It seems like I haven't done anything drastic since September. I finished out the Caption Masters Series. I found it to be helpful in two major ways. First, it got me in the habit of striving for a stricter accuracy rate. I had been happy with 95% previously (why?), and the class made me realize 98.5% is a much more beneficial goal. And, as I mentioned before, the idea of "smart writing" was totally new to me. It's definitely the way you have to go with CART or captioning, so I'm glad I'm transitioning over to it now.
I responded to an ad advertising work for students at 185 wpm or better. I'm definitely in that category. It turned out to be a CART opportunity. I got to "shadow" a couple classes and turn in an unedited transcript. The speaker was very slow, and I knocked it out of the park. I barely had any drops, and certainly none that were vital to the content. I got better than 99% accuracy on what I wrote. I never heard back from the company after I sent in my transcripts, which I was pretty disappointed about, but there are plenty of companies out there to apply with when I feel like I've got a product worth selling.
However, that experience was also greatly beneficial in that it gave me an opportunity to feel like I was writing for a viewer, not just for practice. I realized that when I write for a viewer, I've got to look at what I'm writing. I can't just have mistakes going out willy-nilly, even if my accuracy rate is 98% or better. And I've got to practice fingerspelling, not just in general, but specifically while I'm writing. I had never tried to do it before. If I heard a proper name, I'd just stroke it out however I thought best, then during review I'd count it as an error and enter it in my dictionary.
That's not going to fly on air, or with a student. I need to be able to fingerspell things when I hear them, and not just that, but keep paying attention to what's being said as I'm fingerspelling so I can write that, too. One of my main focuses in practice now is to watch the screen, catch mistakes as I make them, dash, and fingerspell. I have a huge hangup with seeing a word that didn't translate (either because I stroked it incorrectly, or because it's just not in my dictionary the way I just decided it should be written), and stopping and completely ignoring what's said after it so I can write it 2-3 more times and see if I can get it to come up right.
So very wrong! The client doesn't want to see 3-4 weird, wrong versions of a word someone said. At best, I need to dash it, fingerspell it, and move on - at worst, I need to just move on. It's tough stuff, though. Just watching the screen alone is a challenge. It slows me down mentally. It's taxing to think about how to write things when I'm also reading what I just wrote and listening to what I need to write next.
The third thing I'm focusing on right now is drops. I have a couple of problem areas. Often when a person's name and title are given, I completely lose it and write only their first name. That's not acceptable. The client needs to know who that person is.
I also have hangups every now and then where I'll get lost, frustrated, and just completely stop writing for about a sentence. I feel like I just need to focus on composure. Aside from that, though, my accuracy's usually pretty good. I've been practicing to a rotation of 30 minutes each of ABC World News, CBS Evening News, PBS NewsHour, and a local news show. I'm only dropping one or two important titles/facts per show, and my accuracy is almost always above 98%. I feel like I am getting close to having a marketable product.
Whew, that took forever! About three hours, if you can believe it. I really shouldn't go such a long time without updating!
CBC Strike One
I had an interesting
time sitting for the CBC skills exam in November. The test site is about
half an hour away, and I got there about an hour before the exam was
scheduled to start. The RTC site was going up and down for some people,
and we weren't sure how we were going to test. I got some practice in,
but I was annoyed that I could hear other people's practice
recordings through their headphones. About 10 minutes before we were
scheduled to test, the chief examiner asked everyone to leave the room
so she could make sure the CD was working.
I think a couple of people stayed, because after a few minutes, one of them let us know we could come back in. I didn't like having to get up right before the test like that. I need some time to get settled into a spot before I'm ready to write. The CRR was played first. I can't remember if they had a pause between the minute of practice and the actual exam or not. The chief examiner gave the CBC testers a choice of having one or not. No one had a preference, and we got the opposite of what the CRR testers had. I remember thinking I would've preferred what they got.
Once the actual test started, my nerves got the best of me, and I felt like I was writing complete slop. I couldn't feel where the keys were, and I couldn't focus on the recording. I think I even dropped a setence or two because I was so zoned out. It was really disappointing, especially since the recording seemed really easy. It felt like something I should've been able to write, which made failing that much harder to take.
I got an 85% on it, which I guess isn't abysmal. I really lucked out, though; since there were problems with giving the test via RTC, it's being offered again for my site (and others) at half price on January 26th. I'll be taking it again, of course, and since I passed both the CBC and CCP written exams in October, I won't ever have to do those again.
