Re: MQ question

From: Su (._at_hotmail.com)
Date: 01/08/05 

Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 17:51:42 -0600

This is a wealth of information that I'm going to copy to a special
directory and try to get through later. Many thanks for all of your time and
effort.

"14tonks" <mail.2.14tonks@recursor.net> wrote in message
news:34anffF46ib6cU1@individual.net...
> No argument that one can end up with lots of vocabularies for IT, each
> containing thousands of phrases. However, one can generate huge chunks of
> those vocabularies, or glossaries as IT calls them, automatically by
> running
> a selection of documents for a specific account or specific specialty
> through the compiler.
>
> IT actually offers glossaries of "singles" which one can choose to use or
> change or delete. There's nothing wrong with single-letter shorts for
> most-frequently-used words if you want them.
>
> Yes, you need to keep your eyes, or at least one of them, on the
> advisories
> at the bottom of the screen as you type using IT, to make sure you are
> getting the expansions you want. Some people can learn to do that, some
> just can't, and I think that is one of the big deciding points between who
> likes IT and who throws it at the wall. One does need to do a little
> practicing before deciding you are in the group that just can't work that
> way, though. I spent a couple of decades recording cases in a cath lab,
> where my eyes were kept continuously on both a pressure waveform and an
> ECG
> waveform, verbally calling out pressure measurements and arrhythmias,
> while
> my fingers were simultaneously first writing, and later typing, the
> complete
> case log, occasionally jumping up to switch dials and hit buttons with
> just
> a flick of the eyeballs to make sure the fingers and switches were in the
> right place. I'm very used to splitting my visual attention and looking
> somewhere besides at my typing line. I trained dozens of other people to
> do
> it, and it always took several months to train them never to look at their
> hands or the log they were creating during a case, but they all learned
> eventually.
>
> Marker keys are specific keys you use to indicate that IT should expand
> the
> previously typed letters into either a word or a phrase. You use one
> marker
> key for words and one for phrases, so duplications between abbreviations
> for
> words and those for phrases are immaterial. I forget what IT's default
> choices are, but I use ; for phrases and ' for words. There are a number
> of
> other choices available, such as [. There are arguments for and against
> various choices, and preference tends to be individual to the user. In any
> case, there are certain features available when using marker keys to
> expand
> that are not available if you use the delimiters space, tab, enter, and
> various punctuation marks to trigger expansion, the way it is done in most
> expanders. Using a marker key inserts any necessary space automatically,
> and
> using markers allows IT to use continuations, which is linking chains of
> shorts together by putting the most likely following word groups for what
> you just typed at the top of your advisory window. It also lets you
> "abbreviate the abbreviations" by moving up phrases in the selection
> window
> the same way you can select words, by typing any combination of letters
> unique to the phrase short (or word), without typing them all. Say you
> have
> two phrases that are very similar but not identical. Let's use Rennie's
> submissions of "patient is a well-developed, well-nourished white female
> and
> "patient is a well-developed, well-nourished white female who is alert."
> Say you happen to be using all initial letters for those phrases, and your
> shorts are therefore piawdwnwf and piawdwnwfwia, and you know you are
> after
> the second one. Depending on how your glossary is set up, you may be able
> to select it without typing all the letters, but just the ones for the key
> words that differentiate it from the many other similar phrases in there.
> Typing pi to get into your "patient is" area of the list, and then typing
> d
> for developed, n for nourished, wf for white female, w for who, and a for
> alert will likely pull that specific phrase for you. So instead of typing
> piawdwnwfwia; (13 characters), you could probably just type pidnwfwa; (9
> characters) to select that same entry, as your advisory will keep skipping
> ahead to only shorts containing the letters you have typed in the order
> you
> have typed them as you add letters. Abbreviating the abbreviations is a
> very advanced way to use IT, and you need to be familiar with your
> glossaries before you do too much of it, but it's a way to pare even more
> keystrokes once you reach that point.
>
> How long it takes people to get up to speed with IT really depends on the
> person and their current system. I moved to IT from AutoCorrect, pretty
> early after I went back to transcribing, when I discovered there were such
> things as MT expander programs out there. Since I'd transcribed on
> typewriters previously, I wasn't working with any ingrained habits from
> previous computer expanders. I had already figured that just hitting the
> spacebar after letters was a sure way to get all kinds of things expanded
> by
> AutoCorrect inadvertently--any short that constituted an English word, any
