Hello! This is the first blog post for my new weblog. I’m very excited about this weblog, and hope it will bring about much change and improvement in the professional relationship between scopists and court reporters. I feel this weblog will enable all of us to learn from one another and implement new procedures and ideas. The ultimate goal for both scopists and court reporters is a polished transcript, so let’s get started.
The first subject matter I’m going to put on the table is this: If you’re a scopist, what are the qualities you admire most about the reporters you work with, and what sort of things do they do to make your job easier? If you’re a reporter, what qualities do you admire most about your scopist(s), and what sort of things do they do to make your life easier?
That’s it for this post. Comment away! Please feel free to share this link with all your colleagues. The more comments we get, the more we learn.
Hi, Sheena! I do believe this may be one of my first “blog” messages
Qualities I admire in my reporters:
1. That they appreciate the work I do to enable them to make their lives easier and that we work as a team;
2. That because of the above, they realize I’m worth my page rates;
3. That they pay on time; (Like theirs, my job is a “real” one )
4. That they use the dictionary entries I’ve made for them even though it’s not a perfect stroke;
5. That if a job is extremely difficult requiring tons of research or they’ve had a horrendous day writing, they’ll offer to up my page rate;
— and Number 6 –
5. I appreciate the fact that they consider me their friend just as a consider them my friends. I will not work with someone who I wouldn’t want as my next-door neighbor
Sheena,
Thanks for taking the time to put this together! Your dedication to improving the professional relationships between court reporters and their support team is greatly appreciated.
As a proofreader, the following are characteristics that I appreciate in my clients:
1 – Appropriate and clear feedback when necessary. This is particularly important in the beginning of a relationship.
2 – Clear communications as to how I can best assist them such as do they want each and every change marked, or do they prefer to leave the glaring corrections (such as MRs. changed to Mrs.) to be changed without marking.
3 – Due dates regarding when they need the work returned whenever possible. I work with several clients and some have longer lead times and it is helpful to me to know that I can pop a rush job in ahead of their jobs without causing them concern.
4 – Finally, which should be a given, payment according to the agreed upon terms. This has never been an issue for me thus far, and I trust that it will continue. Invoicing monthly and having a term of Net 15 days upon receipt of invoice seems to work well for my clients and for me. Accepting a variety of payment methods is also helpful to allow my clients to use the most convenient method for their individual situation.
Again, thanks Sheena for putting this together and I hope it serves the intended purpose.
Enjoy!
EclipsePat
Sheena,
Thanks so much for putting this together. It is a great idea. It is also my first posting on a blog!
The attributes I admire the most in a court reporter are:
1. Honesty, if the job isn’t their best effort they tell you.
2. Treating a scopist as a professional. Nothing worse than being belittled for work you have done by someone whose work is not up to par.
3. Paying on time. We shouldn’t have to chase them all over God’s green acre to get them to pay us for work we have done.
4. Communications. We aren’t mind readers, if they have a preference tell us, we aim to please.
I guess that is a start!
Pam Martin
I think my list of qualities that I admire about the reporters I work with could take up pages, but I’ll try to keep the list simple. LOL!
My clients are extremely professional. They work very hard to put out the best transcript possible. At the same time, most of them are juggling their work life with their family life, and they seem to do a great job of it.
I love that they work really hard at their writing. They update their dictionaries and try hard to keep up with the latest technology. They work very hard at not having to rely on audio, so most of their jobs don’t require full audio. These are qualities that I think can be very hard for a reporter to do in the face of all that they juggle, so I strongly admire my reporters for constantly trying to better themselves in their fields. It makes me want to bend over backwards to do the best job I can do for them.
I so appreciate that they recognize that I’m running a business. They recognize that this is how I make my living, and they’re great at paying me on time so that I can pay my bills on time.
I also appreciate that they understand that it takes many clients for me to have a successful business. They recognize that I’m not theirs alone, and they work with me through communication to make sure that I’m able to handle all jobs that come my way. It’s truly a partnership with each of them, and I couldn’t be successful without them.
