Magnum Steno: Beginning Theory for starting out

[Bob Ross]

Trying to decide best way to start.

Is Magnum Steno: Beginning Theory a good choice for just starting out with no actual working knowledge
or experience on any writer yet? Or should I wait until I get the basics first?

Just kind of stuck. Some say it's a very good book to start out with and some say I could get discouraged
if I don't have the basics first and start with some 2 year schooling. I thought learning a theory was were
you start out or did I miss something?. My machine will be in any day now.

I can't find enough information to make sure it's a good 1st step to take. Any amount of time needed
is not a problem. I understand the risk of self paced learning theory. That is not a problem. Just don't
want to jump in on the wrong place to start.

Thanks
Bob

[Selena Stehn]

Hi, Bob. 
 
I do know that Mark's Magnum Steno theory is very good.  He has had some high-speed graduates in a short period of time.  I do wish his theory was around when I started.  However, his theory is based mostly off of Sten-Ed theory.  He has tweaked it to make most words and phrases to be written with one stroke.  At 240 wpm his fingers barely look as if they are moving.  He uses far less strokes than I do using Sten-Ed. 
 
Knowing and being comfortable with your theory is number one.  If you are not 110% comfortable with your theory, it will slow you down and frustrate you when it comes to building speed.  Your brain and fingers need to be connected seamlessly to make this skill  become and stay a passion and joy in your life. 
 
Mark Kislingbury is an awesome writer (Guiness Book of World Record Holder actually) and wonderful person.  He is very easy to talk to.  You should contact him direct and talk with him about your questions and concerns.  He will definitely guide you in the right direction. 
 
I do know that once you have your theory down, Stenographers World Elite is an excellent cost-effective way to build your speed.  If you decide to go the on-site school route because you want the in-person direction and correction, Elite is a nice tool to supplement your skill building and perfect your realtime writing, helping you to become more comfortable writing live in front of others.
 
In addition, if you decide to go with Sten-Ed theory, Elite has a theory review plan, as well as one-on-one consultants available to help guide you and help you to reach your goals. 
 
Let me know if I can be of further help. 
 
Selena
888-600-2388 x1
 
 

 

---

Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 09:12:22 -0800
From: bpr...@kingmanaz.net
To: plove...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Magnum Steno: Beginning Theory for starting out

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[Bob Ross]

Hi Selena,

Thank you so much for this. I look at your web site. All the links require membership to view.
RTN Training and Consultants Corner are the same page. Payment Options don't seem
to describe what Bridge, Basic, Partial, Total access is.

I did contact Mark and ordered his steno theory after. It should get here about the time my
writer does next week.

I have 30 or more hours a week scheduled aside to start working on all of this. Work a page
at a time until I'm doing it with no thought. I figure in 6 month's if I'm not advancing as I
should be then I can consider a school or supplemental. 18 month's or less is my goal to be ready
to sign-up for skill building to prepare me to pass the required tests. So I should be ready to
start working in 24 month's or less.

I can see from all the reading I've been doing the last few weeks and video's it's not simple
or everyone would be doing it. 90% drop out rates. Glad I'll be in the 10% that don't. I'll start
working on the theory after I learn the keyboard. Should only take a few days to memorise it.

Court Reporting Institute was wanting me to sign with their course and theirs has a Wave writer.
My FAFSA grants/loans would have covered 100% of the costs but I didn't want the loan payments
in the end right now. Spent more years than I care to say getting debt free as it was.

Some of the reviews about them has not helped either.

Thanks again
Bob

On 01/06/2015 09:05 PM, Selena Stehn wrote:
> Hi, Bob.
>
> I do know that Mark's Magnum Steno theory is very good. He has had some high-speed graduates in a short period of time. I do wish his theory was around when I started. However, his theory is based mostly off of Sten-Ed theory. He has tweaked it to make most words and phrases to be written with one stroke. At 240 wpm his fingers barely look as if they are moving. He uses far less strokes than I do using Sten-Ed.
>
> Knowing and being comfortable with your theory is number one. If you are not 110% comfortable with your theory, it will slow you down and frustrate you when it comes to building speed. Your brain and fingers need to be connected seamlessly to make this skill become and stay a passion and joy in your life.
>
> Mark Kislingbury is an awesome writer (Guiness Book of World Record Holder actually) and wonderful person. He is very easy to talk to. You should contact him direct and talk with him about your questions and concerns. He will definitely guide you in the right direction.
>

> I do know that once you have your theory down, Stenographers World Elite is an excellent cost-effective way to build your speed. If you decide to go the on-site school route because you want the in-person direction and correction, /Elite/ is a nice tool to supplement your skill building and perfect your realtime writing, helping you to become more comfortable writing live in front of others.
>
> In addition, if you decide to go with Sten-Ed theory, /Elite/ has a theory review plan, as well as one-on-one consultants available to help guide you and help you to reach your goals.

