D-F/STROEBG/-Z

"Different strokes for different folks. Literally" - Shurice Gross.


There is an ongoing debate among those who are stenographers about what theory is the best and whether or not to write short or write everything out. This comes up about once a month in some stenography forums.

If you are just starting your journey in court reporting, captioning, or CART, or any other steno field, I would just encourage you, once again, to research. If you are doing self-study, check into the different theories available to learn and choose one that makes sense in your head. I, personally, write Phoenix theory because that's what I was taught when I began school. I didn't get a choice. However, I do love it because it makes sense in my head.

There is pretty much a stroke for everything! Every word part has a specific way of being written and this works for me because it allows me to feel confident that when I write an unfamiliar word out, it will come out, for the most part, correctly translated in perfect English on my screen or my client's screen.

I also use some briefs and phrases. I use the ones that make sense to me. The ones I can remember. I am really good at remembering briefs and phrases, even after writing them out once. I've usually got it down without hesitation. However, I don't always hear phrases as phrases when I'm writing to a speaker. I just don't. Whether that is laziness on my part, or simply an innate inability to hear things that way, I don't do a whole lot of phrasing.

Common words are always done as one stroke and those that I find that do not have a one stroke option, I make it up. I filter through my dictionary to make sure my outline I'm creating isn't going to create a big conflict with other things, and make up what works for me.

There will be many people who will say, mathematically it makes sense to write as short as possible. Yes. I agree with this, less strokes = less physical effort = faster writing. And if that works for you, great.

I think the title of this blog should be something about DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU, because I'm always saying that over and over and over again.

Someone who writes most everything out can also be just as fast as those who write short. It simply takes more physical effort to gain that speed.

Also, consider where you want to be working when you are thinking about taking on a brief or phrase heavy style of writing. I've been informed, countless times by captioners, that you cannot phrase everything while captioning. This refers to multiple word phrases like those found, well my best example would be in jury charge: GR*ITZ is my phrase for greater number of witnesses. There is a limit to how many characters you can send through on the captioning software, and so using large phrases like that in a stroke could cause things to come out funny on the screen. There have been captioners who have had to really modify their writing in order to caption, having come from court or deops and moved into captioning.

Take some time to consider what will be best for you. What will work for you for where you want to be. And don't let anyone tell you that you're never going to be a kick arse stenographer because you don't do it their way.

I would like to have my own international freelance firm one day, someday, a long way a way... And I can tell you that I wouldn't like to hire anyone who isn't willing to accept the fact that just because someone doesn't do something the way you do, does not make it wrong or inadequate. As long as the job gets done and gets done extremely well, who cares what theory was used to write it or how stroke intensive it was?

Here are some resources to check out and form your own opinion:

Phoenix Theory
StenEd Theory
StarTran Theory
NCRA's info on Stenomaster Theory
Magnum Steno
StenoWatchDog's list of theories and reviews

And remember: Google is your friend. :)