> short that happened to be someone's initials or an acronym, etc. So I was
> adding a keystroke to all my shorts to end them in the letter j. With IT,
> I
> simply had to train myself to hit the home row key for my right hand
> little
> finger instead of my index finger, ; instead of j, and then I wasn't even
> using an extra keystroke, since that ; put in the following space. I think
> that made the switch to marker keys much easier for me than it is for many
> people. I think it took me about a month to get comfortable with IT, and
> then to concentrate on building up a reasonable shorts system that worked
> for me once I had escaped the limitations of AutoCorrect. I did start by
> using it for just short stretches, and I think that is very good advice
> for
> someone who is currently at high production with some other system. Read
> the manual, experiment, try out the basics in the evening for a week or
> so,
> get things set up to suit yourself, then try using it for your work for 15
> minutes or half an hour a day for a week, so you aren't worrying about how
> much it is cutting your line count to slow down to learn the new expander.
> As you get familiar and pick up speed, increase your time transcribing
> with
> it by a half hour every few days, and pretty soon you will be using it
> full
> time without any big production loss in the learning interval.
>
> However, if you are using SR to do your typing these days, you don't
> really
> need to mess with any expander! Different strokes for different folks.
> --
>
> Sheila
> To reply to me, add the prefix real. to my address.
>
>
>
> "Su" <.@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:_9UDd.2266$b23.2223@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
>> "14tonks" <mail.2.14tonks@recursor.net> wrote in message
>> news:34a03eF48o97sU1@individual.net...
>> > Most people use the first initial of each word for phrases, Su, with
> maybe
>> > a
>> > system to add in different verb endings and/or use some standard
>> > two-letter
>> > differentiating abbreviations for common variable words that start with
>> > the
>> > same first letter. Using the first-letter system, you can just type
>> > the
>> > phrase as you hear it, stopping after the first letter of each word,
> which
>> > does not require any memorization.
>>
>> But how do you remember all of the words phrases you have abbreviations
> for?
>> There are always subtle differences. I've read messages from people who
> have
>> IT and might set up five different "vocabularies" containing 18,000+
> entries
>> ... and they say they use them all.
>>
>> I've got many of the usual abbreviations: chf, sob, ros <review of
>> systems>, but then I get snagged on words where they are all so close in
>> beginnings. What comes to mind is the "appro" series ... approximately,
>> appropriate ... There's a bunch of them (can't remember at this time),
>> and
> I
>> usually try to abbreviate the ones I know I'll use the mostl
>>
>> One I like, but I'm sure it's not a good idea, is putting a semicolon
> after
>> a single letter -
>> a; ascites
>> c; clamp
>> d; dissect
>> f; fatigue
>>
>> For some reason, I've chosen those words as the match up.
>>
>> > As I use IT, I would probably break some of Rennie's phrase
> contributions
>> > down into component phrases and use
>> > continuations to keep going. Also, in IT, if there is a lot of
>> > duplication
>> > in the middle of the shorts for abbreviated phrases, but unique
>> > endings,
>> > one
>> > can skip letters in the middle and still pull up the desired phrase if
> you
>> > are using marker keys.
>>
>> Now you're losing me. Yes, you're speaking clearly and concisely, but my
>> mind is saying, "What is this lady talking about?"
>>
>> How do I explain this ... it's like the old days of learning to use a
>> computer. No matter how much I read about things being like a filing
>> cabinet, I couldn't understand the concept. Suddenly, I thought of the
> bible
>> (chapter, verse ...) and it all made sense.
>>
>>
>> > (In other words, you can abbreviate the abbreviation
>> > while typing it.) The same is true of entries in the word rather than
> the
>> > phrase section of IT. You can type any combo of letters that appear in
>> > the
>> > word, in the order they appear, to bring up the word, and then enter it
>> > with
>> > the appropriate marker key. So you do not necessarily have to remember
>> > the
>> > "correct" abbreviation to type a short for a word.
>>
>> But isn't it true that you'll have to focus on the bottom of the screen
>> to
>> see the available choices, so you pick the one that you want?
>> Particularly
>> when you have overlapping abbreviations (i.e. "tpwt has multiple
> meanings).
>>
>>
>> > The first letter, relevant consonants, and last letter will pull up
>> > most
>> > words with no
>> > necessity to hit a number to select from a list of choices. Again, this
>> > only
>> > works if you are using marker keys to expand, rather than the space bar
>> > and/or other delimiters. (And when you hit a marker key, you don't have
> to
>> > hit the space bar to get a space, so the keystrokes required are a
> wash.)
>>
>> I never understood what a marker key was.
>>
>> Just curious ... when you started using IT, how long did it take for you
> to
>> get "up to speed?" IOW, your production reached the level that it was
> before
>> you started using it?
>>
>>
>
>