I'm thinking too hard

I have lost count of how many word endings I have learned over the past three weeks. I'm still feeling a bit shell-shocked from all the information that I've absorbed. In fact, I occasionally get stumped during dictation and stop to figure out what key stroke to use for a particular ending. In my struggle to dig deep into my brain and hunt down the information that I'm looking for, the man dictating sentences through my headphones continues to dictate. HOW RUDE! What ~ he's not going to wait for me to catch up? And then the "Duh" moment hits me: The longer you stop writing, the farther behind you get in your transcribing. Bad girl! Bad.

Our court reporting instructors told us at the beginning of this quarter that it is OK to drop words. And they expect us to do it. You can always go back and figure out what you missed from the context of the conversation. Unfortuantely, I'm kind of a perfectionist and I want to have a clean transcript immediately. So the "just skip it and move on" concept is hard for me to do. There are two skills that I'm dealing with here, and they are in direct conflict with each other.

1. Recalling the knowledge, and,
2. Doing it at great speed.

Maybe it's too early to expect fast recall at this point, but it's what I'm striving for. Besides, it's what make a good court reporter, and that is what I want to be.

So today I will practice my speed building. My mantra is: I will drop words and I will be OK with that.

A calmness finally returns

After several weeks of feeling like I've been pummelled with information and falling behind, I'm back in the saddle again. I spent the weekend going back over the chapters that were troubling me and it paid off. I achieved a 98% on tonight's quiz ~ yay!

So moving forward with today's chapter was much easier. Chapter 32 is about words beginning with U, UN and UNDER. UN and UNDER are easy.

The U is a little tricky. Using the single letter U is out of the question. That is reserved for the shortcut of the word "you". When you spell out the word "you" it's YAOU ~ and that's what you write when starting words like unanimous, united, or utensil. When the long u sound is followed by a consonant sound in the same syllable, you include it with the long u sound. An example of this would be the word "urethane". Written out in steno, it looks like this: YAOUR/THAIN

With a little practice, I think this will come naturally.

Two steps forward, one step back

I'm taking the time to go back and review a couple of chapters that I didn't grasp too well ~ Chapters 28 and 29.

As I mentioned before, there was A LOT to absorb in these two chapters. On top of that, these theories were not cut into marble. There are a lot of variables that can occur. Like words ending in the ANS sound; as in guidance, inheritance and relevance. Sometimes you add the ANS with the last syllable and consonant: GAOI/DANS, IN/HERT/TANS, and REL/VANS and sometimes you tack on just the NS if you can fit it in at the end of the word, DE/FAOINS (defiance), KOM/PLAOINS (compliance) and PUR/SAOUNS (pursuance). I know this should confuse me, but it does.

Study, study, study.

Chapters 30 and 31

We studied the theories from Chapters 30 and 31 this week. I've lost track of how many word endings we've learned. I think I may have forgotten more than I've learned by now.

Thankfully, I had Friday off from work and had an extra day to study. This made a big difference this week. I don't feel quite as lost and am, once again, feeling back on track.

I'll have to remember this in the future. When I begin to get frustrated and lost, take a vacation day and decompress and study a bit!

Well, friends, back to studying!

16 different word endings in two days!

This week’s homework assignments were grueling. We worked on two chapters this week; both were about word endings. In total, we learned 16 different endings for words.

The theories for these endings are not carved in marble either. It seems like there are exceptions to every rule and it was never more obvious than in these two chapters.

We’ve been using the audio takes that have been provided with this course; which is Real-time StenEd Court Reporting. But, for some reason, this week’s audio recordings were done by one of our instructors. I think she forgot that we’re still writing at approximately 40 words per minute. If I had to guess the speed at which she spoke, I’d say 60 w.p.m. At first, I was stopping the tape in order to catch up and write all of the words. Then I thought to myself, well, that’s just cheating, just write what you can – drop words if you have to. It was stressful and it was awful. I’m not ready to write fast yet. I’m still learning the theory for Pete’s sake!

Closed captioning provided by . . .

When I decided to take classes to become a court reporter. I imagined myself sitting in a courtroom transcribing a trial, or in an attorney’s office taking depositions. I had no idea the wide array of jobs available to a court reporter that is trained and certified in real time court reporting.

Did you know that the closed captioning on television is provided by court reporters? Neither did I until recently.

In order to be able to provide closed captioning, a reporter needs to be certified in “Conflict Free Real-time Court Reporting”. This type is court reporting is designed to be mistake-free and read as it is typed. If you watch closed captioning long enough, you may see a typo. Most likely what you’re seeing is the court reporter using an incorrect “outline” for a word. Homonyms are a court reporter’s nightmare.

Look at these words:

weather/whether
weave/we’ve
medal/meddle
rain/rein/reign
metal/mettle
steel/steal
aisle/isle/I’ll
here/hear
border/boarder

Conflict Free Real-time Court Reporting is the style of stenography that I am learning. In order to get my degree and become certified, I will have to pass the test at 97% accuracy at a speed of 225 words per minute. This will take years to achieve, so wish me luck!

