Archive for the 'Handwriting' Category

Page 2 of 2

Inexpensive Pens With Good Ink

Published on August 1, 2007 in Fraud, Handwriting and Report Writing. 2 Comments

Normally I don’t use inexpensive pens, but lately I have found three inexpensive pens I now use for work and when I am travelling due to the good ink they contain. They are the Pilot G-2, Pilot G-TEC-C4, and now the uni-ball 207.

My current favorite, the uni-ball 207, uses an ink that contains color pigments which are absorbed into the paper fibers. The ink is in effect trapped on the paper fibres and can’t be washed off, as some forgers do to alter cheques. Refills are available. Uni-ball 207 is sold worldwide in stationery and office supply stores and other outlets. Mike Shea did some interesting tests of the ink in the uni-ball 207 and the G-2 and three other inks. The G-2 survived water but not soap and bleach. The uni-ball ink survived all the tests.

The Pilot G-Tec-C4 or the G-TEC-C writes with a very fine line. I use it for corrections and margin notes. They are so thin they write like mechanical pencils. The G-TEC-C seems to have a more durable ink, but it is hard to find in North America.

If your handwritten records have to survive intact for a long time, then you have to carefully consider the ink used to produce them. It seems I’ll be using the uni-ball 207 a lot more from now on.

Shorthand for the Investigator

Published on May 7, 2007 in Communication, Handwriting, Methods, Private Investigator, Report Writing and Shorthand. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Most people can write 35 words per minute. However, most students after 1 year of instruction can not write 60 words per minute (wpm) using Gregg or Pitman shorthand. After two years of instruction, half will not reach 80 wpm. Now you know why shorthand was the most frequently failed course and is no longer taught in High School. It is not a matter of shorthand being obsolete, especially for the Investigator or Reporter. It relates to the basic failure of these systems to be easily taught, and more importantly, retained.

A usable system based on the roman alphabet, rather than an obscure and entirely different alphabet, shortens the learning curve. It also lets the student instantly write short forms for the 10 most common English words, which make-up about one quarter of all the words we use. In business correspondence, we normally use only 422 words according to some experts.

An alphabetic system that uses very few symbols, and easily understood rules, should get most people to 80 wpm if it concentrates on the most common words. Such a system may be easily transcribed years later as it will follow certain rules and it uses our normal alphabet. Alphabetic shorthand systems fall back on longhand to define an abbreviation or where clarity is important. These two considerations are critical to any type of Investigator. Investigation notes and notebooks must be accurate, complete, legible, and usable years after the investigation has been completed. The system must also be adaptable to the type of notebooks normally used to record the investigation’s progress. Gregg, Pitman and even Teeline shorthand are far less adaptable to the small notebooks used by Investigators.

Don’t resist learning to write this type of shorthand. Unlike traditional symbol-based shorthand, you won’t fail the course. Failure here only means you will improve your note-taking speed by only two times instead of three. This system won’t make you a court reporter or Hansard recorder, but it will make you a better Investigator.

There are a few shorthand systems like this, but the easiest to use and the least expensive to learn (in time and money) is the Quickhand system. At $25.50 from Wiley in Canada or at Amazon on our Book Page.

Quickhand A Self-Teaching Guide
ISBN: 9780471328872
Author: Grossman, Jeremy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, New York
Author: Grossman, Jeremy
Publication Date: February 1976
Binding: Paperback
Illustrations: Yes
Pages: 152
Dimensions: 9.96×6.74x.38 in. .61 lbs.

Notebooks

Published on April 22, 2007 in Handwriting, Methods, Private Investigator and Report Writing. 1 Comment


As much as I enjoy new technology, like wireless networks and Palm Pilots, I often find the solutions our forebearers devised less prone to failure. The lowly notebook and pen fall into this category.

Since the beginning of my professional life, I have carried on a relationship with one type of notebook or another. The lowly notebook has never failed me. I have never lost a notebook or had it stolen. All the important stuff that I must recall goes into a notebook. I usually have several on the go at once — some for specific topics, some for their size and others because of their covers.

Using all these notebooks has evolved into a simple system. Important lists of phone numbers and indexes go on the first few pages. I usually reserve the first four pages for this purpose. All my rough, scribbled notes start on the last page and progress toward the beginning of the book. The legible complete notes start after the list and index pages and finish when they meet the scribbled notes. I write the start and finish dates on the cover along with a description of anything of lasting importance contained in the notebook.

To keep my place in the small notebooks I use a rubber band. I also put two rubber bands over the back cover of the hard covered notebooks to hold extra papers and a few 3″ x 5″ index cards. A small glue stick is always handy to stick business cards, photos, and other important things to the notebook pages to prevent loss.

Writing in small notebooks requires a different script than normally taught in school. This I call police officer italic. I form each letter individually; it is not quite printing and not quite cursive like I was taught in grade school. If I write in any other way, it will not be legible when read months later.

In this computer-obsessed age, a pen and notebook are more portable, don’t require batteries or a power outlet, cost next to nothing, start immediately and don’t crash. Finally, a notebook doesn’t seem out of place on the restaurant table like a notebook computer or even my Palm Pilot with its fold out keyboard.

Handwriting Repair

Published on November 17, 2006 in Handwriting. 6 Comments

Handwriting is an important but severely neglected skill; yet we encounter the problems of lost productivity resulting from poor writing almost daily. However, we seem unable to address this problem effectively at any level of our society. This is not a new problem. Solutions do exist. We need to adopt the simple methods used in the renaissance to correct our handwriting in the computer age.

If you don’t think this is a problem consider this: Roman Vasquez of Monahans Texas who died a few years ago when his doctor prescribed Isordil, a heart drug, but the pharmasist read it as Plendil. The Vasquez family won a $450,000 judgement.

According to the Institute of Medicine, prescription, errors kill 7000 Americans every year. Continue reading ‘Handwriting Repair’

School brings back pens so pupils get write stuff

Published on November 16, 2006 in Handwriting. 0 Comments

A PRIVATE school is insisting pupils use fountain pens, in an attempt to save the dying art of handwriting.Mary Erskine and Stewart’s Melville junior school in Edinburgh believes longhand is on the brink of extinction, thanks to text messaging and computers.