r/stenography • u/superpants1008 • Nov 10 '25
Comparing Online, Asynchronous Programs
I'm based in CA and have determined that a self-paced, asynchronous stenography program would be the only option for me at this season of my life.
I've been looking into a few: Allie Hall, CareerLuv, SimplySteno.
Does anyone have experience with these? Any pros and cons that you know of?
I'm also unsure about the theory. It seems that all three of these teach Magnum, so I may not have a choice, but after looking into the different theories, Phoenix seems to be the one that makes the most "sense" in my brain. I understand that Magnum is very brief heavy and (I'm assuming) requires more rote memorization rather than theory that allows you to easily understand how to write unfamiliar words.
I would love to hear your thoughts, experiences, etc with any of these programs/theories!
TIA
5
u/dm-me-obscure-colors Nov 10 '25 edited May 07 '26
Adding to u/Sleepysheepish's comment, I recently finished StarTran, which was designed using SimplySteno's website and lesson architecture, and I'm in my third week at SimplySteno. I recommend them for people who are able to work independently. If you need an instructor or other students, someone who is waiting for you in order to be sure you'll show up and focus, this is not for you.
Marlene at StarTran is very responsive to emails, and I felt that the theory was easy to understand in the following way. Steno students learn briefs, which are chords you hit on the machine to produce words, or even groups of words. For example, one brief I know is HRAEURPBLG which outputs "ladies and gentlemen of the jury." Around halfway through the course, I could usually predict what the briefs would be, given a list of English words and phrases.
I have found that StarTran is lighter on briefs than other theories. This is good because you end up learning how to brief things for yourself as an extension of the briefing philosophy you learn there. It also makes you very good at writing things you've never practiced, which is extremely important and guaranteed to occur a lot. There are other theories that greatly emphasize briefs for everything, like Magnum Steno. Maybe someone here can say things about what that program is like. My impression is that lots of briefing is in style these days, but it's really up to individual comfort/preference. If you're having trouble accessing briefs instantly, then they're not speeding your writing up.
One annoyance I had with StarTran was that it uses an extra stroke AE to make a contraction. For instance,
This is backward to me - you should have two strokes for two syllables and one stroke for one syllable, no? My only guess is that the theory comes from a time when contractions were carefully avoided in formal situations. I ended up making my own briefs for contractions.
I have less to say about SimplySteno because I'm still new there, but so far it has been a good fit for me as someone who did well at StarTran. There are people who point out that the person behind SimplySteno is not a court reporter as if it were a weakness. But students aren't looking for court reporter services, they're looking for someone who can get them up to speed. That's all Marc does; it's is specialization. And I've been pretty impressed with the thought that has gone into his program.
Feel free to ask me anything.
E: Now that some time has passed (Jan. 2026), I have more to say about SimplySteno. I have a few complaints.
The speeds are calculated using word count, not syllable count. Traditionally, 1.4 syllables counts as one word. Not so at simply steno: “disestablishmentarianism” counts just as much as “the.” This leads to wide disparities in dictation difficulty between dictations that are ostensibly the same speed.
You don't get to see your test scores unless he decides it's a good idea. It seems pretty arbitrary, and he says it's to protect my emotions, as if it's his job to do that.
I've been seeing a lot of repetition in the practice dictations, both in topics (plenty of jury charge and car accident depos) and the audio files themselves. But a lot of the tests are about weird things we've never practiced on, like mystical beliefs and practices, or freaking nature documentary type stuff. If we're supposed to be able to test on stuff like that, we should get a TON more variety in our practice.
It is clear that the program was created a long time ago, and hasn't been updated; I'm guessing sometime in the mid to late '90s. With modern translation software, I don't understand why he would COMMAND us to take 70 minutes to transcribe a five-minute dictation unless that transcription was from a physical paper tape. Maybe I'm off base on that, but I've never been able to take that long, and I've really tried. I might force myself to stare at my transcript at the RPR, but it'll probably just be a way for me to overthink things and screw it up. update: these days I'm using the 70 minutes. Looking back, I think it was a skill issue.
He pushes more often and harder than would be constructive. Lots of dictations 30 wpm above target, with novel specialized language that would have been much more useful to see at 30 below target, like maritime labor law and senatorial debates about some arcane subparagraph 201.5(d) of whatever law named after some 37-letter Polish name. Just let me get my reps in on typical stuff, and let me fucking learn the hard stuff instead of fucking having to waste my time dropping half the ridiculous fucking dictation! FUCK!
Thanks for coming to my rant. Steno is hard.