends in "r," delete the first "r." I feel like someone who does realtime already has all these suffixes in their suffix table and suffix spelling rules, and I must've missed out on them in an update or something. I should ask on depoman or the FB group for someone's tables, but I'm afraid it might mess things up. I don't see how it could, though, really; it would only change the suffixes in English. It wouldn't have anything to do with my steno outlines. I guess I'd just have to make sure all the things I've changed were still in there.
I also changed my background color from white to gray. Someone on the FB group said it's easier on the eyes. I've heard stuff like that before, but I never really thought about actually changing it until I saw it there. I really do like it better.
I have a ton of different settings files I use for different companies, so it's a pain to change suffix tables or whatever in all of them. I asked about it on FB, and Dave Stanley said that I could just have a global.set that all settings would use for certain things. It seemed like a great idea, except that it overwrites your realtime settings if you let it change your translation settings. It also overwrites your job dictionaries no matter what you do, which is a drag.
I learned how to finally get TM to stop messing with my stroke for "a," which is awesome. I told it to stop pulling "an" and "everyone" into other words, too. I actually turned TM up a bit. The new sliders are kind of confusing, but I understand them now. My main problem was that TM wasn't being aggressive enough; there were tons of words it just left alone. So I unchecked "require an untran," and I bumped it up from whatever it was at (it might've been as low as 1%) to 30%, and I think it's doing better now.
I found out there's a dictionary entry you can use to reject the last AB suggestion and get a new one all at once, and I also found a macro for requesting a brief for the last word, which I think will come in handy.
I have a stroke that takes me to the bottom of my realtime feed/has me follow it, and it was always bad when I forgot to hit that after I scrolled up to look at something. But I found out about the "follow always" checkbox in the realtime tab, and now that's not a problem anymore.
I learned that you can make conflicts if you want a certain thing to happen after a number. I use P-KT for % and PER/KRENT for percent, but sometimes it's so much easier to hit P-KT, that I just don't get PER/KRENT in there. I think I've got it set up now that I can write "a large P-KT" or something and it will come up "a large percent," so that's cool. I've been trying to see new opportunities for conflicts overall. Sometimes I miss the F in I've (AO*IV) and get "aye," but why not make it a conflict with the first choice being "aye"? Just today I changed YO*U from ewe to \ewe\you're, because I miss that R so often.
The best idea I got from the FB group was about suffixes. I think someone just said something about their suffix rules table, and it reminded me about how I keep getting things like "organizationtion" when I accidentally drag an extra G into ORGS/S, making it ORGS/GS. So I made a rule that when the word ends in -tion, the suffix should delete the -tion and add an -s, and voila! ORGS/GS is organizations now, and I won't get orientationtion or objectiontion or anything like that, either.
I've come up with tons of applications for that now that I've realized I can do it. No more defectiveive if I already tucked the V and forgot about it (DE/F*EFKT/IV), no more passageage if I got confused and did PAJ/AJ, no more strategicically, or longerer if I didn't realize I tucked the R (LORNG/ER). I don't think -tor was in there as a real suffix; it was in my dictionary, but it wasn't in the suffix table, so it didn't have any suffix rules. I kept getting things like compacttor and reacttor because instead of RE/AK/TOR, I'd write RAEKT/TOR.
But I fixed that rule, so it works for -tor and -tors. And I was getting things like "humorral," so I told it if you're going to add -ral and the word already ends in "r," delete the first "r." I feel like someone who does realtime already has all these suffixes in their suffix table and suffix spelling rules, and I must've missed out on them in an update or something. I should ask on depoman or the FB group for someone's tables, but I'm afraid it might mess things up. I don't see how it could, though, really; it would only change the suffixes in English. It wouldn't have anything to do with my steno outlines. I guess I'd just have to make sure all the things I've changed were still in there.
I also changed my background color from white to gray. Someone on the FB group said it's easier on the eyes. I've heard stuff like that before, but I never really thought about actually changing it until I saw it there. I really do like it better.
I have a ton of different settings files I use for different companies, so it's a pain to change suffix tables or whatever in all of them. I asked about it on FB, and Dave Stanley said that I could just have a global.set that all settings would use for certain things. It seemed like a great idea, except that it overwrites your realtime settings if you let it change your translation settings. It also overwrites your job dictionaries no matter what you do, which is a drag.
