Advanced Typing - Shortcuts (1943)

Advanced Typing: Shortcuts. 16 mm. Vol. MN-1512c. United States Navy Training Film, 1943. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUJfCfqgsX0.

Correct typing posture: fingers curved<br /> arms sloping up<br /> light fast strokes<br /> steady rhythm

fast continuous motion of return lever<br /> using backing sheet (aka temping sheet ??)

Shortcuts:<br /> mise en place for office supplies (she doesn't use this phrasing though) - greater efficiency - cuts down on searching

tabulators can be helpful. There are two types:<br /> - automatic - handset

Use tabs for paragraphs, dating letters, columns of numbers, and letter closings.

To clear all tab stops, put carriage to left, hold tab clear key and move the carriage across. (Usually applies to Royal, Remington, Underwood, and Electromatic).

On LC Smith and Woodstock machines sometimes have a tab clear lever on the back.

Decimal tabulator keys help to align a variety of numbers around a decimal point.

Always have a few tabs set to prevent a flying carriage which can be hard on the machine.

When using carbon sheets which are slightly longer than the paper size, cut off a small triangle at the top left hand side. This makes it easier for one to separate the carbons from the copies by holding the top left with one hand and pulling the carbons out from the bottom of the stack.

To align multiple sheets of paper for carbon copies, use a folded sheet at the top to taco the pages into the machine. Remove the folded sheet once the carbon pack is rolled forward.

Paper bail rollers should be set to split the pages into thirds (for two rollers).

Remington noiseless machines have a pressure indicator on the front of the machine (usually above the keyboard) which can be used when using thick carbon packs that may cause the ribbon guide to stick or bind.

Only erase when the carriage is fully left or right to prevent eraser crumbs from falling into the machine.

Use a soft eraser on carbon copies. Use and insert slips of paper behind the carbons and allowing them to stick out the sides, erasing from back sheet to front so as not to allow the eraser to mark your carbon copies. For the front sheet, use a shield and ink eraser and erase with a horizontal motion. After erasing, easily pull out the inserted sheets.

When typing a correction, tap the key lightly two or three times rather than hard once.

When in a rush and it's necessary to add a word (on double spacing), underline the last letter of the prior word and type a slash (/). Then move the typing line up and type the insertion above the prior line. This creates an "arrow" of sorts for the inserted word.

Details for inserting extra letters in misspelled words using half-spacing machines. (Underwoods and Electromatics don't have this function.)

Light pencil marks at the bottom of the sheet can help to indicate the coming bottom of the sheet.

Putting up the card holders (fingers) on Underwoods and Royals. They help to hold the card and improve print quality and reduce noise.

Card holders can cause markings on carbon packs if they're not lowered.

Trick for quickly writing postcards in succession: Disengage the ratchet using the platen spring release (or variable platen switch) Type the address on the front of the card. When done give the platen a quick practiced spin. The postcard with "jump" up and stop at the paper table and be in position for rolling in the opposite direction to write the message on the back of the card! When done a faster spin of the platen will shoot the card over the back of the typewriter where it can land in a box to collect all the postcards which were written in such a manner. <br /> timestamp 23:22

Time saving methods for addressing envelopes:

• Front seat principle. Insert the envelope in the usual way and type out the address. When done, turn the envelope down through the machine with the right hand. With the left hand, place the next envelope between the top of the first envelope and the front of the platen. Feed the first envelope back through the machine (in reverse) and the second will be rolled in to place for typing. Continue in this fashion until finished. All the finished envelopes will stack up in the back at the paper table.

• Chain feeding. The first envelope is inserted and rolled partway into the machine. A second envelope is inserted between the platen and the second envelope (behind the platen). Turn the first envelope to the writing line and type the address. Take out the first envelope and insert the next the same way as before.

• Uses paper bail. Do the first envelope in the usual way. Spin it out of the machine up and behind the paper bail into a box behind the typewriter.

