Real Talk with Joshua Edwards
According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the need for captioners is going up. Joshua Edwards is a captioner. Using a stenographic machine, he taps out captions for people who are deaf or hard of hearing so they can follow the words of a stage musical or lecture. He got his start as a court reporter, making transcripts of legal trials. Here, Edwards talks about his work.Ā
Letās begin with your work as captioner. Can you describe what you do?
I co-own a business called Steno Captions. Most of the work we do is for college classesāundergraduate, some masters, and PhD. Iām currently following some students who are deaf and hard of hearing through law school. This is fascinating to me, because itās like going to law school and listening to all the lectures.
What I provide is real-time captioning. The student has an iPad, which connects wirelessly to a router. The router is connected to my laptop, which is connected to my stenographic machine. I usually sit in the front row, off to the side, where thereās an outlet, so I can plug in my laptop. I transcribe what the professor says. The student can sit anywhere. They donāt have to be next to me. And they read the text on the iPad.Ā Ā
How is using a stenographic machine different from using a keyboard?Ā
Typing on a QWERTY, or standard, keyboard is typing by spelling, one letter at a time. Stenography is not typing by spelling. Itās writing by sound. A steno machine has 22 keys. I can write a word that has 10 or 11 letters in two strokes of the steno machine. Iām going at least 80% faster than somebody typing on a keyboard. So, I could write your first name, Brian, in one stroke, using a combination of br, because those are the first two consonants of your name. And then n with the right hand, which is the ending consonant. And then long i with my thumb.
How did you decide to focus on captioning for the deaf?Ā
I started out as a court reporter. I spent five years doing depositions in court, then one year in federal court. It was not for me. I needed to be challenged more. I was talking to a friend who said, āWell, you could do captioning.ā And I said, āWhat is captioning?ā She said thereās so much work in this field that they canāt find enough people to do it. And thatās true today. My business partner, Wendy Baquerizo, and I are constantly looking for new people.Ā
What other events do you caption?
Musical performances. Iāve captioned Broadway shows, like My Fair Lady. Iāve captioned the Tony Awards for the past four years. I just captioned an off-Broadway play. And Iāve been to the New York Philharmonic. Not only do I get to watch the performances, Iām getting paid to be there.Ā
Arenāt the performances the same every night?
You need a stenographer when thereās variation in the script, or when the show has ad-lib parts. And some shows do have ad-lib. Or theyāll have a talk-back with the cast after the show. They come sit onstage, and the audience interacts with them. I transcribe that, and the audience can read the captions.Ā
Letās talk about your experience as a court reporter, since thatās where many stenographers work. Why is the court reporterās work important?Ā
People have a right to appeal if they get an adverse ruling in court. And what is an appeal based on? Itās based on your transcript. Letās say somebodyās convicted of a crime. They have a constitutional right to appeal that conviction. They can go to an appellate court, to see if there was some error in judgment, an error of law that allows them to have a new trial. And the appellate court is going to read the transcript, and make a determination based on that. What the witnesses saidāall of that is going to be preserved by the transcript that the stenographic court reporter creates.
What skills would prepare a young person for this kind of work?Ā
Itās hard to say what skills are absolutely required. You never know youāre going to be great at this until you try it. Iām a trained musician: I sing. When I was a teenager, I taught myself to play all the songs from Phantom of the Opera from sheet music. Having that musical background accustomed me to putting in hours and hours of practice. And thatās how you get better at something: Itās by throwing yourself into it. Anything thatās complicated can be made easy by learning the fundamentals and practicing until you master them.
How does one train for this work? And for how long?
There are two ways to train. Most people go to a court-reporting school. Thereās a list on the National Court Reporters Association website of accredited schools. The second way is self-study. There are online communitiesāfor example, forums for talking about resources for stenography. There are even steno-machine overlays that you can put onto a regular computer keyboard to turn it into a steno machine.Ā
Ā It took me 14 months. A lot of people take several years. But it really depends on the individual.Ā
Any words of advice for people who are interested in becoming a stenographer?
Thereās the misconception that this job is becoming obsolete. Itās not becoming obsolete in any way. Itās still very much in demand. The challenge we face is really that fewer people know about it. But there is such a demand. You should look into the state associations. Most of them have mentoring programs. They will help you, if this is something youāre interested in learning more about.