I learned how to finally get TM to stop messing with my stroke for "a," which is awesome. I told it to stop pulling "an" and "everyone" into other words, too. I actually turned TM up a bit. The new sliders are kind of confusing, but I understand them now. My main problem was that TM wasn't being aggressive enough; there were tons of words it just left alone. So I unchecked "require an untran," and I bumped it up from whatever it was at (it might've been as low as 1%) to 30%, and I think it's doing better now.
I found out there's a dictionary entry you can use to reject the last AB suggestion and get a new one all at once, and I also found a macro for requesting a brief for the last word, which I think will come in handy.
PT: So Far So Not So Good
I decided not to try the Topamax. I don't really want to mess with any more meds, especially if it's not likely they're going to help, anyway. The physical therapist recommended some posture changes (don't arch my back so much; put my shoulders back more; tilt my head down) and some exercises to do to relax my neck and chest muscles, and strengthen my upper back muscles. She did some muscle work on my neck for a couple sessions, but she said I "wasn't responding like a normal case," since that wound up not helping at all. Last time I went I saw a different practitioner, and she said I have thoracic output problems, which is making my arm go numb.
She did some stuff that made my shoulder hurt, and suggested I do nerve flossing twice a day. That was a couple days ago, and my shoulder still hurts. So, so far, all I've managed to do is add an additional problem. Go physical therapy. But I'll keep going and see how it pans out.
It's kind of tough to adjust to my new writing posture. I have good days and bad days. I have lots of weird misstrokes. I was looking at my averages for my last 5 rounds of 8 shows, though, starting back on 4/24, and it goes 98.28, 98.31, 98.40, 98.6, 98.61. So that's got to signify some kind of improvement. I've been trying to slow down and really go for accuracy, and I felt like it might be leading to more paraphrasing, or leaving out an unimportant sentence here or there, but I'm actually writing 400+ more words per show than I used to, which just seems crazy.
When I stroked out RAOE/YOE/DAI/JE/NAIR/ROE the other day, I was pretty surprised to find that it translated perfectly. Guess I've written it that way before. It's nice when things like that happen. I used to not be able to remember to write "aide" at all. It would always come out aid, without thinking. But I'm actually writing "aide" now, so that's cool.
One thing that's not so cool is I've developed a problem with coming back for -G for -ing. At least once or twice a practice session, I hit -D instead of -G. I guess it's just easier, but it really messes with the transcript. I add that word to my "words to practice" list every time I catch it, though, so hopefully that will reinforce the -G.
I also tend to write "OFT T" (of the the) a lot. I've started defining phrases that way whenever I misstroke them like that, so I decided to be proactive, and I'm going through my dictionary, finding any "the" phrases, and defining them appropriately so there won't be a double "the" if I stroke it after the phrase.
She did some stuff that made my shoulder hurt, and suggested I do nerve flossing twice a day. That was a couple days ago, and my shoulder still hurts. So, so far, all I've managed to do is add an additional problem. Go physical therapy. But I'll keep going and see how it pans out.
It's kind of tough to adjust to my new writing posture. I have good days and bad days. I have lots of weird misstrokes. I was looking at my averages for my last 5 rounds of 8 shows, though, starting back on 4/24, and it goes 98.28, 98.31, 98.40, 98.6, 98.61. So that's got to signify some kind of improvement. I've been trying to slow down and really go for accuracy, and I felt like it might be leading to more paraphrasing, or leaving out an unimportant sentence here or there, but I'm actually writing 400+ more words per show than I used to, which just seems crazy.
When I stroked out RAOE/YOE/DAI/JE/NAIR/ROE the other day, I was pretty surprised to find that it translated perfectly. Guess I've written it that way before. It's nice when things like that happen. I used to not be able to remember to write "aide" at all. It would always come out aid, without thinking. But I'm actually writing "aide" now, so that's cool.
One thing that's not so cool is I've developed a problem with coming back for -G for -ing. At least once or twice a practice session, I hit -D instead of -G. I guess it's just easier, but it really messes with the transcript. I add that word to my "words to practice" list every time I catch it, though, so hopefully that will reinforce the -G.
