QuickTyping With QuickCorrect
Every second of every working day all across this vast nation, lawyers and their staffs are trying to remember the precise spelling of client's names, company names, citations, statutes, and so on. So what happens? For example, the name of this magazine is The Lawyers' PC; or, is it ...; or, is it ...? Every state has a workmen's compensation act; or, is it worker's compensation act; or is it workmen's compensation act or is it workmen's compensation act?
Those people spend valuable seconds (minutes, hours?) finding the correct information and dutifully typing it into the current document being careful not to make any mistakes. So what happens? Then, some time later, the next day, the next week, the next week, or the next year, the scenario replays itself and more precious time is lost in a totally avoidable exercise. What is to be done?
Any word processing software worth its salt will give you numerous ways to approach the problem, some better than others. If you read "12 Ways to Write Your Name In WordPerfect For Windows", which appeared in the ==== issue of this magazine, you are familiar with those available in WordPerfect for Windows. As that article concluded, in the vast majority of situations, WordPerfect for Windows QuickCorrect feature offers the most effective solution. It seems like such an innocuous feature. But, anyone who does not take the time to understand and explore its many possibilities is condemned to emulate sisyphus in a never-ending repetition of the scenario described above. This office entered the WWW (Wonderful World of WordProcessing) in the early 1980's with an integrated system known as CPT. In its time, it was a great word processor, which survived within our walls until 1984 long after the company which has spawned it had died at the feet of P.C.'s and MicroSoft. In one of its earliest releases, CPT included a feature called SpeedTyping. After reading this article, you will understand why the CPT people had a better grasp of the power of their innovation than the PC's-come-lately who called their knock-offs something like WordPerfect for Windows QuickCorrect. Yes, speed typing did turn "adn" into "and". But, CPT touted it for much more -- and they were right as you will see.
When it became apparent that, like my 1958 Studabaker, I would not be able to drive our CPT machines forever, I began looking at DOS-based word processors called WordPerfect, Word and AmiPro (whatever that is other than a candidate for the worst name software in history). Among the first two or three questions I would ask about features in these new arrivals on the scene was whether it had speed typing. I was appalled to learn not only that they did not but that the person to whom I addressed the question and who was pushing this great stuff had no clue what I was talking about. Fortunately, I was able to hold on to our reliable CPT's until WordPerfect for Windows finally included QuickCorrect in version 6.0a. I simply could not envision myself struggling to get out my work without speed typing. If you don't have QuickCorrect or, worse, if you have QuickCorrect and don't use it, then you must stop whatever you are doing and study this article.
Mispelled Words
WordPerfect for Windows comes pre-loaded with a plethora
of misspelled words: "adn" becomes "and"; "fo" becomes "of"; "teh"
becomes "the"; "htat" becomes "that". You will surely find several
commonly misspelled words that are not included in QuickCorrect and you
need to add them. (If you do not know how to add them to QuickCorrect,
stop right here and find someone who can show you or look under Help to
learn how to do so. It is not rocket science.)
In your own practice you will encounter words that seem to come
up regularly misspelled. For example, my fingers cannot seem to type
"information" correctly. Consequently, to guard against my
ineptitude, I have instructed QuickCorrect to change "infromation" to "information".
Be careful here, however. Be sure the misspelled word is in fact
"incorrect". In a law office, you may instruct QuickCorrect to change
"fro" to "for". If you are a newspaper reporter, you might reconsider
for fear that some day you will inadvertently write about a group of singers
swaying to and "fro". Personal experience: it seems perfectly
logical to have QuickCorrect convert "si" to "is". One day I was
writing about something related to one of my favorite magazines and "SI"
kept turning into "is".
If that's all you learn to do with QuickCorrect, well, it's something. But it's sort of like buying a computer and using it only to generate correspondence.
Frequently-Used Words and Single Names
The English language contains many awkwardly-spelled
and often lengthy words, many of them proper nouns. Why would anyone
keyboard "Pennsylvania" "Interrogatory" or "Schuylkill". Instead
assign to them QuickCorrect entries such as "Pa", "Int", and "Sch".
(What about "Interrogatories"? Use "Ints".) But, a couple of
QuickCorrect tricks and cautions are in order.
