Changing majors.

After some serious soul searching, I've decided to end my journey to become a court reporter and change my major. I've thought long and hard about this decision and the reasons are varied. Almost every reason has something to do with my age or finances. As I mentioned to my instructor, if I knew then what I know now, I would have started court reporting in my early 20s, not my late 40s.

It's been said that the average length of time to become a certified court reporter is 33 months. From what I understand, this length of time is based on being enrolled in a full time court reporting school. I'm enrolled in night courses, and working full time simultaneously. Therefore, I don't have the ability to practice 8 hours a day, and this situation will no doubt add years to the time it will take me to become certified. Obviously, this additional time will also increase the total cost of getting my degree. This begs the question: "How far into debt do I want to go to get my 2-year degree?" Do you see where I'm going with this?

For those of you unfamiliar with the court reporting field. Court reporters also own their own equipment. Once you graduate from court reporting school, you are expected to purchase a professional-level stenograph and a computer program used to convert your steno into English so that it can be read by individuals in real time -- like closed captioning. You may even have to purchase a new laptop computer for this venture. This set up is quite costly. $7,000 - $10,000. Cha-ching! That's quite a bit to add on top of my student loans. Should I really be racking up this kind of debt at my age?

So I have decided to pursue an A.S. degree in Paralegal Studies. A lot of my credits will transfer to this program so I already have a running start. Besides, I worked for a law firm for many years and I'm fascinated by the law. It seems like a good fit for me!

I wish everyone luck in their journey. You've picked a great career. It just didn't work out for me.

Steno comics from the early 20th century.

I never liked history when I was a kid. But, I was lucky enough to have one of those teachers in high school who knew how to light the fire of interest in one subject or another. For me, that teacher was Mr. Wise. My love for history can be traced directly to his American History class.

So it will come as no surprise that I enjoy browsing websites such as the Library of Congress: Chronicling America - Historic American Newspapers. Yeah, I'm a history geek.

I was searching for old articles about stenography and came upon these comics. Unlike the comics we see today, these aren't funny. They're dated, they're sexist; and, frankly, they are kinda weird.

We've come a long way, baby! (Click comic to enlarge)

Eddie's Friends published in the El Paso Herald, May 29, 1920.


Sally Snooks from the Los Angeles Sunday Herald, Sept 8, 1907.

Sally Snooks from the Los Angeles Herald, Sept 15, 1907.

The metronome and speedbuilding

Tonight's speed test was a total disaster. The instructor started dictating; and, on about the fourth word, I started plunking down mistake after mistake after mistake. I tried to get back on track. Nothing worked. I'm sure that I stopped breathing. I paused briefly and tried to gain my composure. I finally resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to pass this speed test. OK, that's nothing new. This happens more often than I'd like to admit.

So, here I sit with about four minutes of dictation left in the test. What shall I do? I'm relaxed because I am no longer stressed and have no expectation of passing. I can pretty much do what I want. So I started stroking out the outlines as if a metronome was beating in my head. After about ten seconds of rhythmically pressing the keys, I was keeping up with the speaker ~and I was typing the correct outlines!

I had a true "ah-ha" moment. I have practiced to a metronome before, but I haven't done it in a long time. Perhaps this is my key to speedbuilding. I know it gave me a confidence boost tonight. I was rather proud that I was able to easily keep up with the speaker.

Yeah, I didn't pass tonight's test, but that's OK. I learned a little something about building confidence by using a metronome. I'm going to practice this technique; and, hopefully, my speed will increase along with my confidence.

Speedbuilding tip - Know your shorthand system.

It's been a while since I've posted a tip from the book 61+ Ways to Write Faster. This tip is about how important it is to know your shorthand theory.

Your shorthand system is very important. It is to shorthand writing what a foundation is to a building. Shorter shorthand systems (less strokes and more
abbreviations) tend to be faster systems. While this principle is disputed by
some, so was the principle that the world was round. Both postulates have proven
themselves with time and advanced knowledge.