I also tend to write "OFT T" (of the the) a lot. I've started defining phrases that way whenever I misstroke them like that, so I decided to be proactive, and I'm going through my dictionary, finding any "the" phrases, and defining them appropriately so there won't be a double "the" if I stroke it after the phrase.
7.28.13
I struck out at the EMG test, which I guess was a good thing. The neurologist doesn't think it's carpal tunnel or a pinched nerve. He said he'd "think about it" and I should wear the wrist brace at night for three weeks and then come back and see if he came up with any new ideas. I don't think I'm going to pay to make that happen. I scheduled a PT appointment for this week, so we'll see how that goes. The neurologist also wrote me a prescription to try Topamax, but I haven't gotten it filled yet.
I've been having a good streak where I remember things that have given me trouble in the past, like TS and DZ, and remember to write them out in two strokes during realtime practice. I'm doing the same thing with words that are conflicts the "normal" way I would think to write them; nothing as simple as plague/playing, but that's the idea. I just have a general feeling that I shouldn't write it the easy way. I don't remember why right then, but it pays off. Before I would just kind of be stubborn about it and write it the easy way anyway, and then have to scramble to try to fix it.
I've had a small epiphany (can that be a thing?) about numbers, too, and I'm writing them one at a time more instead of garbling them. 12 is *really* difficult for me to write with my hand the way it is, and I realized I can just write it in two strokes, with much less chance of misstroking it.
I got Pyongyang right twice during practice today (without getting it wrong, to boot). I write it out a long way: PAOE/YONG/YANG. It's hard to start. It's almost like I want to bolt whenever I have to write it. But it's not so bad once I actually do it. I also fingerspelled a lot of names in practice today; some I knew right away weren't in there and fingerspelled the whole thing, like Lindy Boggs. Others I tried to do first (Pedro Vargas) and wound up fingerspelling them after they didn't come out right. I always do a thing where I think "I have -da defined, so I can just write Brunda, that'll come out fine."
My writing is really stilted with my hand being messed up, though. I wind up with a lot of dashes in the transcript that aren't preceeded by any mistakes. I just get lost and things start to feel wrong and I might hit one wrong letter and erase it, and then dash. At least I can pull it together and do it without dropping anything. Sometimes I don't catch the mistakes, though, and I wind up just hitting an S before writing SRAR, or hitting an N after writing something with N in it. I've got an average of 98.56% accuracy for my last five practice shows, though, so I'm keeping it together pretty well.
Words that end in -nal weren't coming out right, even though I don't think I've changed anything from theory (I just do NAL), so I re-wrote all 472 of those. I also wanted to start doing -tary with an asterisk to avoid any conflicts with tear, so I fixed 145 of those entries.
I've been having a good streak where I remember things that have given me trouble in the past, like TS and DZ, and remember to write them out in two strokes during realtime practice. I'm doing the same thing with words that are conflicts the "normal" way I would think to write them; nothing as simple as plague/playing, but that's the idea. I just have a general feeling that I shouldn't write it the easy way. I don't remember why right then, but it pays off. Before I would just kind of be stubborn about it and write it the easy way anyway, and then have to scramble to try to fix it.
I've had a small epiphany (can that be a thing?) about numbers, too, and I'm writing them one at a time more instead of garbling them. 12 is *really* difficult for me to write with my hand the way it is, and I realized I can just write it in two strokes, with much less chance of misstroking it.
I got Pyongyang right twice during practice today (without getting it wrong, to boot). I write it out a long way: PAOE/YONG/YANG. It's hard to start. It's almost like I want to bolt whenever I have to write it. But it's not so bad once I actually do it. I also fingerspelled a lot of names in practice today; some I knew right away weren't in there and fingerspelled the whole thing, like Lindy Boggs. Others I tried to do first (Pedro Vargas) and wound up fingerspelling them after they didn't come out right. I always do a thing where I think "I have -da defined, so I can just write Brunda, that'll come out fine."
My writing is really stilted with my hand being messed up, though. I wind up with a lot of dashes in the transcript that aren't preceeded by any mistakes. I just get lost and things start to feel wrong and I might hit one wrong letter and erase it, and then dash. At least I can pull it together and do it without dropping anything. Sometimes I don't catch the mistakes, though, and I wind up just hitting an S before writing SRAR, or hitting an N after writing something with N in it. I've got an average of 98.56% accuracy for my last five practice shows, though, so I'm keeping it together pretty well.
