History of Phoenix Theory

I’d appreciate an opportunity to introduce myself, tell you a little bit of my background and experience in machine shorthand, and explain exactly why and how Phoenix Theory was created.

My name is Carol Jochim. I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I began my involvement with machine shorthand in 1968 as a transcriber. I attended court reporting school and was certified in Superior Court in Arizona. Dreams of a lengthy career as a court reporter were cut short by a very nasty form of arthritis which affected joints throughout my body, depriving me of the use of my hands and knees and leaving me chairbound for almost two years. When the arthritis finally started going into remission and I was again ambulatory, I was invited to teach machine shorthand at Legal Arts of Arizona. Then in 1973, two other reporters and myself started the American Institute of Court Reporting in Phoenix, where I was an owner/instructor until we sold the school in 1978. (American Institute is still in existence today.) I "came out of retirement" shortly afterwards to fill an emergency teaching vacancy at Legal Arts of Arizona—and remained there until 1980.

At that time CAT (computer-aided translation) was very gradually gaining acceptance. I felt there was need for a service which encouraged and assisted reporters in using the new CAT technology; and in 1980 my husband and I started Compu-Scripts of Arizona. It was intended as my "little home-based business" with one computer, one operator (me!) and three or four reporter clients. It quickly became apparent the need far surpassed my expectations, and we found ourselves with a centralized office, an office staff and 17 full-time scopists; serving 100 clients; and, over the years, producing millions of pages of computer transcript.

Before CAT, most of us felt that "conflict" and "homonym" were synonymous as related to machine shorthand. We were totally unprepared for the tremendous number of conflicts which existed in "word boundaries." Even as convinced as I was that CAT and the potential for using machine shorthand to produce a first-pass final product ("realtime") was the future of machine shorthand and would be the savior of the court reporting profession, it was impossible to ignore the fact that of the numerous theories written by our Compu-Script clients—who had been trained in schools throughout the country, and included writers of almost every major theory then in existence—none of those theories was viable for productive realtime writing. In 1986 I was introduced to the first "realtime" machine shorthand technology. I relinquished my responsibilities at Compu-Scripts in order to become involved in supporting realtime machine shorthand in the form of creating training materials and acting as a consultant to schools and vendors.

CAT brought many advantages to machine shorthand—but it also created many new challenges in the way we write and teach machine shorthand. Before CAT, sloppy notes weren’t that much of a problem as long as we could read through them. And although our writing theories were spelling dependent with respect to vowels, if we didn’t know how a word was spelled, we simply wrote the sound we heard, with the expectation we could read the steno. With CAT, however, shorthand strokes must exactly match pre-programmed translation dictionary entries. Steno which has "shadows" or mistrokes will not translate—and to make matters worse, the sloppy writing which was formerly "our little secret" is now displayed on a computer screen for all the world to see! Writing machine shorthand has also turned into a particularly demanding "spelling bee"—for innumerable words, we have to be able to recall, and conform shorthand strokes to, correct vowel spelling, while continuing to write machine shorthand at 225-plus words per minute, or the strokes will not translate! Another major challenge has been that in order to meet NCRA requirements, theories were required to eliminate conflicts in an attempt to achieve some acceptable level of "computer compatibility." The approach used by pre-CAT (conventional) theories was to identify an area of conflict, create a rule; identify another area of conflict, create another a rule; identify another area of conflict, create another rule. Some pre-CAT (conventional) theories actually have dozens of rules which writers must memorize and be able to implement while writing machine shorthand at 225-plus words per minute—adding significantly to the mental agility required to successfully write machine shorthand.

As the evolution of machine shorthand theories continued, schools/students found themselves with basically two choices: Either a conventional theory (pre-CAT) which had achieved a modest degree of realtime compatibility by incorporating dozens of sometimes complex, convoluted rules; or Digitext, a theory designed specifically for realtime writing and which had successfully eliminated virtually all conflicts with a minimum of rules, but whose unique algorithmic translation system also makes realtime translation uniquely dependent on knowledge of correct spelling and word structure, and whose translation system is available only on keyboards using the Digitext technology.

As this transition to CAT and the evolution of machine shorthand theories continued, we all watched as the length and expense of training programs increased significantly, school enrollment dropped, and many schools throughout the country were forced to close their doors. While watching this process, I became convinced that we had become so focused on "computer-compatibility" that we had lost sight of the need for "operator-compatibility"—a writing theory which the average student can learn to write successfully at marketable speeds with a reasonable expenditure of time and money. One important question we all need to ask ourselves is: Would we be willing to invest an average of 3½-4 years of hard work and many thousands of dollars (or be willing to underwrite such an expense for our child) in a training program with the average attrition rate experienced by court reporting schools? I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t afford that gamble. Declines in enrollment could indicate that many prospective students reached the same conclusion.