For quickly doing labels or small cards:<br /> Create a small zig-zag fold into a piece of paper to create a pocket slot which can be scotch taped on either side. This template paper can then be inserted so that the pocket is visible above the writing line, but the paper below it is still in the platen. The label or card can be placed into the pocket and the platen reversed to feed the label or card in backwards to the desired typing line. Using a v-groove or hole in the typing line can create a pencil line to serve as a guide for inserting many labels at the same place so that the typing lines up between labels.

Some offices had special platens for holding cards like this.

Pockets like this can also be used to hold the page to add additional lines at the bottom of pages. Deeper pockets may need to be used for doing this with carbon packs whose carbons are longer than the pages.

Alternately one can do something similar by creating a inverted u-shaped set of slits into an index card. to hold such labels.

When in the midst of a page and needing to do another piece urgently, roll back the letter until about 2 inches from the top, and then place in the new page and one between each of the carbons. Then roll forward to do the short message as necessary. Turn back to the insertion position to remove the copies and then continue with the first letter where you left off.

For drawing horizontal lines on typewriter paper, push the carriage to the extreme left and place the pencil or pen at the edge of the card guide and the scale. Then move the carriage to the right to effect the line. For vertical lines, put the carriage at the desired space and place the pencil at the card guide and scale and move the platen up/down as necessary.

He notes the general equivalency of cards and papers in vertical files.

One of the primary affordances that individual atomic cards have is the ability to more easily re-arrange and reuse them for various purposes in comparison with larger sheets with greater amounts of data on them.

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Manfred Kuehn</span> in Taking note: Luhmann's Zettelkasten (<time class='dt-published'>08/06/2021 00:16:23</time>)</cite></small>

Note the use of the edge highlighted taxonomy system used on these cards:

Similar to the so called high five indexing system I ran across recently.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/albums/72157594200490122/

A 9 x 5" card that folds in three to make a 3 x 5" card for planning out one's entire week.

This is quite clever with respect the space of cards like Analog and 3x5 Life.

via: https://www.3x5life.com/collections/frontpage/products/3x5-life-system-with-mini-course

They apparently offer a mini course outlining the system.

One wonders how much "why" they offer?

https://www.3x5life.com/

Compare with other products in this category: - Analog (Jeff Sheldon productivity system) - Memindex - Bullet Journal - Frictionless Capture Cards - Pile of Index Cards

I started making lists on index cards—you know the ones we used back in school.

Note the total lack of any referent to why we used to use index cards in school.

In Australia index cards are frequently called system cards,

via micro.blog/writingslowly at https://micro.blog/writingslowly/18676734

Interesting to see a passing mention of Hawk Sugano's Pile of Index Cards here in a note taking context rather than a productivity one.

1930s Wilson Memindex Co Index Card Organizer Pre Rolodex Ad Price List Brochure

archived page: https://web.archive.org/web/20230310010450/https://www.ebay.com/itm/165910049390

Includes price lists

List of cards includes: - Dated tab cards for a year from any desired. - Blank tab cards for jottings arranged by subject. - These were sold in 1/2 or 1/3 cut formats - Pocket Alphabets for jottings arranged by letter. - Cash Account Cards [without tabs]. - Extra Record Cards for permanent memoranda. - Monthly Guides for quick reference to future dates. - Blank Guides for filing records by subject.. - Alphabet Guides for filing alphabetically.

Memindex sales brochures recommended the 3 x 5" cards (which had apparently been standardized by 1930 compared to the 5 1/2" width from earlier versions around 1906) because they could be used with other 3 x 5" index card systems.

In the 1930s Wilson Memindex Company sold more of their vest pocket sized 2 1/4 x 4 1/2" systems than 3 x 5" systems.

Some of the difference between the vest sized and regular sized systems choice was based on the size of the particular user's handwriting. It was recommended that those with larger handwriting use the larger cards.