Words that end in -nal weren't coming out right, even though I don't think I've changed anything from theory (I just do NAL), so I re-wrote all 472 of those. I also wanted to start doing -tary with an asterisk to avoid any conflicts with tear, so I fixed 145 of those entries.
7.21.13
I did wind up calling the doctor about my arm, because it was really starting to be a problem. I got the runaround for a few days, and then they suggested I stop taking gabapentin and try Elavil. The first day I tried it was a disaster; the pain was so bad I went back to gabapentin right away. But after a week of that I was right back where I started before I took anything at all, and I decided to give the Elavil another shot.
Today was my fourth day taking it. Saturdays are usually my day off steno practice, so that could have something to do with it, but it finally felt a *little* bit better today during practice. I go in for the EMG test on Thursday, and find out the results the Monday after that, so I've got another week of painful practice at the least.
My accuracy was consistently above 98.5 for about five shows, but then the pain started getting worse. Friday it was at 97.5, and today was good but I had a drop that invalidated the results. I don't count shows with drops in my averages. There always seems to come a point during anything I'm writing where I get overwhelmed, and I feel like I can't do it, and I want to give up. I usually wind up dropping a sentence, or half a sentence, during that time, but I'm working to push through it and just keep going instead.
I'm still struggling to catch onto the benefit of fingerspelling instead of just blindly stroking things out. It elimates having to think about the words, it's faster, and it's more accurate, but it's hard to train myself to do. I did get "Laudenberg" out perfectly just stroking it out the other day, so that was cool. But it's the exception, not the rule. I also wrote "helicopters" has "helihopters" and TM tanslated that as "hell hospitallers," which I found amusing.
The longer I go without going through my theory book, the more muddled my theory becomes. I find myself just blindly stroking things and hoping they come out right instead of remembering what I'm actually supposed to be stroking. I realized three of the briefs on my practice list were so hard to write because I was writing them incorrectly.
Today was my fourth day taking it. Saturdays are usually my day off steno practice, so that could have something to do with it, but it finally felt a *little* bit better today during practice. I go in for the EMG test on Thursday, and find out the results the Monday after that, so I've got another week of painful practice at the least.
My accuracy was consistently above 98.5 for about five shows, but then the pain started getting worse. Friday it was at 97.5, and today was good but I had a drop that invalidated the results. I don't count shows with drops in my averages. There always seems to come a point during anything I'm writing where I get overwhelmed, and I feel like I can't do it, and I want to give up. I usually wind up dropping a sentence, or half a sentence, during that time, but I'm working to push through it and just keep going instead.
I'm still struggling to catch onto the benefit of fingerspelling instead of just blindly stroking things out. It elimates having to think about the words, it's faster, and it's more accurate, but it's hard to train myself to do. I did get "Laudenberg" out perfectly just stroking it out the other day, so that was cool. But it's the exception, not the rule. I also wrote "helicopters" has "helihopters" and TM tanslated that as "hell hospitallers," which I found amusing.
The longer I go without going through my theory book, the more muddled my theory becomes. I find myself just blindly stroking things and hoping they come out right instead of remembering what I'm actually supposed to be stroking. I realized three of the briefs on my practice list were so hard to write because I was writing them incorrectly.
I had NALGS for national, which should've just been NARBL (NASHL). Nation is NAGS or NAIGS, but that doesn't really translate to national. I was trying to smush RB (PRAOERBGS) into "appreciation," I guess because it has a similar sound to precious, gracious, etc. which I write as RBS. It's not necessary, though, and it's a lot easier to just write PRAOEGS than worry about what fingers are supposed to be where on that bank. And I was also doing deposit as SDPOZ because of words like disappoint, destroy, etc. which start with SD. It's not necessary at all, though. DPOZ works just fine. It's a good thing I review takes and make note of things that are hard to write; sometimes they're only hard because I've been trying to write them incorrectly.
I decided I should write all consonant + ize endings with an asterisk, which the AI couldn't figure out at all, so I went through and re-wrote all 720 entries that end in -ize, consonant + or not. I also decided there was no reason not to end words in -IT, so I updated 488 of those entries; and I made sure all 161 -ca entries work properly with C*A.