Whatever your system, don't even think about changing it during a test. While there are some "pros" who have great facility at this skill, for most it will result in hesitation, mental confusion and more errors. "Briefs" on the run usually result in "drops", "mangled outlines" and "chaos" during transcription.

Boy, do I know that feeling! It seems like I'm always "briefing" words during a test. And I don't think there's ever been a time when I've been able to decipher those briefs when I'm transcribing my tape.

Book: How To Become An Expert Court Reporter

I find the Bing commercial where people are blurting out a bunch of random words to illustrate how other search engines perform amusing. In a sense, it’s true. On the other hand, you can discover little gems of information by doing a search and clicking on links that you think might prove interesting.

Here is a little gem that I found through a random search. It's a book titled, How To Become An Expert Court Reporter by Robert F. Rose published in 1917.

Of course, I haven’t had time to read the entire book, but I plan to work my way through it eventually. I find these old books fascinating.

How To Become An Expert Court Reporter

Occupational outlook for court reporters

I found an article from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that is very enlightening for those of us planning to become court reporters.

According to the article, the need for court reporters should increase by 18%, which is above average for all other occupations between the years 2008-2018. This projection is due to the continued need for accurate transcriptions of court proceedings and the increased need for closed-captioning for live television and other real-time broadcast captioning and translation services for the deaf and hard of hearing.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the article, you will find a paragraph relating to wages.

I think our prospects look good!

Read the full article here:

Occupational Outlook for Court Reporters

Steno practice aids added to blog!

Time to get organized. I've gathered together some of my favorite steno study aids and posted them in an easy to find box in the right-hand column of my blog.

My favorites are the flashcards. I had every intention of making my own flashcards, but by the time I had a chance to sit down and do them, Nev over at The Court Reporter's Oatmeal and Tailypo who posts on the Depoman.com forum beat me to it. Bless their fuzzy little hearts! They did a wonderful job and saved me a bunch of time!

I've also added John Decaro's podcasts and the Magic Drills from Court Reporting Help.com.

More will be added so stay tuned

10 things court reporters hate to hear

I found this amusing item in this month's JCR magazine where court reporters send in their hilarious transcripts and the funny things that they hear.

10 THINGS COURT REPORTERS HATE TO HEAR:

10. "Let me know if that bothers you."

9. "My reporter gives me that for free."

8. "You knew this was going to be an overnight expedite, right?"

7. "How soon can I have this without being charged for an expedite?"

6. "Doctor, what schools did you attend in Pakistan?"

5. "Didn't our office call to cancel?"

4. "You don't mind working through lunch, do you?"

3. "We can put the exhibit labels on later."

2. "We're going to try to do this without an interpreter."

And, finally, number 1. "I HAVE JUST ONE MORE QUESTION"!

Yes, I knew you would enjoy those tidbits.

Your theory is your friend

I have been extensively reviewing my theory over the past few weeks. I am currently working through Chapter 27 of my StenEd Theory book. This particular chapter is about words beginning with IN-, INT- and ENT-.

In my haste to build my speed, I had forgotten about the wonderful stroke "SPWER" for words beginning with inter- and enter- and "SPW" for words beginning with int- and ent-.

Unfortunately, I've acquired the habit of using three strokes for words such as entertain, intersection, interview and intoxicate.

For giggles, let's compare the number of strokes I can save by using my theory correctly on a sentence using the words above.

"The intoxicated entertainer was standing at the intersection being interviewed by a reporter." (A great practice sentence, BTW)

Before my theory review ~ 26 strokes

T IN/TOX/KAIT/D EN/TER/TAIN/ER WUZ STAND/G AT T IN/TER/SE*BGS PW-G IN/TER/SRAOU/D PWEU A RORT/ER

After my theory review ~ 22 strokes

T SPWOX/KAIT/D SPWER/TAIN/ER WUZ STAND/G AT T SPWER/SE*BGS PW-G SPWER/SRAOU/D PWEU A RORT/ER

No wonder I'm having trouble keeping up with the speaker. Those extra strokes are slowing me down and causing me to get farther and farther behind the speaker.

Trust me, it pays to learn your theory and use it to your full advantage!

