Glossary

The words you will hear in the first year, from the keyboard to the courtroom. Short, plain, in our own words.

Steno (stenotype, machine shorthand): Writing speech on a 22-key chorded keyboard, several keys at once, so that one press (a stroke) produces a syllable, a word or a phrase. The word also names the writing system itself.
Stroke: One press of the steno keyboard, any number of keys down together, released together. Everything in steno is counted in strokes: a word may take one, a phrase may take one, a long word may take three.
Chord: Another word for a stroke, borrowed from music: the keys pressed together.
Outline: The written form of a word in steno, one or more strokes separated by slashes, for example KOURT for court or WEUT/TPHES for witness. A dictionary maps outlines to text.
Steno order: The fixed left-to-right order of the keys, S T K P W H R A O * E U F R P B L G T S D Z. Every stroke is read and written in this order, which is why a steno outline can be spelled with letters at all.
Theory: A system of rules for how sounds and words map to strokes. Schools teach a named theory (Phoenix, StenEd, Magnum Steno, Platinum and others); reporters keep refining their own for a career.
Brief: A short outline for a word or phrase that would otherwise take several strokes, memorized as a unit. Briefs are how reporters reach high speeds; a brief for a common phrase can save a dozen keystrokes.
Fingerspelling: Writing a word letter by letter with the alphabet strokes, used for names and words that are not in the dictionary. Slow, but always available.
Dictionary (steno dictionary): The reporter's personal file of outlines and their translations, often tens of thousands of entries, built up over years and carried from job to job.
Translation: Turning strokes into text by looking them up in the dictionary. Software does it instantly; in the paper-tape era the reporter did it by reading the tape.
Untranslate (untran): A stroke the software could not find in the dictionary, shown as raw steno letters in the transcript until the reporter fixes it.
Misstroke: A stroke with a key too many or too few, the steno equivalent of a typo. Many dictionaries include common misstrokes so they still translate.
Conflict: One outline that could mean two different words (for example, a sound-alike pair). Theories and dictionaries are designed to avoid conflicts.
Realtime: Translation as the words are spoken, so attorneys, judges or a deaf participant can read the text seconds after it is said. Realtime skill is tested separately and paid more.
CART: Communication Access Realtime Translation: a realtime writer providing live text for a deaf or hard-of-hearing person in a classroom, meeting or event. Court reporting skills, different setting.
Captioning: Realtime writing for television or streamed video, producing the closed captions. Broadcast captioners usually work remotely.
Official court reporter: A reporter employed by a court to take down proceedings in a courtroom. Usually salaried, often with page fees for transcripts on top.
Freelance reporter: A reporter who works through agencies or directly for law firms, mostly taking depositions. Paid per job and per page rather than a salary.
Deposition: Sworn testimony taken outside the courtroom, usually in a law office, as part of discovery in a lawsuit. The largest source of freelance work.
Transcript: The typed record of what was said, in the standard format: numbered lines, speaker labels, Q and A for question and answer, with the reporter's certificate at the end.
Q and A (testimony): Question-and-answer material, the fastest and most varied dictation in school and on the job, and the hardest leg of most skills exams.
Jury charge: The judge's instructions to the jury, dense legal language at a steady pace. One of the three standard dictation types on exams.
Literary: Dictation of ordinary prose at a steady pace, the third standard exam leg, usually the slowest speed.
Words per minute (wpm): The speed of dictation. Court reporting school is organized around speed classes, and certification exams are set at fixed speeds with a required accuracy.
Speed building: The second phase of training, after theory: daily timed dictation at rising speeds until the student can pass the exam speeds.
Accuracy: The percentage of words transcribed correctly in a timed take. Exams typically require 95 percent or better; errors include wrong words, dropped words and untranslates.
Drop: Words left out because the speaker got ahead of the writer. The main failure mode at speed, and what speed building trains away.
Read-back: When the judge or an attorney asks the reporter to read aloud what a witness just said. Realtime makes it instant; without it, the reporter reads from the steno notes.
On the record / off the record: Whether the reporter is taking down what is said. Everything on the record is part of the transcript; off the record is not written.
Writer (steno machine): The reporter's keyboard, a stenotype machine. Modern writers have a screen, batteries and a connection to a laptop; student models cost less and lack some features.
Paper tape: The narrow strip of paper older writers printed strokes on, one stroke per line in steno order. Software replaced it, but the tape is still how steno is taught and pictured.
CAT software: Computer-Aided Transcription: the program that translates strokes, holds the dictionary and produces the transcript. Case CATalyst, Eclipse and others; Plover is the open-source one.
Scopist: A person who edits a reporter's rough translated transcript against the audio, fixing untranslates and punctuation before the reporter proofreads and certifies it.
Proofreader: The final reader of a transcript before it is certified. Some reporters proof their own work; busy ones hire out.
Page rate: What a freelance reporter is paid per transcript page, set by the agency or by state fee schedules. Copies ordered by other parties pay a lower per-page rate.
Certification: A credential from a professional body (NCRA, NVRA) earned by exam, showing speed and accuracy. Distinct from a state license, though many states accept one for the other.
License (state license): Permission from a state board or court to work as a court reporter in that state, required in some states and not in others. See the licensing pages.
RPR: Registered Professional Reporter, the NCRA credential most states and employers look for first. Written test plus three timed skills legs.
Voice writing: Reporting by repeating the proceedings into a masked microphone with speech recognition software instead of a steno keyboard. Accepted in some states and exams, not others.
Digital reporting: Recording proceedings with audio equipment for later transcription, without a stenographer. Courts turn to it when reporters are short; the debate over it is part of the shortage story.
Machine moment: Our term for the point, usually a few months into school, when a student commits to buying a professional writer. Until then a phone keyboard or a student machine does the job.

Missing a term? Ask through the contact page and we will add it.