4.30.13
I finally got to do some CART work. My first day, I wound up covering four events. Two classes, one bidder's meeting that ran short, and one council meeting that I covered the last hour of because it ran long. I wound up working from about 8 in the morning until 11 at night, trying to get all the transcripts out. It was a crazy day.
I was supposed to cover a class the next day, but it got cancelled. I did a couple the day after that, and that was last week. I did another one this morning. I haven't officially checked my accuracy, but it's looking good. I didn't have any drops, and everything made sense. I think the semester's about to end, though. There might not be any classes to cover after this week.
It took me less than the length of the class to edit my transcript today. It probably shouldn't take as long as it does, but I like to go through and global everything, and make the transcript look perfect. It'll take less time the more practice I get.
I'm also trying to focus on practicing for the CBC. That's been going well. The 180 takes are a lot easier this time around than they were in January. I'm just trying to focus on staying calm. Lots of times I've written a take for the first time, and thought I didn't get it, but I did. So that's giving me confidence to just keep focusing, keep going, and know that there's a real possibility that even though it doesn't feel like it, I might pass the take.
I finished -i endings, and I'm working on 1765 for -o now. I don't remember why I wrote down that I need to work on -o. I write it "OE," which hasn't changed. But it doesn't hurt to write a bunch of words; lots of them aren't defined the way I'm writing them.
I found a bizarre dictionary hole. "Pens" wasn't in my dictionary as PENZ, and it translated as "ends." I also discovered, during CBC practice, that I need to take out my glue stroke when I take the test. I have it in as DRA*ES, since I use it before a web address. DRAES is just "address." I wrote DRA*ES in a take without realizing it, and glued the entire rest of the take together! That would've been an instant fail.
I'm still working on positioning. My left arm still isn't cooperating. I can almost never seem to get it in a position that's comfortable. I don't know what the problem is, but I wish I knew what to do about it, because it makes it really hard to write for more than about 10 minutes at a time. It's supposed to be so much better to write on the LS, but it's just not working.
It didn't work on the Stentura, either, so it's not the LS' fault, but I know I would write a lot better if I could ever get the positioning down. It's gotten to the point where I dread having to CART a class because I know it's going to hurt. It shouldn't be that way, but I just don't know how to fix it. It only hurts when I write, so it's got to be something about the way I sit or hold that arm when I write. I don't have any problem at all with the right arm. If only I could figure it out!
I was supposed to cover a class the next day, but it got cancelled. I did a couple the day after that, and that was last week. I did another one this morning. I haven't officially checked my accuracy, but it's looking good. I didn't have any drops, and everything made sense. I think the semester's about to end, though. There might not be any classes to cover after this week.
It took me less than the length of the class to edit my transcript today. It probably shouldn't take as long as it does, but I like to go through and global everything, and make the transcript look perfect. It'll take less time the more practice I get.
I'm also trying to focus on practicing for the CBC. That's been going well. The 180 takes are a lot easier this time around than they were in January. I'm just trying to focus on staying calm. Lots of times I've written a take for the first time, and thought I didn't get it, but I did. So that's giving me confidence to just keep focusing, keep going, and know that there's a real possibility that even though it doesn't feel like it, I might pass the take.
I finished -i endings, and I'm working on 1765 for -o now. I don't remember why I wrote down that I need to work on -o. I write it "OE," which hasn't changed. But it doesn't hurt to write a bunch of words; lots of them aren't defined the way I'm writing them.
I found a bizarre dictionary hole. "Pens" wasn't in my dictionary as PENZ, and it translated as "ends." I also discovered, during CBC practice, that I need to take out my glue stroke when I take the test. I have it in as DRA*ES, since I use it before a web address. DRAES is just "address." I wrote DRA*ES in a take without realizing it, and glued the entire rest of the take together! That would've been an instant fail.
I'm still working on positioning. My left arm still isn't cooperating. I can almost never seem to get it in a position that's comfortable. I don't know what the problem is, but I wish I knew what to do about it, because it makes it really hard to write for more than about 10 minutes at a time. It's supposed to be so much better to write on the LS, but it's just not working.