My practice strategy, such as it was, was to carry on with my normal 2-hour practice routine every day, and to include the RTC practice take once a day for the week preceeding the exam. The take was a struggle at first, but by the end of the week I had it down pat. This time, for the two weeks preceeding the exam, I'm going to switch out the news portion of my practice for an hour of speedbuilding takes at 180 wpm. Getting back in the groove of metered verbatim is a huge hurdle, but hopefully two weeks will be enough to clear it.
I think a couple of people stayed, because after a few minutes, one of them let us know we could come back in. I didn't like having to get up right before the test like that. I need some time to get settled into a spot before I'm ready to write. The CRR was played first. I can't remember if they had a pause between the minute of practice and the actual exam or not. The chief examiner gave the CBC testers a choice of having one or not. No one had a preference, and we got the opposite of what the CRR testers had. I remember thinking I would've preferred what they got.
Once the actual test started, my nerves got the best of me, and I felt like I was writing complete slop. I couldn't feel where the keys were, and I couldn't focus on the recording. I think I even dropped a setence or two because I was so zoned out. It was really disappointing, especially since the recording seemed really easy. It felt like something I should've been able to write, which made failing that much harder to take.
I got an 85% on it, which I guess isn't abysmal. I really lucked out, though; since there were problems with giving the test via RTC, it's being offered again for my site (and others) at half price on January 26th. I'll be taking it again, of course, and since I passed both the CBC and CCP written exams in October, I won't ever have to do those again.
My practice strategy, such as it was, was to carry on with my normal 2-hour practice routine every day, and to include the RTC practice take once a day for the week preceeding the exam. The take was a struggle at first, but by the end of the week I had it down pat. This time, for the two weeks preceeding the exam, I'm going to switch out the news portion of my practice for an hour of speedbuilding takes at 180 wpm. Getting back in the groove of metered verbatim is a huge hurdle, but hopefully two weeks will be enough to clear it.
Practice and Theory
I'm
still having major problems with my dictionary. So many conflicts are
caused by the StenEd theory. I'm still working to get an asterisk in
every word ending that's also a standalone word - Nate, Kate, date,
nation, etc. It really helps to see my mistakes live as I make them,
though. Previously, after every take I would go through and check my
mistakes, and make note of words I wanted to practice. But it's
different when you're trying to write "live" and you actually see the
mistake come up. It has much more of an effect, and I'm more likely to
remember next time I write it that I need to write it differently,
because I don't want that mistake to happen again.
I'm also writing a larger volume of material now, because I only write a show once and move on. I don't repeat the same show over and over for weeks, or even twice. Seeing just how many words are coming up incorrectly solely because they're not in my dictionary the way I want to write them has made me feel like I need to just go through the whole dictionary and re-write every word to make sure it's going to come out right. I keep a record every show of how many of those "wrote it right but it wasn't in my dictionary that way" words there are, and after 32 shows, I've got an average of .32% right now. It's not horrendous, but it seems like it should be a lot closer to zero.
I've been at the process of re-writing all the words in my dictionary for about 6 weeks now, and I've made it through 7,000 entries. Only a year left to go before it's done at that rate!
I've developed an entirely new theory on defining conflicts. I now define a lot of misstrokes as conflicts. I figure, if it was only going to be defined as "fun" before, what's the harm in having the AI choose between "fun" and "gun" since what I wrote wasn't the correct outline for anything, let alone "fun" or "gun," in the first place?
I am staying away from defining correct outlines as conflicts, though, and trying to come up with different ways of writing things instead. I occasionally stack "N" and "A," like with "taken a," so I'm trying to write "A*N" for "an," but it's not sticking at all. I even write five sentences every day with "an" in them, and most of the time I can remember the asterisk when I write the sentences, but it's been months, and I haven't written it properly once during the news.
Instead of my old practice of going through a take and re-writing each incorrect word five times (that took forever), now I just try to remember as I go through and count errors/make dictionary entries, to also think about whether or not I need to practice that word more. If I do, I add it to a list. I have a list of 58 words I write five times each at the beginning of each practice session. I keep a record of when I added them to that list, and make sure I write them for at least five sessions before I take them off, although I often leave them on for longer. As words get deleted from that list, I add new ones that I found while writing the news.
