What are shorthand outlines for legal dictation?

Shorthand outlines are the short written forms that stand for words and phrases, and in legal dictation the most useful ones are for the phrases that come up again and again. A typical shorthand system uses symbols or abbreviations for words and common phrases, which can let a well-trained writer keep up with speech ¹. Build your list from your own practice passages, not from a published list, and test each outline at speed before the exam. The notices we checked do not name a shorthand system or publish outlines, so confirm which system your exam accepts before you learn anything.

This page covers outlines only. For the speeds and exam rules, see the guide to legal dictation for shorthand and steno exams, and for the method of practice, see how to practice legal dictation.

An outline is a shortcut for a phrase you write often

Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases the speed and brevity of writing compared with longhand ². An outline applies that idea to a single word or phrase. A long phrase that appears in every passage can be written as one short form, so the saving repeats every time the phrase comes up.

Legal dictation is a good place for outlines because legal passages repeat set phrases. Legal writing often uses Latin set phrases, such as a fortiori, which a candidate may meet more than once. It means "that, because one fact is true, a second (related and included) fact must also be true" ³. A single outline for a phrase like that saves writing it in full each time.

Pen systems and steno machines write outlines in different ways

There are two broad ways to write shorthand. Pen systems write symbols on paper. Pitman shorthand was introduced in 1837 ⁴, and Gregg shorthand was first published in 1888 ⁵. Alphabetic systems of this kind reach a useful speed of 70 to 100 words per minute, and they need only a fraction of the time that stenographic systems take to reach it ⁶.

Steno machines work differently. Chorded writing lets a stenographer spell out whole syllables, words and phrases with a single hand motion ⁷. A steno outline is therefore a chord, not a written abbreviation, and it is learned as a stroke.

The notices we read do not say which system is accepted, so do not assume that a pen outline will serve a steno test or the other way round.

Build your list from the passages you practice

Outlines work best when they come from your own practice, because you learn the phrases your exam actually uses. Follow these steps.

1. Note each phrase that comes up twice. Write it down during practice, and keep the list with your practice log.
2. Write an outline for it in your system. Use one outline for one phrase, and keep the form the same every time.
3. Use the outline in the next passage. If you have to stop and think, the outline is not yet useful.
4. Drop outlines you cannot write under time. An outline that costs more time than writing the phrase out in full does not help you.

Do not learn outlines from a source you have not checked. A wrong outline costs time, because you have to stop and correct it while the clock runs. A list from a book or a PDF may be useful, but check each entry against the system you actually write.

The outlines that matter most are the phrases you use in every passage

Choose outlines for the phrases that recur in your practice passages, not for rare terms that appear once. A frequent phrase repays the effort many times in a long dictation, while a rare one may never come up in your exam. Legal writing is also dense. Whalen's 2015 study found that legal writing at the U.S. Supreme Court "has become more complex and difficult to read in recent decades" ⁸. That complexity is one reason to start with the phrases that recur in legal writing.

That study covers U.S. opinions, not Indian judgments, so treat its findings as a guide to the style of legal writing, not as a list of exam phrases.

It depends on your exam's system and your speed

The right outlines depend on two things: the system your exam uses and the speed the exam sets. The notice gives the speed, so write it down first, and test each outline at that speed rather than at a slower practice pace. The legal dictation speed page lists the figures in the notices we opened.

If you use a steno machine, outlines are strokes and need the machine's dictionary. If you use pen shorthand, they are symbols that you have to write without looking up. Both need the same discipline: write them in practice until they come without thought.

What to do

• Confirm the shorthand system your exam uses from the notice or the exam's own instructions.
• Start a list of outlines from your next practice passage, and write one outline for each repeated phrase.
• Test the list at your post's speed, and drop any outline you cannot write under time.

For the shorthand systems and their speeds, see how fast shorthand writing is. For the steno side, see the stenotype entry and how fast stenographers type. The shorthand entry explains the main systems in brief.