It didn't work on the Stentura, either, so it's not the LS' fault, but I know I would write a lot better if I could ever get the positioning down. It's gotten to the point where I dread having to CART a class because I know it's going to hurt. It shouldn't be that way, but I just don't know how to fix it. It only hurts when I write, so it's got to be something about the way I sit or hold that arm when I write. I don't have any problem at all with the right arm. If only I could figure it out!
4.20.13
I have had a couple of minor successes. I seem to be writing faster when I "talk to myself" during practice. It used to be always around 150, but now it's consistently getting up to 214. Maybe that's a sign of a faster writing mentality overall. I'm also getting better at realizing that a word probably isn't in my dictionary - or at least not the way that first comes to mind to write it - and fingerspelling it on the fly. I did a great job getting Adriatic and panacea like that the other day, without skipping a beat.
I also had the brilliant idea to start defining things that I often immediately dash, like cruise for crews. Crews is supposed to have an asterisk, and lots of times I'll remember that - right after I stroke cruise. So I defined "cruise -- crews" as "crews." I've done that with about 40 entries now. It hasn't actually helped yet, but it should in theory. According to the dictionary, the only stroke like that I've ever actually used is H-F D-RB, which would be me stroking a hyphen followed by a dash, which I wanted to translate as only a dash. Since creating it a month ago, I've used it 14 times. Apparently I write "hyphen dash" a lot.
I'm also trying to fix a problem where I'll write something, know or hear that a new speaker is coming up, stroke the >>, and then read that something in the previous speaker didn't translate properly. I have time to fix it, but not time to delete the >> and fix it, and without thinking, I just dash and fix it. It's weird, though. The new speaker isn't saying the correction. I have to just let it go. I'm past the point where it makes sense to fix it. So, what I'm trying to do is wait until everything tranlates out before I stroke the >>. I'm not having much success with that yet.
I finished all my -ia corrections, and now I'm working on 1086 entries that end in "i." I put most of these things on my list so long ago I don't remember exactly what was wrong with them anymore. Back in my "defining suffixes" days, I defined all the "-i"s as consonant + I + *P, so -ni is N*IP. I was really only intending to use it for name-building, but I use it for pretty much everything now. Unfortunately, nothing is defined that way, so it creates a lot of problems.
Practice and Theory
I'm
still having major problems with my dictionary. So many conflicts are
caused by the StenEd theory. I'm still working to get an asterisk in
every word ending that's also a standalone word - Nate, Kate, date,
nation, etc. It really helps to see my mistakes live as I make them,
though. Previously, after every take I would go through and check my
mistakes, and make note of words I wanted to practice. But it's
different when you're trying to write "live" and you actually see the
mistake come up. It has much more of an effect, and I'm more likely to
remember next time I write it that I need to write it differently,
because I don't want that mistake to happen again.
I'm also writing a larger volume of material now, because I only write a show once and move on. I don't repeat the same show over and over for weeks, or even twice. Seeing just how many words are coming up incorrectly solely because they're not in my dictionary the way I want to write them has made me feel like I need to just go through the whole dictionary and re-write every word to make sure it's going to come out right. I keep a record every show of how many of those "wrote it right but it wasn't in my dictionary that way" words there are, and after 32 shows, I've got an average of .32% right now. It's not horrendous, but it seems like it should be a lot closer to zero.
I've been at the process of re-writing all the words in my dictionary for about 6 weeks now, and I've made it through 7,000 entries. Only a year left to go before it's done at that rate!
I've developed an entirely new theory on defining conflicts. I now define a lot of misstrokes as conflicts. I figure, if it was only going to be defined as "fun" before, what's the harm in having the AI choose between "fun" and "gun" since what I wrote wasn't the correct outline for anything, let alone "fun" or "gun," in the first place?
I am staying away from defining correct outlines as conflicts, though, and trying to come up with different ways of writing things instead. I occasionally stack "N" and "A," like with "taken a," so I'm trying to write "A*N" for "an," but it's not sticking at all. I even write five sentences every day with "an" in them, and most of the time I can remember the asterisk when I write the sentences, but it's been months, and I haven't written it properly once during the news.
Instead of my old practice of going through a take and re-writing each incorrect word five times (that took forever), now I just try to remember as I go through and count errors/make dictionary entries, to also think about whether or not I need to practice that word more. If I do, I add it to a list. I have a list of 58 words I write five times each at the beginning of each practice session. I keep a record of when I added them to that list, and make sure I write them for at least five sessions before I take them off, although I often leave them on for longer. As words get deleted from that list, I add new ones that I found while writing the news.
