Introductions and Explanations

Hi! I'm Helen and court reporting school is kicking my butt. I thought that blogging about it would help keep me focused, hopefully. So, here's to hoping...

I started court reporting school at Cerritos College in California three years ago, against my mother's advice. She said that my strength was my social skills and that sitting quietly listening to what people were saying was not the best idea for me. Perhaps she's right, but I do really enjoy it... when I have a good day. It's weird some days I can write really well and others, I'd be lucky to get 50% of it down.

My current goal speed is 140 wpm. I still don't know how I managed to pass all my 130s, but I did.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the testing procedure it goes like this: The teacher dictates for five minutes at a specific speed. The students have their trusty machine set up in front of them and desperately pound on them, trying to get every word, punctuation mark, and change of speaker. Then, the students turn in their paper notes that came out of their machines and the teacher stamps them. The students then take those notes and have an hour to type them into a transcript. Some students, like me, use CAT (computer aided transcription) software to help them. This instantly translates steno into english which may sound easy except the software has to be "taught" how to translate all the words correctly, a process which seems never ending. After the transcript is produced, the student must correct it against the recording of the test. In California, to pass a test it must be at least 97.5% accurate. If a word is plural and you didn't pluralize it, it's wrong, if you put a period where a question mark should go, it's wrong. If, the defense attorney is speaking and you labeled it as prosecution, it's wrong, plus that counts even more so it's really minus 5!!! Basically, a transcript has to be perfect. Then, after you pass each kind of test (more on that later) in a specific speed and you start to feel good about yourself, they make you do it faster. It can be quite over whelming. I'd love to hear how some of you feel about it.