If you diligently followed suggestions which this writer has
seen in at least two other authoritative word processing magazines, you
may find that your staff is addressing letters to clients named George
County Commissioners.Scott and J. ¶ Morgan. Why? One article
described how the author frequently typed "County Commissioners" and she
decided to use QuickCorrect. Good idea. She assigned the letter
"C" to the phrase "County Commissioners". Bad idea. Every time
she types "C" followed by a period she will get names likes George County
Commissioners.Scott. The author of the other article wrote about
his frequent use of the paragraph symbol (¶). He decided to
use QuickCorrect to generate the symbol. Good idea. He assigned
the letter "P" to that task. Now whenever he types "P" followed by
a period (.) he will get results such as J.¶ Morgan. What to
do? You could assign "PP" to the paragraph symbol. It's one
more key stroke but it is still more efficient than having to go through
Ctrl-W and pick out the paragraph symbol. You could assign "cc" to
"County Commissioners", but, be careful. If you use "cc:" on correspondence,
you could end up with a line that reads, "County Commissioners: J.
¶ Morgan. Maybe something like "ccm" would be better.
[T:T: somewhere up above refer to typing the incorrect word followed
by a space bar, period, semicolon or other common punctuation.]
Personal experience: You will type this year's year, last year's year and next year's year literally hundreds of times. Sure, it's only four numbers. But, numbers are a pain to find on the keyboard and then we usually interpose them. Consequently, during 1999, I am using "Y" for "1999", "YL" for "1998", and "YN" for "2000". This works very well and I have been doing it for over a decade. There is just one problem. Every now and then someone like my wife has a last name of "Yingst", which then becomes her middle initial. If I am not careful, that person then becomes Barbara 1999. Light. It happens so infrequently and I use "Y" so often, that I have taken the risk of relying on the human brain (i.e. me) to remember to type "YY" in order to generate somebody's middle initial as "Y".
Those two-letter state designations can cause other little problems as well. [T:T: MD for M.D. and NC for North Carolina versus Northumberland County.] If you are from Iowa, Ohio, or Utah, you should QuickCorrect the name of your state. But, be careful how you do it. If you assign "la" to "Louisiana", you may some day find yourself humming "DO RE ME FA SO Louisiana TI DO". Also, every time you try to use the USPS mandated two letter abbreviation, QuickCorrect will madeningly change "LA" to "Louisiana". The solution: assign "La" to "Louisiana". The same would apply to our friends in Colorado and Maine. The latter group should make sure they are not beginning any sentences with "ME" or they could end up with Maine and My Shadow.
Personal experience: For quite some time I used "nc" for nearby "Northumberland County". Recently, I addressed a letter to Greensboro, Northumberland County. My solution? I kept "nc" for "Northumberland County" and have "ncc" QuickCorrect to "NC". (You folks in Maryland have a similar dilemma. If I were you I would use "Md" as my QuickCorrect entry to write out the name "Maryland". For your clients who are physicians, I would use "Mdd" to create "M.D.". Is that really worth it? Three key strokes to type "Mdd" and only one more to type "M.D.". Yeah, but you've got capital letters and periods and for a middling typist such as myself, that's a lot more of a challenge than just typing "Mdd" and a space.)
I am now going to give you a tip, which, over time, will return you every minute you spent reading and working with this article: in addition to the "Y", "YL", and "YN" entries discussed above, you absolutely must have in your QuickCorrect repertoire "M1" for "January", "M2" for "February", "M3" for "March", and so on.
Names and Phrases
Very few members of the Bar have shorter names than I. It only takes 14 key strokes to compose my name; twenty if you include a "J.D.". Nevertheless, I never type my full name. "TWL" yields "Terry W. Light"; "Twl" yields "Terry W. Light"; "Tl" yields "Terry Light" if I want to be less formal; and "Twlj" or "Twljd" yields "Terry W. Light, J.D." if I am being completely formal. This approach should apply not only to your own name but to any other individuals moniker that appears frequently in your written documents. Note that I use "TWL" and not "TWL". This allows me to use my initials "TWL" or "twl" without turning it into my full name. But, be careful here. "Clifford A. Rieders" cannot be "Car for obvious reasons. Just use a little imagination and make him "Clar" or "CaR". The same applies to our firm name which also is short by comparison. "BLPC" begets "Brann & Light, P.C.". The same applies to our street address; "112m" becomes "112 Market Street" (don't use just "112" because somewhere, some day that number will turn up in a text and you don't want it to appear as "112 Market Street"). Similarly, why type out "Lewisburg" when you can type "Lbg" followed by a space and why labor through "Lewisburg, PA 17837" when you can simply type "Lpa" and tap the space bar.
