Notehand is a speed-writing technique used for taking notes quickly and easily. It can be used by students, business people and anyone else who needs to take notes verbatim quickly. If mastered, Notehand can produce writing speed of 60 to 90 words per minute.

Learn basic Notehand abbreviations such as the ampersand for "and" and the pound sign for "number. These abbreviations are the core of Notehand.

Listen closely to whomever is talking. Comprehension is the first step to being able to jot down words quickly.

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Drop "the" and "a" from sentences and lose the vowels from words with which you're familiar.

Learn to shorten large words such as "enuf" for "enough" and "r" for "are".

Use dashes and underlines to represent suffixes or prefixes, such as "pay-" to mean "payment" or an underlined the "g" in "sing" to mean "singing."

Write out any unfamiliar words so you don't forget them while you're transcribing.

Go over your notes so that everything makes sense. If it doesn't, ask.


  • Practice by listening to a book on tape and jotting down what the narrator is saying. Check your work. It will get better the more times you do it.
  • There are several Notehand guides available in the library and on the Internet. Start with those, but as you get comfortable, develop your own style to make note taking even easier.


  • Notehand takes a lot of patience to learn. Don't get frustrated if it seems like you're missing things. Practice makes perfect.

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