Spelling ListS

Effective Management Spelling lists

For OHT, every second counts.Effective spelling list management is essential to OHT.Every time the scopist lifts his or her finger off the audio, those seconds and minutes add up fast.Therefore, there is literally no time to be wasted on research.One of the key elements to spelling list management is to have everything related to a case in one place that is searchable, easily accessed, and easily shared.

Introducing OnenoteOneNote is a program that comes standard with Microsoft Office.

If you do not have the Microsoft Office program, you can get OneNote free by signing up for a free SkyDrive account by Windows Live.

Think of OneNote as a junk drawer. Anything related to a case can be thrown into a OneNote notebook: Web pages, e-mail, notices, word lists, copies of exhibits, ASCIIs, etcetera.

5

OneNote is a collection of notebooks with individual sections like we were required to have in school, except now its in electronic form.

.

For instance, if I click on my Grammar notebook, I can see across the top all of the chapters in my Grammar notebook. This Grammar notebook is a collection of information gathered from various sources and is completely searchable. Either the entire Grammar notebook can be shared with my scopist or just a page.

The blue column below represents notebooks. The tabs across the top indicate the sections within each notebook.Create a notebook for an entire case, i.e., the case below is called ABC Company Litigation. Inside that notebook is a listing of all the witnesses who have testified in that case.

Print a word index to the OneNote folder straight from your CAT system just as easily as sending to a printer.

The John Doe notebook now has a word list that is completely searchable.

Another for instance, one company sends me an e-mail for job notifications with all attachments needed for the job. In one click, I can attach the e-mail and all related documents to my OneNote.

A copy of the deposition notice will print out in the Jane Doe section as follows:

Anchor the OneNote program to your computer screen, and you can have the full viewing of the transcript, the word index, and the OneNote research window up on the screen at the same time. Never waste time flipping screens again.

Cant remember if face-to-face should be hyphenated? Search in the dictionary without flipping screens.

Cant remember if Weight Watchers should have an apostrophe s or not? Cut-n-paste the word from your transcript in the search bar. You can select all available references available, such as dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias, Internet, etc.

Other reference sources available with the OneNote research screen are:

For particularly tricky words like resume, copy the word to the notepad. When that word comes up again, just copy-n-paste into the transcript.

The box in red is a window view. This window view of OneNote allows you to flip screens via these arrows. Lets say that the screen before has the caption. Push the back arrow to get to the caption view. Just that window view changes. All else on the screen remains constant. Or say the following section has the exhibits. Click on the right arrow above to flip to that screen.

Cannot remember how to handle certain comma placements? Search for comma in the search bar, and every instance of comma appears. OneNote will show results for files that have the word comma as a title and those in the body of the section itself.Click on any entry, and OneNote takes you straight to that section.

Never let that due date sneak up on you ever again. Select Outlook Tasks in OneNote and set the computer to remind you via a pop-up window on your screen that your due date is looming.

Or say that you are waiting on certain items to be completed, such as a scopist/proofer due date or exhibits. Set OneNote to remind you.

Create audio snippets by simply clicking on the Record Audio tab.Useful for recording attorney orders and sending in an e-mail if verification is needed.Or the scopist/proofer can leave a quick voice memo for the reporter or vice versa.Or record a quick snippet of a particularly troublesome word quickly and easily and e-mail it to a friend to get a second opinion.

There are many ways to share either entire notebooks or just an individual page in OneNote, by the Internet or by clicking e-mail page.

Sharing by Internet the changes are synced on reporter and scopist screens in realtime.

Dictionaries are the best tool to use for gathering ongoing spellings. It is important to keep spellings in one dictionary, not several. Several dictionaries cause confusion, which costs valuable time. At the end of each day, the scopist and proofer must send the days job dictionary to the reporter.The court reporter is to then merge those dictionaries in to one dictionary. That dictionary is then sent out to the scopist and proofer before the next days proceeding begins.Job dictionary management

As spellings are confirmed, add comments in the job dictionary so that research efforts are not doubled.

Unconfirmed spellings need to be globalled with a caret symbol into the job dictionary so that the reporter can be reminded to ask for the spelling.

At a break, the reporter will ask the scopist(s) and/or proofer(s) for their unconfirmed spellings. The search function of the dictionary pulls up a quick listing of all caret marks in the job dictionary. The scopist takes a quick screen shot like the following and sends that to the reporter, making the most effective use of time management.

Consistency in spellings is vital while reporting and scoping an OHT.Many CAT system dictionaries will follow the cursor, meaning if the cursor is on one word in the transcript, the job dictionary automatically locates and shows that entry in the dictionary. This is a tremendous aid for consistency in spellings.The condensed view of the job dictionary should be up on the screen and viewable at all times, alongside the transcript view.

Court Reporter uses division intervals and adds entries to the job dictionary throughout the day. Thats one job dictionary.Scopist adds entries to the job dictionary of the 10:00 interval. This is another job dictionary that is different from the first.The 10:00 section is sent to the proofer who adds entries to the job dictionary. This is another job dictionary that is different from the others.The 11:00 section is sent out. A whole new job dictionary is created for the scopist that does not have the same entries as the scopists other job dictionary.For a seven hour job, nine job dictionaries were created.A case study a true story

At the end of the day, the reporter calls for job dictionaries but forgets to get the proofers job dictionary, and the scopist only sends one incomplete job dictionary because she lost track of all the dictionaries and/or just didnt want to go through finding all the job dictionaries and incorporating them all in to one.The reporter does not know that not all the entries are there.That equals up to six hours of job dictionary entries lost for good.This is why effective job dictionary management is essential.Do not think the scopist and proofer are getting the job dictionaries to you. Know that they are getting the job dictionaries to you.

(Turn to the Daily Dictionary Management in the OHT Manual.)