By the 1930's at least the Memindex tag line "An Automatic Memory" was being used, which also gave an indication of the ubiquity of automatization of industrialized life.

The Memindex has proved its success in more than one hundred kinds of business. Highly recommended by men in executive positions, merchants, manufacturers, managers, .... etc.

Notice the gendering of users specifically as men here.

Features: - Sunday cards were sold separately and by my reading were full length tabs rather than 1/6 tabs like the other six days of the week - Lids were custom fit to the bases and needed to be ordered together - The Memindex Jr. held 400 cards versus the larger 9 inch standard trays which had space for 800 cards and block (presumably a block to hold them up or at an angle when partially empty).

The Memindex Jr., according to a price sheet in the 1930s, was used "extensively as an advertising gift".

The Memindex system had cards available in bundles of 100 that were labeled with the heading "Things to Keep in Sight".

Getting Things Done with Index Cards<br /> by Jazz DiMauro

referenced in Lifehacker article as early as 2005

Note the use of envelopes for separation. Did this predate the Noguchi Filing System, inspired by it or wholly separate?

The Hipster PDA<br /> by Gina Trapani

How do Bransford, Brown, & Cocking (2000) define schemas? (Metiri Group, Cisco Sytems, 2008) As chunks of multiple individual units of memory that are linked into a system of understanding

What term is defined by Bransford, Brown, & Cocking (2000) to be "chunks of multiple individual units of memory that are linked into a system of understanding"? (Metiri Group, Cisco Sytems, 2008) Schemas.

Seems related to the paradox of information systems. Add to Anki deck

https://lifehacker.com/the-pile-of-index-cards-system-efficiently-organizes-ta-1599093089

LifeHacker covers the Hawk Sugano's Pile of Index Cards method, which assuredly helped promote it to the GTD and productivity crowd.

One commenter notices the similarities to Ryan Holiday's system and ostensibly links to https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2013/08/how-and-why-to-keep-a-commonplace-book/

Two others snarkily reference using such a system to "keep track of books in the library [,,,] Sort them out using decimal numbers on index cards in drawers or something..." and "I need to tell my friend Dewey about this! He would run with it." Obviously they see the intellectual precursors and cousins of the method, though they haven't looked at the specifics very carefully.

One should note that this may have been one of the first systems to mix information management/personal knowledge management with an explicit Getting Things Done set up. Surely there are hints of this in the commonplace book tradition, but are there any examples that go this far?

An example of a ticker file in the vein of getting things done (GTD) documented using index cards and a card file from 1917. Sounds very familiar to the Pile of Index Cards (PoIC) from the early 2000s.

1. BNF, NAF 28630, ‘Grand fichier’, 3 January 1975.

Roland Barthes' biographer Tiphaine Samoyault quotes portions of what he calls Barthes' card index diary.

This can also be seen in the published cards which comprise Barthes' Mourning Diary about the period following his mother's death.

Are there other people who've used their card index as a diary the way that some use it for productivity?

syndication link

Dwyer, Edward J. “File Card Efficiency.” Journal of Reading 26, no. 2 (1982): 171–171.

Ease of use in writing and grading with short assignments by using 4 x 6" index cards in classrooms.

This sounds like some of the articles from 1912 and 1917 about efficiency of card indexes for teaching.

I'm reminded of some programmed learning texts that were card-based (or really strip-based since they were published in book form) in the 1960s and 1970s. Thse books had small strips with lessons or questions on the front with the answers on the reverse. One would read in strips through the book from front to back and then start the book all over again on page one on the second row of strips and so on.

I remember also seeing this as an indexing system for index cards in 2007. https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/sets/72157594200490122/

It's not too dissimilar a pattern from the early 20th century edge-notched cards which were used to make sorting collections easier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge-notched_card Of course doing this for a notebook isn't going to work as easily.

Reply to https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/comments/oq12xs/has_anyone_used_this_indexing_system_curious_what/

Example of a edge-based taxonomy system for index cards.