>
> Let me know if I can be of further help.
>
> Selena
> 888-600-2388 x1
>
>
>
>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 09:12:22 -0800
> From: bpr...@kingmanaz.net
> To: plove...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Magnum Steno: Beginning Theory for starting out
>
> Trying to decide best way to start.
>
> Is Magnum Steno: Beginning Theory a good choice for just starting out with no actual working knowledge
> or experience on any writer yet? Or should I wait until I get the basics first?
>
> Just kind of stuck. Some say it's a very good book to start out with and some say I could get discouraged
> if I don't have the basics first and start with some 2 year schooling. I thought learning a theory was were
> you start out or did I miss something?. My machine will be in any day now.
>
> I can't find enough information to make sure it's a good 1st step to take. Any amount of time needed
> is not a problem. I understand the risk of self paced learning theory. That is not a problem. Just don't
> want to jump in on the wrong place to start.
>
> Thanks
> Bob
>
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Plover" group.

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ploversteno...@googlegroups.com <mailto:ploversteno...@googlegroups.com>.

> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

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[Al]

I learned - well, am still learning - from the old Magnum Steno (advanced - no beginning theory) book, combined with the StenEd theory for my multi-stroke words.

I will buy the Beginning Theory book fairly soon, just to see what Kislingbury has to say about the basics, because the advanced book is just a collection of single-stroke outlines. You don't learn much from it until you stare at it for a few hours, and then you begin the journey toward understanding his way of thinking: osmosis is the operative process.

So I think you could definitely start with his beginning book, because you can start with his advanced one.

One thing: make sure you ask for his .rtf dictionary - it is quite a trove of handy ways to do inflected forms, and common phrases like "one way or another" or "one more thing".

A lot of very good steno hands (faster than I will ever be) use more stroke-intensive theories, so I don't think the Magnum theory is necessary for speed. And it is not a free lunch - I spend 20 minutes a day with a flash-card program. I'm okay with Magnum because I have a monster memory for random patterns, but it is definitely more work getting off the ground than other theories. My philosophy is that my head is already so full of old phone numbers, gym locker combinations, and license plates of cars my family sold years ago, that I should use my head to take a load off my fingers; but even with my memory, it has been a lot of work.

If you want to get started, you could just get the StenEd materials (or Phoenix, etc.) and get busy. You can always slurp up the more pithy outlines as you go along, according to what sort of prose you're putting out. I haven't found it difficult to switch outlines as I go - this is what the vast majority of stenographers seem to do as they progress.

I wonder how many Magnum practitioners have spent serious hours with spaced-repetition software, getting it all in their heads.

[Bob Ross]

Thanks Al,

What I understand from others about Magnum is it is the StenEd with his mix.
The dictionary is in the "shareable" format called RTF/CRE so I should be good there.

I did order his. It should be here by next week when I get my steno writer. It's a manual
one to start with to learn. Then I will convert it to digital a couple weeks after.

Then 6 or so month's I'll build one similar to the Stegosaurus or buy one if it's $100 or
less since they cost about $50 - $75 to build when I'm ready to start hitting the speed.

Bob

[Ellis Pratt]

I'm all for things being as cheap as chips, but there's fat chance the Stensaurus is going to cost $100. 

[Bob Ross]

Hi Ellis,

Yea, I know and understand fully. He in the business to make money. I'm a hobbyist
and if it was $100 or less I could buy one. More than that I'll just have to build two.
It's going to cost about $70 for two of them +or- $20

The keyboard switches they are going to use cost $37 for 110 switches includes shipping.
That's enough for 4.7 keyboards.

You can buy the switches in packs of 5 for $5.87 plus shipping, you need 23 per board.
Was cheaper to get 110.

The Arduino Mega or IDE boards are $15.00ea delivered from China. Already have the
code for the keyboard from Charles that made one for him self.

The PCB boards are $0.90ea (I etch my own and already have plenty I can use).

I'll make sure I have two keyboards with me at all times in case something breaks it will
only take a minute to switch out.

