COURT REPORTING TERMINOLOGY

ASCII  – (Pronounced “askee”)  A computer term which stands for American
Standard Code for Information Interchange. 
Ascii is a means of exchanging text among dissimilar computers and
computer programs.

CALENDAR – A
calendar in the field of law is the schedule of upcoming appearances in court
or a schedule of legal proceedings. 
Attorneys keep a calendar of times when and where certain activities are
to take place, the same as a court reporter. 
A job which is scheduled to be done is said to be “on
calendar.”

CAT –
Computer-Aided Transcription.  CAT
systems are computer equipment and programs that perform three major functions:
 First, they translate the reporter’s
notes into English.  These notes then are
stored in electronic form.  Secondly,
they provide an editing system that is highly specialized for court reporting
which allows the roughly translated text to be put into final transcript
form.  Finally, the CAT system prints the
transcript in the format required by legal practice — numbered lines, double
spacing, and a box.

CIC  – Computer-Integrated Courtroom.  CIC is the application of computer technology
in a courtroom such that all parties present have immediate access to the text
of the proceedings as it happens, plus possibly other resources such as past
testimony.

CONDENSED
TRANSCRIPT – A miniaturized copy of the original transcript printed in such a
way as to place four pages of transcript on a single sheet of paper. 

DEPONENT – A
person who testifies under oath.  The
person answers questions put to him, and these questions and his answers are
recorded in shorthand by the court reporter.

DICTIONARY –
An essential part of a CAT system used in translating the reporter’s notes into
English.  The dictionary contains
correlations between stenographic notes and English text.  Since stenographers develop their own writing
style and system of abbreviations, dictionaries are specific to each individual
reporter and are built up through repeated use and correction of the reporter.

DEPOSITION –
The giving of testimony under oath.  The
actual testimony of an individual or individuals.  Depositions are usually distinguished from
courtroom testimony.  Depositions are
taken before a case goes to trial, during the “discovery” phase of
the case.

EXHIBIT –
Document, object, etc., shown in court as evidence.  Exhibits are marked with an identifying
number by the court reporter and then indexed and described in the transcript
of the proceedings.

EXPEDITE –
An expedite is a job that has been explicitly ordered by one of the attorneys
at a deposition to be delivered faster than normal in exchange for an increased
fee.

JOB – A term
used by court reporters to refer to one deposition.

LITIGATION
SUPPORT – Broadly, this refers to any of the tools that an attorney or
paralegal may use to help categorize and display information about the case —
things that support the litigation.  In
court reporting, litigation support or lit support refers to the production of
the transcript in computerized form, such as an ASCII , eTranscript, condensed
transcript, and keyword indices.

NOTES – The
original stenographic marks made by a court reporter during the proceedings
being reported.  The steno machine
records them in electronic form.

NOTICE  – In a legal sense, a Notice is a formal
document prepared to inform all parties involved when a deposition is going to
occur and where

PARTY – A
person who takes part in the performance of any act, or who is directly
interested in any affair, contract, etc., who is actively concerned in the
prosecution or defense of any legal proceeding.

REALTIME –
Realtime as a computer term means “happening right now, in present
time.”  This is where a court
reporter hooks her laptop computer up to the attorney’s laptop computer and
feeds them the testimony.

REPORTED –
Used as a noun, “reported” is a completed session of note taking by a
court reporter.

ROUGH-DRAFT
ASCII – A term that refers to the first, rough translation of the reporter’s
notes into English.  Because the text has
not been edited and proofread by the court reporter, the reporter cannot
certify that the record is complete and correct.

SCOPING –
The process of editing the first, rough translation of the reporter’s notes
into final form.  The scoped transcript
is then proofread by the reporter.

SCOPIST – A
person who assists a court reporter by taking the first, rough translation of
the reporter’s notes and editing them into full transcript format.

STENO –
Short for stenography.  Steno can also
refer to the notes made by the court reporter.

STENO
MACHINE – A stenographic writer.  A steno
machine has three banks of keys, plus a bar, which are stroked in combination
to produce marks that represent sounds, words, and phrases.

STIPULATION
– The name given to any agreement made between attorneys respecting business
before the Court.  In a deposition, usual
stips (stipulations) are often asked for, which the attorneys should look at
what the court reporter has for usual stips, as each is a little different but
most say essentially the same thing.

STROKE – To
play the keys on a steno machine so as to produce stenographic marks.  The keys are pressed using both hands.  Each downward motion of the hands is a stroke
and the mark so produced is also sometimes referred to as a stroke.

TAKING
ATTORNEY – The attorney who ordered the deponent to appear for questioning.

TESTIMONY –
The statement or declaration of a witness under oath.

TRANSCRIPT –
The written copy of what occurred at a legal proceeding, produced by the court
reporter.

TRANSLATE
(to translate notes) – The stenographic notes taken by the reporter must be
translated into English text before they can be used by anyone else.  It used to be that reporters read their notes
from the paper pad and typed the English directly.  Nowadays, it is common to use a computer program
known as a CAT system to make a first pass at the translation.  After the CAT system has translated the job,
it still need to be scoped and proofread.

UNTRANSLATES
– Untranslates are instances of untranslated stenographic markings appearing in
a work which has been translated from stenographic notes.  Untranslates will be present in a transcript
which has been translated by not yet scoped, and some will appear in realtime
text during a deposition.

WRITER – A
steno machine.