Court reporters have writing idiosnycracies. In an effort to provide you with the best possible realtime reading, I share with you a few of mine. Many reporters choose not to provide realtime or fast edit for this very reason. We all, to a fault, prefer providing an edited, corrected, and perfect transcript. Providing a perfect transcript in realtime, in all likelihood, probably is not going to happen. So please be gentle with your reporter, read the following foibles, and please feel free to ask any questions, make any suggestions, or just share your thoughts about this service.

A lazy right little finger contributes to some words translating in plurals and past tenses where it should be singular, and vice versa.

That same lazy right little finger will cause "the" to sometimes translate as "it is." It is the right index finger which causes the word "of" to translate "ever" from time to time, and the word "much" for "of."

A given reporter's dictionary will not cause every steno stroke to tran perfectly. Syllables may come up instead of words, and hopefully you'll be able to figure the word out.

Reporters can define a steno stroke "on the fly" during a pause in the proceeding, say for a proper name like "Lake Wobegon" which may not be in our steno-to-English dictionary. Sometimes we're not done when the proceedings go again, so you might see some of these: "^ DEFINE" and some garbled syllables following, and sometimes the word "escape" once or twice. This is not supposed to be in your transcript. I am sprucing up the transcript as we go so you receive the best possible "ready-to-go" transcript today.

Sometimes we'll write you a note in parentheses clarifying a mistranslate. Sometimes, these notes will be for a text editor.

You'll be able to see when we're getting tired at 9:00 p.m. or you're going too fast and letting the witness step on the questions when you see your translation translating less than perfectly.

Misstrokes will cause words to translate one for another; i.e., "documents" instead of "don't."

Sometimes you'll see the same word written a couple of times; I'm experimenting with my writing. Please ignore.

All of this is, of course, cleaned up for your final certified transcript and is only intended for your use until you receive the final transcript.

Hope this explaination is somewhat helpful. If you have any questions about realtime, you can contact me at [email protected].