THE SCIENCE OF STENO: Why Court Reporting Is So Hard — And What the Math Proves
Available in signed hardcover ($249) and paperback ($198).
What this book helps you do
Get a clearer explanation of why realtime writing feels difficult—and a better way to decide what to do next.
- Understand why familiar outlines disappear, hesitation takes over, and your writing freezes under pressure—so you stop blaming yourself for every failure.
- See whether your difficulty comes from stroke count, mental load, or the process of hearing, choosing, and executing—so you know what to practice.
- Trace plateaus, correction spirals, lag, and fatigue to their causes—so your next practice session has a clear purpose.
- Judge whether a theory or training method can support accurate work through a full testimony and workday.
- Use measurements and practical questions to decide what to change, what to keep, and what not to accept on faith.
What you’ll gain from reading it
- Replace vague frustration with a clearer explanation of where your writing load comes from.
- Know what to investigate when a familiar outline disappears or your accuracy falls late in the day.
- Choose practice, theory, or system changes based on evidence that fits your actual work.
- Judge whether your method can support accurate writing through a full testimony and a sustainable career.
- Leave with a practical standard for what sustainable realtime writing should feel like.
The book backs these questions with documented measurements from 37 years of complex litigation experience and a quantitative model of stenographic writing.
It explains the data and its limits so you can judge the evidence directly—and see what remains unproven.
From a reader’s review
“Your book is a breath of fresh air when you’ve been swimming like mad to the surface after being underwater for so long.”
“You really aren’t asking anyone to take anything from that book, or your ideas, on faith.”
“The books gave me hope that I could go somewhere that didn’t have to be so hard. But more importantly, they proved to me—in my writing, in real time, in my classes—that BREVITY is onto something.”
— GW, Seattle
Read Chapter 1 of both books free. The Science of Steno shows why steno feels so hard. BREVITY: Write Simply shows how to take keys out of the words you write most. Enter your email and both chapters are yours.
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- Seven in-depth chapters covering foundation techniques to a systematic approaches to word construction patterns
- Six well structured appendices that are designed to provide quick and easy reference
- A complete implementation toolkit
- Beautifully produced, matte satin finish hardcover book
THE SCIENCE OF STENO: Why Court Reporting Is So Hard — And What the Math Proves
Dimensions
- Height
- Width
- Pages
- 9 inches
- 12 inches
- 146
Design
- Materials
- Cover
- Finish
- Premium Hard Cover
- Premium Dust Jacket
- Matte Finish
Frequently Asked
Questions
Do I need to have many years of professional experience to benefit from BREVITY?
No. The opposite is true.
BREVITY was designed specifically around the limitations of the median human brain—not around what 36-year veterans can tolerate. The phonetic logic means you derive outlines from sound rather than retrieve them from a memorized inventory of tens of thousands of briefs.
For students: You don’t need years of drilling to build a massive brief database before the system “works.” It works from day one because the patterns make sense.
For new reporters: You don’t need to white-knuckle through a 5-year “it gets easier eventually” curve. The load profile is sustainable from the start.
For experienced reporters: You may actually face a brief unlearning period—breaking arbitrary patterns you’ve drilled for years. But the cognitive relief on the other side is immediate.
The whole point of this book is that traditional systems require exceptional capacity or exceptional time investment to overcome their load. BREVITY doesn’t ask you to become exceptional. It asks you to write what you hear.
If anything, fewer years of ingrained habits makes the transition easier.
Can I get a refund on this course if I don't find that the techniques work for me?
No. But you don’t have to take that risk blind.
Before you purchase anything, you can test BREVITY’s output for free using the Analyzer. Upload or paste one of your transcripts and see how many keys BREVITY would save you. Compare the key savings to what you’re writing now.
The Analyzer doesn’t teach you the system. But it shows you the results of the system. You can see for yourself whether the outlines make sense to your fingers and your brain before you spend a dollar.
If the output doesn’t click for you after testing it, you’ve lost nothing. If it does, you’ll know what you’re buying.
We don’t offer refunds, but we also don’t ask anyone to buy on faith. The evidence is free. The decision is yours.
Do I need to change everything about the way I work in order to benefit from BREVITY's methods?
No.
BREVITY is modular. You can adopt it in pieces, starting wherever you hurt most.
- If a word is unstable at 3 PM, fix that one word.
- If phrase prediction is burning you, stop predicting and write what you hear.
- If your briefs for the top 50 litigation words feel shaky under fatigue, swap those first.
You don’t have to burn down your dictionary overnight. You don’t have to retrain from scratch. You don’t have to abandon everything that’s working.
Keep what works. Replace what doesn’t. The system’s phonetic logic means new outlines integrate cleanly—they don’t create conflicts with patterns you’ve already automated.
Some reporters swap 20 words and feel immediate relief. Some rebuild from the ground up. Most land somewhere in between, guided by where their current system breaks down.
The question isn’t “all or nothing.” The question is: Where is your load highest? Start there.
Do my colleagues need to understand the BREVITY system in order for me to use these techniques?
No.
BREVITY lives in your fingers and your dictionary. No one else touches either.
Your scopist sees English but should read steno. Your proofreader sees English, not steno. Your agency sees transcripts, not outlines. Opposing counsel sees the record, not your key count.
The only person who needs to understand how you write is you.
If anything, colleagues notice the results—cleaner realtime, fewer untranslates, less editing time, more consistent output after lunch. They don’t need to know why. They just see that your work got better.
You’re not asking anyone to change. You’re not introducing a workflow dependency. You’re not creating coordination problems.
You’re just writing differently. And what comes out the other end is still English.
Still have questions?
Please reach out to me and I'd love to discuss how BREVITY can transform the way you work.