Court Reporting Machines: How Do They Work?
Court Reporting Machines: How Do They Work?
In English a person can speak at a rate of 180 to 200 words per minute. Try to listen to a person speaking at that rate and typing their words on a conventional QWERTY keyboard. Even if you are a master typist, at best you may be able to type 80 words per minute. Enter the stenotype, a technological wonder that Washington DC court reporters like the ones at Capital Reporting Company have been using for decades. With the help of computers, however, these machines are faster and more accurate than ever. Using a stenotype, a court reporter can type over 200 words per minute. In fact, the world record for stenotype transcription stands at 275 words per minute.
Court Reporters in Washington DC use stenotypes to ensure court procedures move forward as quickly and fairly as possible. The stenotype, our court reporting machine, is a 22-key word processor. The left side of the stenotype is for the left hand to type initial consonant sounds. On the right, the final consonant sounds exist. Below these are the vowels. These keys can be pressed all at once so as to create syllables, words or even phrases in a single stroke. Think of a piano: with just 88 keys, a skilled pianist can combine notes to produce a lovely Christmas carol or a classical symphony and anything in between. With simply the 22 keys of a stenotype, one of our award winning Washington DC court reporters can reproduce the sounds of English words and phrases.
However, it is unlikely the words that your Washington DC court reporter transcribes will look anything like traditional English. As you may see by now, the court reporter transcribes words by their sound rather than their spelling. Therefore to type “court,” a court reporter will start by pressing not a “c” but a “k” to give the initial sound. Using a single key or a combination of keys, the court reporter also recreates the “o” sound. The same goes for the later consonant sounds.Once this is done the court reporter will need the aforementioned computer to help to translate the words into conventional English orthography.
The court reporters at Washington DC’s Capital Reporting Company use up-to-date software to interpret the court transcripts. Each court reporter has his or her own glossary of sounds that tells a court reporter what a word or a set of sounds should represent. In this way, a Washington DC court reporter can distinguish between words such as “by” and “buy” when context does not make this distinction clear. Advances in technology such as this, in conjunction with years of training and court reporter experience, allows a court reporter to transcribe court dialogue with great accuracy. If you are looking for an experienced court reporter in Washington DC, you can contact us at 800-655-3679 or simply click here to schedule a Washington DC court reporter.