There are all sorts of words on the list, from names that were hard to write (Ezekiel Emanuel) and new ways of trying to write things (MEN/TO*R, since TOR is a beginning for words like "torment"), to old ways of writing things that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of (EN/M*I so words like it won't conflict with "my"). It seems like an insurmountable task right now to get everything squared away in my dictionary and in my memory, but I guess I'll get there someday if I keep plugging away at it.
I'm still practicing two drills in the Phoenix book at the beginning of every practice session, and my average wpm on all of them is up to 178.5. It's been stuck there for a few weeks for some reason. I think having that cushion to drop words during the news (which I only do when I have to, of course) might be interfering with what little speedbuilding rhythm I had going. Whenever I get discouraged with it, though, I can look back to when I started using the book a year and a half ago, and my average was only 115 wpm. I am improving, whether it seems like it or not.
In support of my theory that I need to re-write all the words in my dictionary, is one particular word: Demetrius. I had it defined 15 different ways, and not one of them was the way I would write it today. I was originally going to identify word groups that I write differently, such as words that end in "cy" or "gy," and re-write only those groups as I identified them. I realized, though, that the problem was much larger than that. Before that, though, I fixed 60 "-cy" entries, 260 for "-gy," and 160 for "-ta," which I now write with an asterisk.
I also had about 1,000 entries ending in "ly" that I had defined with a tucked -L, but that I would never write. Those were causing lots of problems when I misstroked the -L in a word, so I spent some time getting rid of them. And I finally fixed my "di-" so it wasn't the same as my "-dy," but darned if I can remember to write it that way yet.
I'm also writing a larger volume of material now, because I only write a show once and move on. I don't repeat the same show over and over for weeks, or even twice. Seeing just how many words are coming up incorrectly solely because they're not in my dictionary the way I want to write them has made me feel like I need to just go through the whole dictionary and re-write every word to make sure it's going to come out right. I keep a record every show of how many of those "wrote it right but it wasn't in my dictionary that way" words there are, and after 32 shows, I've got an average of .32% right now. It's not horrendous, but it seems like it should be a lot closer to zero.
I've been at the process of re-writing all the words in my dictionary for about 6 weeks now, and I've made it through 7,000 entries. Only a year left to go before it's done at that rate!
I've developed an entirely new theory on defining conflicts. I now define a lot of misstrokes as conflicts. I figure, if it was only going to be defined as "fun" before, what's the harm in having the AI choose between "fun" and "gun" since what I wrote wasn't the correct outline for anything, let alone "fun" or "gun," in the first place?
I am staying away from defining correct outlines as conflicts, though, and trying to come up with different ways of writing things instead. I occasionally stack "N" and "A," like with "taken a," so I'm trying to write "A*N" for "an," but it's not sticking at all. I even write five sentences every day with "an" in them, and most of the time I can remember the asterisk when I write the sentences, but it's been months, and I haven't written it properly once during the news.
Instead of my old practice of going through a take and re-writing each incorrect word five times (that took forever), now I just try to remember as I go through and count errors/make dictionary entries, to also think about whether or not I need to practice that word more. If I do, I add it to a list. I have a list of 58 words I write five times each at the beginning of each practice session. I keep a record of when I added them to that list, and make sure I write them for at least five sessions before I take them off, although I often leave them on for longer. As words get deleted from that list, I add new ones that I found while writing the news.
There are all sorts of words on the list, from names that were hard to write (Ezekiel Emanuel) and new ways of trying to write things (MEN/TO*R, since TOR is a beginning for words like "torment"), to old ways of writing things that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of (EN/M*I so words like it won't conflict with "my"). It seems like an insurmountable task right now to get everything squared away in my dictionary and in my memory, but I guess I'll get there someday if I keep plugging away at it.
I'm still practicing two drills in the Phoenix book at the beginning of every practice session, and my average wpm on all of them is up to 178.5. It's been stuck there for a few weeks for some reason. I think having that cushion to drop words during the news (which I only do when I have to, of course) might be interfering with what little speedbuilding rhythm I had going. Whenever I get discouraged with it, though, I can look back to when I started using the book a year and a half ago, and my average was only 115 wpm. I am improving, whether it seems like it or not.