Before I build the steno key board, I'll convert an older stenotype to digital and use that during
the learning process. The Magnum Theory and the steno machine should be here by next week,
and the other parts I need for this conversion from China will be a couple weeks after that.

The other conversion I'm considering is to take a laptop keyboard out and put the steno key board
in and have it all in one. You can boot with no keyboard present with a setting in the bios. Then it will
see the steno key board anyway.

Bob

[Roslyn Sim]

Hi Bob

How are you finding the Magnum Steno: Beginning Theory now that you've had it a while?

Thanks,
Ros

[Bob Ross]

Hi Roslyn,

Actually really liking it. Mark is great and answers every email. I'm right at 45-55 key strokes a minute.
That's a few phrases but mostly single words. Mark mentioned that would translate to about 60-70 words a minute
since most of the phrases are more than 3 words.

Been a little tied up with our first grandchild and haven't touched it more than once a week for the last month
but should be back in it full swing in a couple more weeks. I have a end of year goal to complete and pass the speed
test.

I also just started working on a new stenotype conversion that uses the open source stenoboard PCB & software with
an arduino board. My stenotype conversion I'm using now only works with Plover and the TXBolt protocol. Plover has
several translation issues with the Magnum dictionary even if it's the only dictionary loaded.

Mark contacted me about my conversion also when he heard about it. I'm building one for testing the possibility of building
an inexpensive unit ($200 +- ) for those that are interested in steno but are hesitant to outlay several thousand or student loans.
With a 95% drop out rate a low cost try out solution should work well. Will help someone not having monthly payments or loans
to see if they like it.

I'm hoping this new conversion will work with DigitalCAT & Plover when finished. DigitalCAT folks were great also. A lot
of help and are interested to know how the conversion goes. They gave me their student version to work with. I'm a student
just not in any college.

The conversion with the Magnum Steno: Beginning Theory or Plover could a nice beginner start up package. That could make
it much easier for folks to try and not be out thousands if they decide it's not for them.

A way to recycle the old obsolete or dead units being sold on ebay and other places. They would be mostly intended for non
professional student use, but having two one might be able to use it anywhere. Have two for a cost less than
a decent used one.

I just received the PCB boards from china yesterday.

I have a CNC machine and might think about building a keyboard later down the road. I'm also considering getting a 3D printer.
That would make the cost for a keyboard much lower also. The 3D printers are less than $1,000 these days for a decent desktop
version.

Bob

[Sung Kim]

Just curious about the dictionary of Magnum Steno. I ordered the Beginning Theory book also but then I have to add each stroke

definition myself. Is there a way to download the whole Magnum Steno dictionary into Plover? Do you know how to do that?

SK

[Bob Ross]

In Plover you add dictionary, and make sure it's first in the list. Upload your rtf
to the directory your Plover Dic. is stored. This depends on your system. I'm running Linux.

I found it better to just delete the Plover one from the list. You'll find you'll need to add a couple
strokes because Plover doesn't translate some of them correctly.

[Sung Kim]

thank you Bob.
so i guess $99 for magnum dictionary would be good investment. i am using mac. That would hopefully work.

[Bob Ross]

Yes it would. Be sure to get the book. If it's for that price it's well under even the student rate.

If it's only the Dictionary contact Mark and make sure also. I have never known the Dictionary to be sold separate
of the book unless it's something else he's doing now. If someone is selling without the book, you won't be able to use it
to it's fullest. You'll need the book.

[Glen Warner]

When I bought a copy of his StenoMaster Theory book, I got a free copy of the dictionary, and the updates.

I think you should call and ask them if the dictionary comes with the back. It certainly should ...!

--gdw

[Sung Kim]

Yes- I asked Mark and he sent me the dictionary- thanks for the advice. 

Is it better to use the dictionary of one-strokers?  I was told dictionary of one-strokers is more valuable if you are a working reporter 

and want to load it in realtime. Has anyone used this dictionary, and if so, is it better?

FYI- I am just beginner in both plover and magnum steno so I don;t think it matters now.

Sung

[grytiffin]

Are you wondering about getting the entire dictionary vs. the smaller dictionary with briefs? I'm starting out as well and got the entire dictionary.  As I've become more clear about the theory, I've found myself changing some of the entries.  Overall it's an impressive work. Before this, I had played with the native plover dictionary, which I found incredibly valuable.  I think the thing that I mentally attached to with magnum is the idea that it was memory intensive with lots of phrases, which might require less physical speed on my part.  My qwerty tops out around  80, but memory is OK.  

Ty