Court Reporting Dictionary Building Tips for Court Reporters
Every court reporter begins as a student, learning steno theory, and eventually putting steno notes through computer aided software to see what translates. At first, with a very small dictionary, very little steno will translate. That means a new court reporter will spend hours editing and changing the untranslated steno to English to create a finished transcript. Every year, a court reporter adds to the court reporting dictionary, making it better and better. The goal is to create a dictionary that will translate most of what is written. This means a court reporter will spend less time editing, will produce pages faster, and will make more money in less time.
Perfecting the court reporting dictionary is not just for new reporters. Working on your dictionary is one way you can continue to develop as a court reporter and get better and better at what you do. But what does it take to perfect a court reporter’s dictionary? The answer can be different for every court reporter.
Dictionary Building for the New Court Reporter
For a new court reporter, adding words to the dictionary, particularly legal terms, is a great place to start. Find a legal dictionary reference book or website, sit down with your steno machine, and begin writing terminology. Once you’ve written a list of words, begin defining and adding the terms to your dictionary.
Dictionary Building for the Experienced Court Reporter
If you are a reporter who has been writing for several years, it is likely that your writing theory has changed from the time when you first became a court reporter. In fact, your writing might have changed drastically. If that is the case, then you probably have a gigantic dictionary with words defined several different ways that are compatible with your old style of writing and your new theory. If you find your CAT system mistranslating terms often, you may want to begin sifting through your dictionary. Some court reporters begin by eliminating long phrasing that are defined in the old theory. It is true that combing through a very large dictionary is time consuming; however, this is a task that can be done a few minutes at a time. When you have down time before a deposition or a few minutes at the end of your work day, open up your dictionary and continue eliminating unnecessary definitions.
We should note that some court reporters never eliminate entries as long as they are not mistranslating. Instead, they focus on regularly reviewing the current theory they are writing and adding words that are not yet in the dictionary. Some court reporting software allows you to sort your dictionary by the date an entry was last used. Thus, you can look at all of your entries that you have not used for years, and decide whether to delete them.
Specialized Dictionary Building
If you are beginning to work on depositions with specialized language, such as medical depositions or technical depositions, you can often find a specialized dictionary or a number of terminology lists online. Adding this specialized language will help you breeze through the next time you have medical or technical testimony. You will be glad you spent the time to define new words and add them to your dictionary.
Dictionary Building with a Partner
If you’re not sure where you want to start with dictionary work, you might consider asking a court reporting friend to review your raw steno notes and make suggestions on ways of writing that you have not considered. You can do the same in return for your partner. You may be surprised to hear some simple suggestions that you’re not familiar with that can help you improve your writing and your translation rate.
These are just a few strategies for building your dictionary. How you decide to tackle your dictionary work is up to you. Try different strategies and decide which work for you. The most important thing to remember is that you are working to increase your translation rate so that you can write more cleanly. This higher translation is the key to becoming faster at transcribing which will allow you to produce more pages and make more money. The time you spend on your dictionary, in the long run, can pay off over and over in the years to come.
If you found this article interesting, you may also like “Resources for Keeping Up with the Latest Court Reporting Technologies.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Susan Kay is a Co-Founder and Co-Owner of Brown & Jones Reporting, Inc. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Google+.
Tags: court reporters, Court Reporting Dictionary
