BREVITY FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use BREVITY techniques selectively, or must I use them all-or-nothing?

Professional writing systems should never be all-or-nothing propositions. You start gradually, progressively, and according to your professional judgment. Take what enhances your practice, adapt what needs modification, and trust your experience to guide these decisions.

Your court reporting system belongs to you—BREVITY provides tools for making it work better.

What if BREVITY doesn't work for me personally? Will learning these methods interfere with my current writing system?

BREVITY's primary principle is subtracting the unnecessary from your writing. If you can lift 300 pounds, would you worry about lifting 150 pounds?

When methods eliminate cognitive burden rather than add complexity, they don't interfere with existing skills—they enhance them. You're not learning a replacement system; you're removing obstacles that have been making your current abilities harder to access.

The techniques work selectively. You can adopt individual methods that feel natural while maintaining everything else exactly as it is. Professional judgment guides which techniques serve your practice, and there's no requirement to use everything.

If a BREVITY technique doesn't feel easier than your current approach, simply continue with what works. The goal is cognitive relief, not system replacement.

How do you respond to claims that BREVITY lacks independent validation or peer review?

The validation is everywhere—it's called the industry crisis. When 90% of students fail, when forum discussions overflow with complaints about memorization overload, when experienced reporters abandon their training under pressure, that IS the independent validation.

We didn't need to commission studies to prove traditional methods create cognitive strain—the industry's own discussions document it daily. The peer review is happening in real-time across Reddit, Facebook, and professional forums where reporters are organically requesting exactly what BREVITY provides.

Critics demanding "proof" should explain why 30 years of professional practice producing clean transcripts isn't validation, while methods with 90% failure rates are considered "proven." The burden of proof lies with systems that systematically fail most people who attempt them.

How do I decide which BREVITY techniques are worth learning and which ones to skip?

Use The Mileage Principle: assess whether a technique delivers enough value to justify its use. Focus on practical payoff over flawless execution.

Start with high-mileage techniques first—Skeletal Writing for your most common words, Partial Outlines for terms you write constantly. Focus on the 20% of techniques that will improve 80% of your daily writing.

Remember: Good enough, used consistently, beats perfect techniques that sit unused.

How is this different from just writing everything out stroke-by-stroke?

We still use briefs for the most commonly occurring words, but we no longer need huge brief libraries for uncommon words because we now have a much easier and more efficient way of writing them out.

Fewer briefs to learn, fewer briefs to forget. Instead of memorizing thousands of rarely-used outlines, you develop simple approaches that handle any word comfortably.

Can this approach handle specialized terminology effectively?

BREVITY strengthens foundational writing abilities, which proves invaluable when unfamiliar terminology appears unexpectedly in legal proceedings. Since complex cases often include specialized technical terms without warning, the approach emphasizes building reliable skills for writing any word clearly and efficiently.

This reduces over-dependence on having specific briefs for every possible term. The techniques provide systematic approaches to handling both familiar and unfamiliar content with equal professional confidence.