I also appreciate that they know I’m human and can have a bad day at times. They expect the best I can give them, but they don’t expect me to be a perfect robot. That allows me to not get so worked up and stressed that I can’t focus on the job I’m doing for them. As one of them put it, “I expect there to be something to do when proofreading because nobody is perfect every moment of every day. Besides, that’s what proofing is for, to catch those few things that need tweaking.” Still, I know they don’t find much to fix behind me because they share that with me. So I also appreciate that they let me know I’m doing a good job and communicate with me often.
Lastly, I appreciate that they recognize that I know how to do my job. There are times when they will ask my opinion on how to handle a spelling or ask grammatically what I would do. They’ve even asked how “we” should handle certain things. So I appreciate that they don’t see me as their “secretary,” but see me as a professional in my own right and a partner in putting out the best transcript possible.
As for what they do for me to make my job easier, most of them send me a spelling list of any spellings that they got while on the job. That’s something that I truly appreciate. If they don’t have time to do that, they often will global any major spellings that they have before sending the job.
Another thing they do is communicate with me often. They try to keep me aware of what jobs they have scheduled in the future, and they keep me aware of how the job went when they took it. They’re great at telling me when a job was rough so that I can schedule my time accordingly to get all the work on my desk done and meet all the deadlines that I have. They let me know when they’re going on vacation so that I can do backup work for others, so they make it clear with their actions that they appreciate that I need to work to pay my bills.
I would say that working at their writing and not relying on audio also makes my job easier. It allows me to really focus on content, makes me less likely to miss something because I don’t have someone talking in my ear while I’m taking in what was written, and allows me to be more efficient in my time and work load.
Lastly, they’re really good about usually filling out the title page and appearance page before sending me the job. This helps me with spellings and research.
An observation from the beginning blogger: I guess you can’t put little g’s for grins in a blog as mine don’t show up in my initial message. Just so everyone knows — maybe I’m a little anal about missing punctuation in my original message, LOL — where a period is missing should be a grin.
(I know, I know, I’m sure there are better things I can be doing right now — like work!!)
Hi, Sheena.
The qualities I admire most about my reporters are, first of all, the fact that they understand that I work with them, not for them. We’re a team working together for our mutual benefit and we do what we can to make it easier on each other.
Timely payment within our agreed-upon range is also very important, of course, as is communication.
My reporters let me know when they have a slow week coming up or a particularly busy week coming up so I can adjust my schedule accordingly.
I also let them know when I plan to be unavailable just as soon as I know about it so they won’t be caught without a scopist at the last minute with no warning.
One of the main things that make my reporters a pleasure to work with is the fact that they understand that the purpose of punctuation is readability and making written material flow. They don’t get bent out of shape over the placement of a questionable comma and they don’t expect me to either.
Peggy
Hi, Sheena:
I think the most important thing between a reporter and their scopist if COMMUNICATION. If there is a problem on either end, a simple e-mail or phone call can clear it up. I’m a scopist and have been scoping for others now for 8 years. Prior to that I was a court reporter for 28 years. So, needless to say,
I am in this for the long haul.
My daughter graduated from Best Scoping Techniques and she works in the business with me, SASSER SCOPING. We stay plenty busy and we are on Case Catalyst. I get requests for
proofreading services now and then but we stay busy with scoping only, which is what I prefer.
Joyce
S – aves the reporter hours and hours of work
c – ompetent
o – ver and above being a transcriptionist
p – owerful command of the English language
i – came; I saw; I conquered
s – pelling master
t – hank you!
I’ve been a transcriptionist for almost 3 years but many years as a legal secretary.
The best quality of a court reporter that I work with is her communication of any little tweak in a transcript that she will take the time to share, so that I can do a better job on the next one.
Been struggling with ProCat scoping. Any seminars out there to go to? If not, I’ll guess I’ll continue to lean on you scopists experts to share here on this blog. Thank you.
Vicki
I appreciate open communication!! It’s the number one key to success in any relationship.
The goal in using a scopist is to save the reporter time.
At the beginning I am willing to spend a lot of time with the scopist developing a relationship. After awhile, though, if I’m spending the same amount of time with her that I would have spent doing the job myself, it doesn’t make sense.
The perfect scopist would be able to adopt my style. I want my work to look like my work, not another reporter’s work.
I like to see pride in work and conscientiousness.
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