Note that QuickCorrect not only saves you a few keystrokes, it saves you time in another way. You do not have to look up the correct spelling of Punxsutawney nor do you have to scramble around for its zip code if you assign "Punxsutawney, PA 15767" to "Punx". QuickCorrect will allow you to reduce turn around time by seriously considering composing some of your own letters and documents. I still believe that, in most situations, the use of a dictating machine is far superior than pounding away at a keyboard on your own. But, occasions will arise when you need to do that and, of course, when you are editing dictated documents, you will need to do a certain amount of typing. As you do, your QuickCorrect antenna should be on the look out for phrases that you are typing all the time. Why type, "enclosed please find" when you can type something like "Enc"? If you close all your letters with something like "Thank you for your attention to this matter", why type all that when you can simply type "Ty." The same concept can be used by you or your staff with respect to sesquipedalian or baroque case citations or names. For example, "United Stated District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania" could all be reduced to "Usdc". The daunting "Kaskowsky v. ..." becomes the less formidable "Kvb". Note that the QuickCorrect entry for the Lewisburg Joint Area Sewer Authority is "Lajsa" not "lajsa" or "LAJSA". We frequently refer to this client as merely "LAJSA" and do not want QuickCorrect to turn it into the full name in those situations.
NOTE: QuickCorrect adapts to its environment. The word or phrase which you have assigned to a QuickCorrect entry will be typed into the document in whatever font and type size is in control. If you have an entry that you always want to appear in, say, in Times New Roman, size 12, bolded and italicized, then you need to read the my article cited above and learn how to use another useful feature of WordPerfect for Windows called "Abbreviations".
Similarly, although not as adamantly, I urge you to include "8a" for "8:00 A.M", "83a" for "8:30 A.M.", "2p" for "2:00 P.M.", "23p" for "2:30 P.M.", and so on.
A Few More Tricks
As a reward for staying with this article to this
point, I will pass along to you a couple ways that I use QuickCorrect,
which I think you may find useful or adaptable to your practice:
- Right-of-Way: This phrase is a pain to key stroke, but, obviously "ROD" is not available as the QuickCorrect entry. Instead use "ROw" or "ROW".- A.M.: You can handle most of this with the QuickCorrect entries noted above. Where you need to type a random "A.M.", use "aM" not "AM".
- United States: "Usa" handles "United States of America" satisfactorily. But, you must use "uS" for "United States".
- ===== .=" More times than you would expect, I find myself wanting to mark a point in a document where someone's name needs to be inserted but I don't know what it is. Use of equals signs (==) works well because it catches the eye and using the Find feature is easy to pick up when you finally locate the name and want to insert it in the document. Once again, however, why keyboard this arrangement when you can simply type some shorthand such as "Qname" or merely "Qn" and have it turn into "=====. =".
- twleml (QuickCorrects into my e-mail address): How many times are you going to peck out your sesquipedalian e-mail address in a letter you are composing before you assign "xxxeml" to it? (Presumably, you have already assigned "eml" to that odd-duck word "E-mail".)
- CapPA: Suppose your practice requires you to know the capitals of some or all the states. Now I know that you have them all committed to memory, but not everyone in your office will. There are many, many ways you could make this information available to your staff. But the absolute fastest way to retreat it that I know if is to make the QuickCorrect entry "CapPA" turn into "Harrisburg, Pennsylvania". You could do this with County Seats; "Seatun" becomes "Lewisburg, Union County, Pennsylvania". Or, phone numbers; "Tcblpc" becomes "Brann & Light, P.C.: (570) 523-3241" or "faxblpc" becomes "Brann & Light, P.C. Fax (570) 5240896".
(If you think of a QuickCorrect application that
might be useful in our practice, make my day by e-mailing it to tlight@brann-light.com.)
Terry W. Light, J.D. © 1999 All Rights Reserved
[Terry W. Light is a 1974 graduate of the Harvard Law School, who practices personal injury law in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.]
Published June 1, 1999 in the Lawyers PC.
tlight@brann-light.com
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W. Light