How do court reporters type so fast?
The short answer
Court reporters transcribe proceedings based using a shorthand code for the phonetic sound of each syllable, rather than typing one keystroke for every letter.
The long answer
A court reporter’s keyboard is called a stenograph, which has only 22 keys. The keys on the left are used to type the first letter of a syllable of a word, the keys on the right are used for the last letter of the syllable, and vowel keys are on the bottom row. There is also a bar on the top of the stenograph used to type numbers.
Screenshot taken from Court Reporting and Captioning at Home.
A stenographer usually presses three or more keys simultaneously (known as "chords") for each syllable or sound of a word. Take "STOP," for example. A stenographer would type S and T on the left side because that's the first part of the word, O on the bottom for the vowel, and P on the right because it's the ending sound of the word.
Screenshot taken from Qwerty Steno.
But with only 22 keys in a court reporter’s keyboard, there are clearly some letters and sounds missing. To accommodate for that, stenographers will use different combinations of letters to note a missing letter.
For example, if they want to type a syllable that starts or ends with M, they will type P and H together. And since vowels don't sound the same in every word (e.g. "bAt" with a short A sound; and "bAit" with a long A sound), there are codes for those sounds as well. When all these codes are used, the shorthand looks nonsensical, but it makes sense to a trained stenographer
Screenshot taken from Qwerty Steno.
To make the process even faster, stenographers often program their own abbreviations for commonly used phrases, like "May it please the court."
Stenographs are often hooked up to a computer that contains special software which does the job of translating the shorthand into a readable transcript. Court reporters will then review the computer's translation for accuracy before submitting the official record.
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Sources
Court Reporting and Captioning at Home. (2014). How to Write on the Steno Machine - CALL 877-253-0200 Court Reporting and Captioning at Home. YouTube. Retrieved May 9, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAkkTtsPKOA.
Qwerty Steno. (n.d.). http://qwertysteno.com/Home/
Talty Court Reporters Inc. (2020, October 10). Everything You Need to Know About Court Reporting. Talty Court Reporters Inc. https://www.taltys.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-court-reporting/