10 things court reporting students must do ~ #8

Todd Olivas just posted another video from his series about what every court reporting student must do in order to graduate.

#8 - Getting back to basics



Previous posts from the series:

#9 Do what they tell ya

#10 Show up

This is what I've been doing over the past couple weeks. I'm currently reviewing Chapter 22 of the StenEd Realtime Theory Book - words ending in -CT, -X, and the -SHUN sound.

This chapter is a wonderful review of the slight difference is words.

For words ending in -X, write -BGS

box -- BOBGS
fax -- FABGS
lax -- LABGS
tax -- TABGS

For words ending in -CTION and -XION, write *BGS

action -- A*BGS
conviction -- KON/V*IBGS
crucifixion -- KRAOUS/F*IBGS
reduction -- RE/D*UBGS
section -- S*EBGS

For words ending in -SHUN, write -GS

admission -- AD/MIGS
audition -- AU/DIGS
coalition -- KO/LIGS
propulsion -- PRO/PULGS
convention -- KON/VENGS
expansion -- EX/PANGS

Happy writing!
Show up

Video ~ Court Reporting as a Career

I found a rather nice video about court reporting as a career on the U.S. Courts' website that I'd like to share with you.

Click link to view:

Court Reporter as a Career

That's a profession I can be proud of!

Speedbuilding tip - Do not practice the same take more than once.

I like this tip. If you think about it, this is how a court reporter really works. If you are in court or at a deposition, you only get one chance to get down what's being said ~ so why not practice as if you're in court working on a trial?

From the book 61+ Ways to Write Faster:

This will help you form the habit of pressing forward against all odds, surging ahead like a swimmer going through a series of breakers, always on the verge of being swallowed up, but finally coming through. Furthermore, it forces your mind to perform more and more efficiently in hearing unexpected words and word arrangements and instantaneously organizing your fingers' writing responses to those unexpected word arrangements. It's this sense of urgency, combined with practice at the proper speed, and reading back your notes, that will help you increase your speed.

The authors of this speedbuilding tip also believe that if you practice the same take over and over that you lose the sense of urgency that's so important in speedbuilding. You may think to yourself, "Oh, I'll get that word the next time." Yes, I've thought that and perhaps you have too.

You may also have a tendency to create an "on-the-fly" brief for an uncommon word or phrase that recurs each time you listen to the take. A brief that isn't well thought out, and one that you'll probably never use again. Yes, I've done this too.

Argghh ~ all my dirty little sins are being exposed in this book! On the other hand, they give good advice on speedbuilding.

Lost my groove, my rhythm

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've acquired some bad habits from practicing to audio that was way too fast, and then NOT READING BACK MY NOTES. In an attempt to break these bad habits, I have decided to take a deep breath, step back in time, and seriously review my theory.

I'm going to follow a tip about studying theory from the book, 61+ Ways to Write Faster.

"When trying to "clean up" your notes, follow the routine of taking one lesson from your theory book and writing it from the hard copy. Do not write an incorrect stroke; take your time to write perfect notes, Read back the same out loud. Put it on the table where you will start your practice for the next day. When you are ready to do another lesson from your theory book, start by reading out loud the lesson you did the day before. Continue the process until you have covered all the lessons in your theory book. Toward the end you will be doing more reading of your notes than writing.

Reading the perfect outlines out loud will allow you to not only hear the word from reading your perfect outline, but it will give a mental picture of that outline to store in your "computer" brain. Do this for two weeks and you will pass those tests!"

I have just completed my third day of hard copy practice from my theory book. It's a great review and I'm amazed at how much I'm re-learning about my theory. I'm sure I sound like a second grader learning to read as I read my notes out loud, but if nothing else, my read-back skills are improving!

Learning from my mistake.

A strange thing happened during my last speed test. Throughout the dictation I was writing beautifully -- I didn't jump over too many words and my fingers seemed to be dancing along nicely. I couldn't wait to transcribe my notes!