There are all sorts of words on the list, from names that were hard to write (Ezekiel Emanuel) and new ways of trying to write things (MEN/TO*R, since TOR is a beginning for words like "torment"), to old ways of writing things that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of (EN/M*I so words like it won't conflict with "my"). It seems like an insurmountable task right now to get everything squared away in my dictionary and in my memory, but I guess I'll get there someday if I keep plugging away at it.
I'm still practicing two drills in the Phoenix book at the beginning of every practice session, and my average wpm on all of them is up to 178.5. It's been stuck there for a few weeks for some reason. I think having that cushion to drop words during the news (which I only do when I have to, of course) might be interfering with what little speedbuilding rhythm I had going. Whenever I get discouraged with it, though, I can look back to when I started using the book a year and a half ago, and my average was only 115 wpm. I am improving, whether it seems like it or not.
In support of my theory that I need to re-write all the words in my dictionary, is one particular word: Demetrius. I had it defined 15 different ways, and not one of them was the way I would write it today. I was originally going to identify word groups that I write differently, such as words that end in "cy" or "gy," and re-write only those groups as I identified them. I realized, though, that the problem was much larger than that. Before that, though, I fixed 60 "-cy" entries, 260 for "-gy," and 160 for "-ta," which I now write with an asterisk.
I also had about 1,000 entries ending in "ly" that I had defined with a tucked -L, but that I would never write. Those were causing lots of problems when I misstroked the -L in a word, so I spent some time getting rid of them. And I finally fixed my "di-" so it wasn't the same as my "-dy," but darned if I can remember to write it that way yet.
I'm also writing a larger volume of material now, because I only write a show once and move on. I don't repeat the same show over and over for weeks, or even twice. Seeing just how many words are coming up incorrectly solely because they're not in my dictionary the way I want to write them has made me feel like I need to just go through the whole dictionary and re-write every word to make sure it's going to come out right. I keep a record every show of how many of those "wrote it right but it wasn't in my dictionary that way" words there are, and after 32 shows, I've got an average of .32% right now. It's not horrendous, but it seems like it should be a lot closer to zero.
I've been at the process of re-writing all the words in my dictionary for about 6 weeks now, and I've made it through 7,000 entries. Only a year left to go before it's done at that rate!
I've developed an entirely new theory on defining conflicts. I now define a lot of misstrokes as conflicts. I figure, if it was only going to be defined as "fun" before, what's the harm in having the AI choose between "fun" and "gun" since what I wrote wasn't the correct outline for anything, let alone "fun" or "gun," in the first place?
I am staying away from defining correct outlines as conflicts, though, and trying to come up with different ways of writing things instead. I occasionally stack "N" and "A," like with "taken a," so I'm trying to write "A*N" for "an," but it's not sticking at all. I even write five sentences every day with "an" in them, and most of the time I can remember the asterisk when I write the sentences, but it's been months, and I haven't written it properly once during the news.
Instead of my old practice of going through a take and re-writing each incorrect word five times (that took forever), now I just try to remember as I go through and count errors/make dictionary entries, to also think about whether or not I need to practice that word more. If I do, I add it to a list. I have a list of 58 words I write five times each at the beginning of each practice session. I keep a record of when I added them to that list, and make sure I write them for at least five sessions before I take them off, although I often leave them on for longer. As words get deleted from that list, I add new ones that I found while writing the news.
There are all sorts of words on the list, from names that were hard to write (Ezekiel Emanuel) and new ways of trying to write things (MEN/TO*R, since TOR is a beginning for words like "torment"), to old ways of writing things that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of (EN/M*I so words like it won't conflict with "my"). It seems like an insurmountable task right now to get everything squared away in my dictionary and in my memory, but I guess I'll get there someday if I keep plugging away at it.
I'm still practicing two drills in the Phoenix book at the beginning of every practice session, and my average wpm on all of them is up to 178.5. It's been stuck there for a few weeks for some reason. I think having that cushion to drop words during the news (which I only do when I have to, of course) might be interfering with what little speedbuilding rhythm I had going. Whenever I get discouraged with it, though, I can look back to when I started using the book a year and a half ago, and my average was only 115 wpm. I am improving, whether it seems like it or not.
In support of my theory that I need to re-write all the words in my dictionary, is one particular word: Demetrius. I had it defined 15 different ways, and not one of them was the way I would write it today. I was originally going to identify word groups that I write differently, such as words that end in "cy" or "gy," and re-write only those groups as I identified them. I realized, though, that the problem was much larger than that. Before that, though, I fixed 60 "-cy" entries, 260 for "-gy," and 160 for "-ta," which I now write with an asterisk.
