I've found it easier to pay more attention to the first line...
I've found it easier to pay more attention to the first line of the advisories. The reports I do are usually a page and a half to 3 pages each. There is a big header at the top of page 1 so I quickly get to the bottom of the document window and then my advisories are right under where I'm typing. I keep one eye on the advisories and one eye on my report. When I was first starting out I didn't compile my own glossaries right away. I converted my PRD file and used that with IT. Since I already knew most of the shortforms in my PRD file (I had forgotten some) I didn't have to look at the advisories to expand what I wanted. I tackled using the ; instead of the space first. Then I got myself used to being able to skip ahead in my abbreviations and pay more attention to the advisories. After the first day I got to where I felt comfortable with IT in general and I was up to my old production. That evening I started compiling glossaries. One for each doctor. I merged my PRD glossary with the doctor glossaries. There was no Include feature in those days. I made sure to keep my PRD glossary as the first glossary in the merge. This kept my familiar abbreviations "on the top." When I sat down to transcribe the next day I had a handle on the ; and I was used to the skip ahead feature and the way it worked. Now that I had my own glossaries I concentrated on the word advisory. I would stare at it and type normally, when the word I wanted popped up to the first line I would expand it. When the doctor said a phrase or word I had abbreviated I'd expand that from memory. Working in this way, staring at the word advisory, I soon noticed that continuations were popping up. I'd expand a word, my word advisory would go blank, and then the next 3 or 4 common phrases that follow that word would be sitting in my phrase advisory. I then picked up how to choose the correct continuation and got used to selecting it with a shift. This wasn't a problem because the continuation I wanted was usually on the top anyway. That was how I got used to using continuations. By the end of the second day I was really familiar with my old abbreviations in IT, using the ; to expand, and the skip ahead. I was still a little shaky on the word advisory and using continuations but I was coming along and loving the fact that I was saving so many keystrokes in just a few days. The next, and last, thing I mastered was expanding the phrases IT had created for me. I knew it created them as the first letter of each word in the phrase so when the doctor said a common phrase that I knew I didn't have a PRD abbreviation for I typed the first few letters and there it was. When multiple phrases would come up I'd type a few more letters or use the shift to differentiate the one I wanted. I was saving a lot of keystrokes by this time. I had learned all of IT's main features (using the ; as a marker, skip ahead, word advisory, continuations, expanding compiled phrases). Later, I found it useful to try to expand only the first 3 or 4 words of a common generated phrase and then let the continuations finish the sentence for me. This wasn't necessary, but it worked well for me. As I advanced I found myself looking less and less at the word advisory. I also realized that I had a lot of the compiled phrases memorized as well as the different continuation combinations. The order of study for me was:
That's what worked for me, but any method you use to get to the point where you are using all of IT's features is good. I'd love to hear what others did. Reposted by Webmaster: see original link below
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