Oh, and the next time you see a “typo” in the closed captioning you’re reading, give the court reporter a little latitude. The English language is filled with all sorts of anomalies.

Banned words of 2010

In January, 2010, Time Magazine published their annual list of banned words.

1. Shovel-ready
2. Transparent/Transparency
3. Czar
4. Tweet
5. App
6. Sexting
7. Friend as a verb
8. Teachable Moment
9. In These Economic Times ...
10. Stimulus
11. Toxic Assets
12. Too Big to Fail
13. Bromance
14. Chillaxin'
15. Obama as a prefix

I don't necessarily agree with the words Transparent/Transparency, although I understand where they're coming from. The rest of the list is spot on.

My own personal list includes "awesome" and "dude". Perhaps this is a regional thing, but up here in beautiful, bountiful Sioux Falls, South Dakota, these words are very popular. Ugh! Did the good folks of Sioux Falls fall through one of those space time continuum black holes and land in bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure?

Now don't get your undies in a bundle, I can kid the citizens of Sioux Falls because they're the "shiz nits".

Mwua ~ love ya, Sioux Falls!

A brief lesson in stenography

My friend, Jay, asked me the other day, "So, how to you spell my name in steno? Is it just the letter J?"

A devilish grin slowly made its way onto my lips, and I said, "Well, Jay, since there is no 'J' on a steno keyboard, your name is spelled SKWRAEU." He was gobsmacked.

The combination of letters represent certain sounds. The letters SKWR is the "J" sound as in January, gymnasium, or geranium.

The letters AEU stand for the long "A" sound as in bait, rate and take.

So simply put ~ Jay is the J sound followed by the long A sound and is spelled SKWRAEU.

Poor SKWRAEU!

Carol Burnett still cracks me up!

I'm studying for a midterm exam tonight, so I'll leave you with a classic Carol Burnett court reporting skit. Cheers!

">

Mata Hari has nothin’ on me

I think our military is missing out on recruiting spies. Ever since I started going to college to get my degree in court reporting, my friends have asked me to give them a glimpse of what steno looks like. They're completely baffled by this strange combination of letters running down a paper tape. I admit that steno is difficult to read. You read from top to bottom, not left to right. This could be the reason that my class began with 15 students and is now down to only 4. It takes years for a stenographer to learn the theory behind the language, and to be able to write and read it back quickly.

It’s truly fascinating and if you're into code breaking, this is one you should try to break. Let me give you a small hint. You can spell the same word several different ways in steno . . .



Want to see what steno looks like? (Translation included, of course) Imagine this getting into the hands of the enemy.

OK, take a deep breath

This week's lessons are all about word endings. We worked on Chapter 28 tonight which is about words ending in -EN, -IN, -AN, -ENT, and -ANT. The theory is pretty simple, but there is A LOT to learn. OK, you should never end a word with the stroke EN. EN is used to begin a word. If the word ends in EN, type a final N, or add the consonant on the last stroke with EN. Similarly words ending in -IN and -AN. Add the consonant on the last stroke so that IN and AN do not stand alone. Clear as mud?

I peeked ahead to Chapter 29, which comes up Wednesday. More word endings coming up. -LE, -EL, -AL and -IL. Wow, this is a lot for one week!

Oh, and I got 99% correct on the quiz for Chapter 27!

Blog Claim at Technorati

Claim token: 5DXQT5U94FXC

Chapter 27

I'm really enjoying this chapter. The theory for words beginning with IN-, INT- AND ENT- is nice and makes sense to me. Besides, the theory falls nicely under my fingers! I've almost finished all of my homework which is due on Monday. I'm going to leave the audio drills until tomorrow. I like doing the audio drills and it's a nice way to spend a Sunday.

Monday quiz and Chapter 27

I was a little worried about tonight's quiz. We have a quiz every Monday regarding the previous week's lessons. If you remember, last week was numbers, decimals, fractions, dollar amounts and the SHUS and SHAL endings for words. It was a lot to absorb in a week. But, I got a score of 98%! Yay!

This week we're concentrating on only one lesson. Chapter 27 is all about words beginning with IN-, INT- and ENT-. Words beginning with IN- are pretty simple because in steno, it's the letters "IN".

However, if the word begins with INT or ENT, in steno you write "SPW". Holy horror! That makes reading back your notes VERY difficult. I think I understand why the instructors want to tackle only one chapter this week.

Crikey ~ wish me luck!

Busy weekend

I got A LOT done this weekend. I finished all my homework for the week. I finished a quiz and essay for Sociology due this Friday. I finished my American Government assignments and studied for the midterm. And I completed all of my Court Reporting homework. Whew!

I took some extra time this afternoon to work on some audio tapes for steno. I attempted the tapes at 45 words per minute, but I don't feel that I did very well. I'm torn between working on speed and working on my accuracy; because right now, I can't do both. As I've always said, if I can't write accurately slowly; I'll never be able to write accurately fast. Words to live by.