The Quoted Material Conundrum

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The case involved 20 plaintiffs who alleged that their medical injuries and adverse health conditions resulted from exposure to hazardous and/or toxic substances caused by the eight named defendants. The defense counsel, though an exceptional toxic tort attorney, lacked experience in medical malpractice, leading to some amusing mispronunciations of medical terms. The jury struggled to endure the monotonous reading of the stipulation, with one juror even raising his hand to request a break, commenting on the dryness of the proceedings. If the jury found it challenging, the court reporter’s task was even more daunting—attempting to follow along with the error-ridden document displayed on the monitor while simultaneously correcting punctuation and spelling in real-time.

During a break, I attempted to get counsel to stipulate that I wouldn’t have to report the 22-page stipulation document he was reading from, but, unfortunately, since it was a factual document, it had to be part of the official record. So, I did what I could—I asked the attorney to slow down. I explained that I was writing in all the necessary punctuation on my machine, which required significantly more strokes than just transcribing his spoken words. I didn’t mention it, but I was also hoping to prevent my brand-new scopist from quitting. I should have asked the attorney to stop speaking punctuation altogether—something I find particularly frustrating—but he was already dismissive about my request. He even brought up to the judge the fact that I had requested that he slow down, as if reading the stipulation faster would somehow alleviate the jury’s suffering. However, my request ensured that the daily transcript could still be delivered on time. Attorneys often underestimate how much extra work they create for court reporters.

When attorneys misread documents, I make sure not to quote the incorrect portions. Instead, I end the quote before the misread word and resume quoting afterward to ensure accuracy. If an attorney mispronounces a term and is corrected, I transcribe the incorrect pronunciation with a [sic] notation to clarify why the correction was made. Similarly, if an attorney interrupts themselves mid-word, I use a dash to indicate the break before writing the full term correctly. Numbers are handled the same way—for example, “In 2020- — 2024″—to reflect what was intended, rather than what was partially spoken. If the attorney never corrects the misspoken word, then you would end the quote before the word (seeking) and start it after that word.  So for example:  “K. Onset 04-2024:”  Seeking “acupuncturist weekly.”  

And the “paren” is not in the quoted material, so we have to remove the quotes around all his speaking punctuations. That’s why I hate speaking punctuations.  

Here’s another one.  When he totally mispronounces something and someone corrects him, I must put in the word the way he pronounced it and [sic] so it’s clear why he was being corrected.

Here’s another one.  If he stops short of saying the whole word, I dash it.  So here, the full word was LACUSC, but he only said the LAC and interrupted, so it’s LAC- — and then the full word.  Same with numbers.  For example, “In 2020- — 2024.”  If they meant to say 2024, but they interrupted, to leave it as 2020 wouldn’t be accurate because they meant 2024, but didn’t get to the -4, but did say 20.  

Everything he reads is in quotes, so if he quotes something within those quotes, use the single quote, not the double quote:

Here’s another one where he said “past,” but the transcript said “last” – so we don’t quote the “Past” in this section of quoted material:

If he says a word then pauses and starts over saying the word again, unquote and then quote again:

His misrepresentations and multiple attempts at pronouncing the word:

Proper punctuation is crucial, especially within quoted material. If something is quoted within a larger quotation, I use single quotes instead of double. If an attorney starts a word, pauses, and then repeats it, I close and reopen the quotation marks accordingly. Mispronunciations that resemble common variations (like “potato/potatoe”) are transcribed correctly, but if multiple incorrect attempts are made and a correction follows, I include the mispronunciations to provide clarity.

Like this one, the document had the opening paren in the transcript, but the attorney didn’t say the closing paren.  That’s okay to leave off the closing paren in our transcript.  If he had not said the opening “paren,” then I would have been able to put BOTH () symbols, but he said one and not the other.  He should say both or don’t say it at all.  But don’t mix/match with one verbal punctuation and then the punctuation.  Same with if he had said “quote” without the “unquote.”  It woud be:  Ms. Jones said, quote, don’t do that.  And then the kids stopped climbing the fence. But you wouldn’t do it this way, for example:  Ms. Jones said, quote, don’t do that.  And then the kids stopped climbing the fence.”

The written document we followed was riddled with punctuation errors, but our job as court reporters is not to transcribe it verbatim from the document. we must ensure the record is punctuated correctly, regardless of the errors in the original. For instance, if the transcript incorrectly included a hyphen, I omitted it. If the attorney verbally said “paren,” but only one bracket, I reflected that accurately, rather than forcing symmetry. Similarly, if they said “quote,” but never “unquote,” I followed the spoken words, rather than the erroneous document formatting.

Ultimately, this trial was not for an amateur reporter—three had already dropped out before me. However, the complexity and challenges are why I’m compensated well for my expertise. Despite the frustrating moments, the satisfaction of producing a meticulous and accurate record makes it all worthwhile.

Published by stenoimperium

We exist to facilitate the fortifying of the Stenography profession and ensure its survival for the next hundred years! As court reporters, we've handed the relationship role with our customers, or attorneys, over to the agencies and their sales reps.  This has done a lot of damage to our industry.  It has taken away our ability to have those relationships, the ability to be humanized and valued.  We've become a replaceable commodity. Merely saying we are the “Gold Standard” tells them that we’re the best, but there are alternatives.  Who we are though, is much, much more powerful than that!  We are the Responsible Charge.  “Responsible Charge” means responsibility for the direction, control, supervision, and possession of stenographic & transcription work, as the case may be, to assure that the work product has been critically examined and evaluated for compliance with appropriate professional standards by a licensee in the profession, and by sealing and signing the documents, the professional stenographer accepts responsibility for the stenographic or transcription work, respectively, represented by the documents and that applicable stenographic and professional standards have been met.  This designation exists in other professions, such as engineering, land surveying, public water works, landscape architects, land surveyors, fire preventionists, geologists, architects, and more.  In the case of professional engineers, the engineering association adopted a Responsible Charge position statement that says, “A professional engineer is only considered to be in responsible charge of an engineering work if the professional engineer makes independent professional decisions regarding the engineering work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional engineer’s physical presence at the location where the engineering work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the engineering work.” If we were to adopt a Responsible Charge position statement for our industry, we could start with a draft that looks something like this: "A professional court reporter, or stenographer, is only considered to be in responsible charge of court reporting work if the professional court reporter makes independent professional decisions regarding the court reporting work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional court reporter’s physical presence at the location where the court reporting work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the court reporting work.” Shared purpose The cornerstone of a strategic narrative is a shared purpose. This shared purpose is the outcome that you and your customer are working toward together. It’s more than a value proposition of what you deliver to them. Or a mission of what you do for the world. It’s the journey that you are on with them. By having a shared purpose, the relationship shifts from consumer to co-creator. In court reporting, our mission is “to bring justice to every litigant in the U.S.”  That purpose is shared by all involved in the litigation process – judges, attorneys, everyone.  Who we are is the Responsible Charge.  How we do that is by Protecting the Record.

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