Please don’t misunderstand. I would be one of the last people in the world to dispute how critical maximum computer-compatibility is to the future of machine shorthand. But I believe we can have both: a machine shorthand theory which has maximum computer compatibility and can be learned and written successfully by far more people in a reasonable length of time.

In 1991, I started working to create such a theory. My objective was to create a theory which: (1) Had maximum computer compatibility; (2) Had minimum spelling dependency; (3) Had a minimum number of rules to memorize; (4) Gave students the necessary foundation for writing all words and eliminated the uncertainty, frustration, and hesitation in writing "big" words (there will be many future jobs available for writers with entry level speeds, but I know of none that will be available to people with only entry level writing vocabularies); (5) Returned the "short" to shorthand and simplified machine shorthand to the point where the average student could learn theory and reach marketable speeds in a reasonable length of time: 6 months—entry level speed for text entry (100-120 wpm); 24 months—court reporting speed (225 wpm); and (6) Made available to every graduate at any speed level a comprehensive realtime translation dictionary so they leave school fully prepared to go to work. I felt these goals could be accomplished by creating a theory: (1) Which was written by sound; and (2) which incorporated a simple Vowel-Omission Principle which would virtually eliminate spelling dependency and, at the same time, automatically eliminate the vast majority of conflicts in word boundaries, totally eliminating the need for the multitude of rules for conflict resolution.

The first step was to create a comprehensive translation dictionary (90,000-plus words) covering the universe of the theory (all alternate stroking options permitted by the theory) so I could verify: (1) that all areas of conflict were identified and resolved; (2) that the Vowel-Omission Principle itself did not create any unanticipated conflicts or detract from the readability of the shorthand outlines.

As a matter of professional courtesy and disclosure, when I reached a point where I determined the project was viable, I advised Stenograph and other companies which I acted as a consultant to of this project I was pursuing. When the translation dictionary was in place and all the theory principles defined, Stenograph asked to have a theory consultant review the new theory under a non-disclosure agreement so Stenograph could determine if it might have an interest in marketing the theory. I agreed, with the stipulation that if they had any continued interest after review by their consultant, that Stenograph would assemble a panel of "experts" to further evaluate the theory.

The theory consultant’s evaluation was summed up with the comment that "Stenograph would not want to be in competition with the new theory." The theory was then reviewed by a panel consisting of: A realtime writer/trainer/consultant; a realtime writer who also taught StenEd theory; a realtime writer (of multiple languages!) who was himself an author of and taught machine shorthand theories; a CSR who at that time taught Stenograph’s Computer-Compatible Theory; a Ph.D. with a degree in education; the Director of Education for Stenograph; and a vice-president of Stenograph. Based on the response from the panel, Stenograph affirmed their interest in marketing the theory and a distribution agreement was concluded. The theory was then submitted to NCRA for review by a Theory Task Force which was then reviewing all theories for NCRA’s stamp of approval. A member of that Theory Task Force, in a telephone conversation with Stenograph confirming NCRA approval, described Phoenix Theory as "phenomenal, just phenomenal."

Now, the history of Phoenix Theory may have answered some questions for you. And comments of approval and enthusiasm were certainly very much appreciated and very important to me in surviving those times every thousand hours or so when I would pace the floor wailing, "I don’t want to ever see, hear, or think about another homonym ever again; I want to dream of something besides word parts and word boundaries—in fact, the English language is ridiculous, I hate words, I want to communicate in sign language from now on; and I don’t want to play this game anymore." But the why’s and how’s and compliments are all totally meaningless unless the theory can be validated by classroom performance and statistics. So where are we today? The first beta site started teaching Phoenix Theory in August 1996; and Phoenix Theory is now being taught to hundreds of students in multiple campuses across the country. It’s still too early to compile hard statistics on completion times. However, instructors have expressed their enthusiasm—and surprise—at the breadth of the vocabulary Phoenix Theory students can write with relative ease and their degree of stroking accuracy. And based on the rate at which the students are developing their writing speed, and the current tested speeds of our "pioneer" students, we are very optimistic that we will have multiple graduates at 225 wpm at or before our 24-month target date.

I prefer to call today’s state-of-the-art shorthand technology electronic shorthand—we’ve progressed way beyond the "machine" age. Electronic shorthand is an invaluable technology for any business/organization which has a need to enter text into a computer or produce hard copy text. Schools which teach true realtime electronic shorthand have far greater opportunities to increase their enrollment and enjoy a new level of success if they modify their curriculum to teach electronic shorthand as a technology which has many rungs in the ladder, with court reporting being the top rung but many levels of completion and job placement along the way. But the future of shorthand technology and the future of your school is primarily dependent on one thing: Our ability to train a sufficient number of realtime writers. And that requires teaching a realtime theory which the average student can learn and write successfully with a more reasonable expenditure of time, money, and effort.

You may find that Phoenix Theory is a better choice—for your students and for the continued success of your school.

cj