About Simplified Gregg Shorthand
Seventh edition
(1949-1962)

     For the average person today, Simplified may be the best series of Gregg Shorthand to learn.  Its memory load is low, its speed is not terribly slow, and its manual is still published very well by McGraw-Hill.  It is the perfect medium in terms of shorthand learning.

     The Simplified Series was the first real systematic form of Gregg Shorthand. Anniversary and its predecessors used shortcuts to the discretion of the reporter; but Simplified was the first to teach exactly the brief forms and phrases in those two respective categories, with no allowance for the reporter to use the abbreviation principle.  This was the first series of Gregg Shorthand that taught only a few strokes at a time, instead of throwing all the down-strokes or vowels at the pupil at once. This series was very easy for the stenographer to use, and it did not have a deleterious effect on the overall speed of its users.  The users of this series could still write more than 150 words per minute with practice.

     Simplified has 181 brief forms, which is the result of combining the most common of the Special Forms and the Brief forms from Anniversary into one list.

     This was the first series that employed the skilful hand and exemplary style of Mr. Charles Rader, the writer of nearly all Simplified textbook shorthand plates (as well as the later versions).  His hardly-changing style could even lead people to thinking that the text was automated.

     When the series began, the new magazine published by the Gregg division of McGraw-Hill, Today's Secretary, used it.  With Simplified, there was less emphasis on court reporting, and thus it was becoming a bit more unpopular.  One will find very little real literature written in this series.  The attention on stenography was already shifting to the world of mechanical methods.