In support of my theory that I need to re-write all the words in my dictionary, is one particular word: Demetrius. I had it defined 15 different ways, and not one of them was the way I would write it today. I was originally going to identify word groups that I write differently, such as words that end in "cy" or "gy," and re-write only those groups as I identified them. I realized, though, that the problem was much larger than that. Before that, though, I fixed 60 "-cy" entries, 260 for "-gy," and 160 for "-ta," which I now write with an asterisk.
I also had about 1,000 entries ending in "ly" that I had defined with a tucked -L, but that I would never write. Those were causing lots of problems when I misstroked the -L in a word, so I spent some time getting rid of them. And I finally fixed my "di-" so it wasn't the same as my "-dy," but darned if I can remember to write it that way yet.
Finally, another big list of all the word endings
I went through and added asterisks to: –rat, -lator, -seen, -lent, -tor,
-clear, -tha, -sell, -cell, -mist, -gan, -trick, -dance, -phone, ax-, -con, -YOU, -el, -tel,
-tal, -don, -lop, -ger, -yam, -mat, –ture, -tin, -ten, -ron, -ster, -band,
-kate, -nate, -yum, -date, -late, -tize, and -ual (yule).
9.6
Not much to report today, at least in terms of improvement. I feel like I might finally be getting somewhere with the Report-It, but I'm not there yet. The minute I'm working on is so ridiculously difficult. I can't believe it's only at 230 wpm. I routinely write it at 214 or 250, and I regularly hit 300 at the end, too. I've never had 300 come up with any sort of regularity before, so I must be doing something right.
A couple times, I've managed to write "poultry was raping-free." I guess I should take raping out of the dictionary; no one wants to see that come up the next time someone says "range." I'm about to spend a week training myself to use the STK- for Z rather than S*, and I've apparently written the word "zoom" 508 times.
8.11
I finished my whole entire piece on Tuesday. It only took five weeks, which is good, and much better than the 14 weeks I spent on the one before it. Unfortunately, it was the last one that RTC labeled as 220 wpm, so now I have to move up to 225. That wouldn’t be so bad except that the first piece at "225" is actually 250 wpm for the first minute. :(
I’ve been working on it for a couple of days, and I’m not ready to give up yet, but it’s definitely difficult. I actually hit 214 at the end of it today. I misstroked "windowsills," and what I actually wrote was "vindowsills." TM translated it to "veindo Simms."
7.02
I finally finished my piece! I have been working on it for almost 14 weeks. That seems a little excessive. I got it at over 300 wpm and 96% accuracy. I start my speedbuilding every day by writing difficult words from the piece five times each. I don't take those words off the list until I finish the piece. I wound up with 53 words for this piece, and I decided I can write all but 16 of them well enough now. I’ve really been looking forward to not having to write all of those anymore.
You may remember that I came up with a great brief for "breast cancer" earlier in the piece. It turned out it wasn't so easy to stroke, but the misstrokes didn't conflict with anything, so I didn't worry about it. I now have 38 entries for it, and I wrote it the right way over 5,100 times. I wound up with a final total of 35 entries for mammogram, but I only wrote that 1,300 times.
You may remember that I came up with a great brief for "breast cancer" earlier in the piece. It turned out it wasn't so easy to stroke, but the misstrokes didn't conflict with anything, so I didn't worry about it. I now have 38 entries for it, and I wrote it the right way over 5,100 times. I wound up with a final total of 35 entries for mammogram, but I only wrote that 1,300 times.
My new piece seems like it’s going to be really hard, or at least the first minute is. There are a lot of names. It’s also at 235 wpm. I slowed it down to the next highest speed, and it was 211 wpm. I don’t want to drop down that low, so I guess I’m just stuck with 235. Today was my first day with it and I got up to 173 wpm. I had to slow it down to 140 in order to write it perfectly, though.
I figured out which drill I missed in the book. I only had a few drills left to check after that one, so I just went ahead and finished them, and tomorrow I go back to the ones I was really bad at. I’ve been working on a new strategy with the book, which is to kind of read ahead and get ready for the words that are coming up instead of just letting them be a surprise. It seems to be working well.
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