I set up my laptop and I started typing. A couple of sentences later, I noticed a problem. I had consistently stroked words the wrong way. I typed "re" for "we" throughout the dictation. I typed "in the" instead of "if the" throughout the dictation. I typed "the the" instead of "is the" throughout the dictation. I also confused "has" with "had" -- and the list goes on. ~Sigh~

Great! Somewhere along the way, I've developed some bad habits. I have been trying to increase my speed by practicing to television and audio takes that were in the range of 180-220 words per minute, which is much faster than my current speed of 70-80 wpm. Since I knew I wasn't getting ALL the words, I didn't take the time to read back my notes. Yes, I know what you're thinking. "What a bonehead!"

Thankfully, when I arrived home that evening, the book I ordered had arrived in the mail. 61+ Ways to Write Faster. I sat down and started reading it that night. This book is chocked full of great suggestions. The one that seems to be repeated throughout the book is -- wait for it -- READ BACK YOUR NOTES. You may not think it's important to read your notes, but if I had done this more often, I would have noticed my problem much earlier.

Focus on the speaker

Class was cancelled last night because of the snow storm. The timing couldn't have been better. It gave me a chance to practice on the newly redesigned RealTime Coach website. Have you seen it yet? It's very nahz . . . I took the "tour" of the new website and was able to find all the features that I had used previously. Other than a new look, it pretty much runs the way the old website did.

You'll be happy to hear that I learned something new last night. For the first time, I watched video clips on RTC instead of simply listening to the audio of each take. What a difference it made in my writing! My theory teacher suggested that we should focus on the speaker when transcribing, but I found that difficult when I was still in theory. But since I no longer have to stare at my keyboard while I'm writing, I can look at the speaker. Once again, my theory teacher was right ~ it really makes writing a little easier. Maybe it's the distraction of looking at the speaker. Who knows? And, frankly, I don't care. As soon as I started to focus on the speaker, I was able "disengage" my brain from my hands and let my fingers do all the work. True, I was still slow and skipping over some words to keep up, but the words that I was typing were coming a bit more naturally.

It was a good practice session.

61+ Ways to Write Faster

I just ordered the book, 61+ Ways to Write Faster from the National Court Reporters Association online store. Shop online here. I decided to buy it when I read a couple of tips from the book that I hadn't seen anywhere else, so I thought I'd splurge and buy it. Actually it's not expensive if you're a member of NCRA. ($13.45)

I hope it arrives soon!

Here are a couple of tips from the book:

1. Practice in the dark. Initially, I thought this suggestion was to help those who look at their keyboards. (A no-no, by the way.) But practicing in the dark helps your concentration. Hmmm, who knew?

2. Read your perfect notes out loud. I don't read my notes as often as I should, and when I do, I always search out my mistakes so I know what strokes I'm missing. That's helpful too, but you should read your perfect notes for reinforcement. I used to read my StenEd Reader for perfect notes, but I've long stopped doing that. Reading your own notes for reinforcement makes perfect sense. Additionally, it's a great confidence booster to see how well you're doing!

3. Practice to strengthen your weak hand. If you have a weak hand (one hand makes more mistrokes than the other), practice to dictation only writing the parts of the outline that you would with your weak hand. Do this for one minute. Then switch, and use the same technique using your strong hand. Do this for 3-5 mins every day, and you will begin to train THE RIGHT AND LEFT SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN TO CONNECT THE STROKES. This is such a cool idea! I'm not sure if I have a weak/strong hand, but I'm still going to do this type of practice because it's so unusual.

Happy writing, ya'll!

Test driving an ergonomic stenograph

One of my fellow court reporting students has on loan from a friend in Arizona a Gemini Revolution Grand stenograph. She brought it in for us to see, and our instructor let us try it out during class. This ergonomically-styled stenograph is pretty retro looking. Its split keyboard is infinitely adjustable, and the numbers "bar" has been replaced with individual keys for each number which I found a little awkward.

Thankfully, I've never had any carpel tunnel issues (knock on wood), but I can see how the adjustability of the keyboard could benefit someone who does.

I could probably get used to this type of machine, but on my first attempt, it felt like my hands were in two different rooms trying to make a ham sandwich.