As with any year, 2008 had ups and downs.  I am not convinced we had as many downs as the news media harps on, because there are too many decent, hard-working, compassionate folks who live in our country.  I guess we find that difficult to remember at times with the subject matter we deal with on a daily basis, but it is true.  The small, random acts of love and kindness we do not hear about often enough.
I don’t want to minimize the troubles we are facing and must begin to solve this next year, but we Americans are the most resourceful, creative people in the world.  Once we decide we will tackle a problem or overcome an obstacle, we do it.  All we need to do is make our minds up to start.

The U.S. will have a new administration in Washington soon.  Whether you voted for or against President-elect Obama is irrelevant at this point.  It is time to put aside petty party differences and finger pointing to truly work on solving the serious financial and social issues we are facing in our country and around the world.  Outside of Washington, we must recognize what we have in common as a people, while still celebrating each person as an individual.  Most of us want the same things:  live in peace, go to work to earn money to provide for our families, go about our daily lives as we choose.

I will get off my soapbox now to wish all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

We all have the power to make it a great one.

I have signed up to attend a grammar and proofreading seminar on January 20th.  One of my reporters told me she was going to get some of her CEUs.  Since we as scopists are not required to have certification or continuing education, we must take it upon ourselves to hone our skills and be the best we can be.

If we don’t want to spend money to attend seminars or take classes, there is plenty available on the Internet to help us learn new things and reinforce what we already know.   http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ this link will take you to the Purdue Owl (Online Writing Lab).  I am proud to say it is from Purdue University in my home state of Indiana.  It is an award winning, highly acclaimed site dedicated to the written English language.

We are asking our reporters to pay us out of their pocket, so we owe it to them to send back the cleanest transcripts we can.

Sorry I haven’t been timely at keeping this updated.  The good news is I have been pretty busy lately.  One thing I’ve been working on is learning and getting digitalCAT set up.  I believe I have a fairly good understanding of it now, and have it tweaked to work similar to Eclipse, which I also use.

This is one of my efforts to continue my education and become a better scopist.  It never hurts to learn something new and to keep challenging yourself in both your personal and professional life.

I spent Friday and most of Saturday at the Great Lakes Regional Convention.  I must say, I was surprised and pleased with the warm reception I received as a scopist among 400+ reporters.  If you read the forums, there are many complaints of poor scopists.  I am here to tell you there are many reporters who appreciate what we do, and they understand how a good partnership with a scopist/proofer helps them make more money and keep their sanity at the same time.

I was somewhat disappointed at the scopist representation.  I was the only one from the region, and there was a gal from Wyoming and one from New Hampshire.

One of the greatest moments was when I had the opportunity to chat with Lillian Morson briefly.   She is truly an elegant and gracious lady.

I am going to attend the inaugural Great Lakes Regional Convention next weekend (Oct 3-5) in Schaumburg, IL.  It will be held at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield.  Anyone from the Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin or Michigan area planning on going?  If so, I would love to get together and just say, “Hey.”

This one is for reporters specifically:

1.  Do you use a scopist?

2.  If not, why?

3.  If so, I am ‘assuming’ you find value to do so.  Do you always use a scopist or just occasionally for overflow work?

No, we don’t work for proctologists!!  Scoping is not a very well known profession.  As I attend various networking events, introduce myself and answer, “I am a scopist” when asked what I do for a living, I love the confused look on people’s faces.  After a brief pause, “Huh?”  I have found it easier to have a brief explanation on the back side of my business card.  However, I still must emphasize I assist court reporters, but I am not one.

For those unfamiliar, a scopist works with court reporters to edit (scope) and proofread rough draft transcripts produced by CAT software.  We check and correct punctuation, spellings, change steno which does not translate, confirm speaker identification and such.

A respectful working relationship between a court reporter and a scopist is a win-win for both.  Our job is to make ourselves an asset as a business partner.  Most reporters understand they make more money while out and about taking jobs, rather than sitting in the office or at home scoping their own work.  That is where we as scopists must take our profession as seriously as reporters do.  It does the reporter no good to hire us to scope for them if we return a transcript full of errors.