I also had about 1,000 entries ending in "ly" that I had defined with a tucked -L, but that I would never write. Those were causing lots of problems when I misstroked the -L in a word, so I spent some time getting rid of them. And I finally fixed my "di-" so it wasn't the same as my "-dy," but darned if I can remember to write it that way yet.
Finally, another big list of all the word endings
I went through and added asterisks to: –rat, -lator, -seen, -lent, -tor,
-clear, -tha, -sell, -cell, -mist, -gan, -trick, -dance, -phone, ax-, -con, -YOU, -el, -tel,
-tal, -don, -lop, -ger, -yam, -mat, –ture, -tin, -ten, -ron, -ster, -band,
-kate, -nate, -yum, -date, -late, -tize, and -ual (yule).
Mechanical Developments
It's been four months
since my last update. That's only half as long as it took me to post
last time, so there's that. Somehow, though, I've got way more to talk
about. So much, in fact, that I'm going to have to break this up into
parts.
I gave up on the Report-It quite a while ago, although I think I forgot to mention it in my last update. Recently, I've started writing with my theory book under the steno machine. I think raising it up is helping a bit. I still go through periods where I feel like I can't "reach" or "find" the keys, but I seem to be able to work it out after about 15 minutes of writing the news, if nothing else.
I think I was holding my left arm funny, because it was starting to go numb while I was writing, so I've been trying to focus on making it a bit more comfortable and remembering to stop tensing it up and let it relax. I ditched the BackJoy when my arm started going numb, too, and I don't miss it.
I finally sent my LS in to have the loose USB port fixed. They decided to put in a "new" battery while they were at it. I have no idea why; there was nothing wrong with the old battery. Now, the "new" battery doesn't hold a charge. It's kind of frustrating, really. But I don't want to be without the LS for a week again to send it back. My service contract expires at the end of the month, too. The only reason I renewed it last time was because I thought I would want to upgrade to the LSX, and Stenovations has a nifty trade-in policy.
But now the LSX isn't really in the works anymore. I think the LS v2 looks interesting, but if I get one, I'll want to have it as a backup writer, so I won't be interested in a trade-in. It just doesn't make sense to pay $300 a year for nothing. I don't think anything's going to go wrong with the LS; they seem pretty foolproof. It's a bummer that mine effectively doesn't have a battery anymore, but I've been leaning more toward captioning/remote CART than onsite CART, anyway, so it probably won't matter.
I have the silicone Stenovations keypads on the LS now, and I really like them. They are maybe a bit too slippery, so I'm not going to say I can't imagine using anything else, but they're better than the Depobook leather ones.
I gave up on the Report-It quite a while ago, although I think I forgot to mention it in my last update. Recently, I've started writing with my theory book under the steno machine. I think raising it up is helping a bit. I still go through periods where I feel like I can't "reach" or "find" the keys, but I seem to be able to work it out after about 15 minutes of writing the news, if nothing else.
I think I was holding my left arm funny, because it was starting to go numb while I was writing, so I've been trying to focus on making it a bit more comfortable and remembering to stop tensing it up and let it relax. I ditched the BackJoy when my arm started going numb, too, and I don't miss it.
I finally sent my LS in to have the loose USB port fixed. They decided to put in a "new" battery while they were at it. I have no idea why; there was nothing wrong with the old battery. Now, the "new" battery doesn't hold a charge. It's kind of frustrating, really. But I don't want to be without the LS for a week again to send it back. My service contract expires at the end of the month, too. The only reason I renewed it last time was because I thought I would want to upgrade to the LSX, and Stenovations has a nifty trade-in policy.
But now the LSX isn't really in the works anymore. I think the LS v2 looks interesting, but if I get one, I'll want to have it as a backup writer, so I won't be interested in a trade-in. It just doesn't make sense to pay $300 a year for nothing. I don't think anything's going to go wrong with the LS; they seem pretty foolproof. It's a bummer that mine effectively doesn't have a battery anymore, but I've been leaning more toward captioning/remote CART than onsite CART, anyway, so it probably won't matter.
I have the silicone Stenovations keypads on the LS now, and I really like them. They are maybe a bit too slippery, so I'm not going to say I can't imagine using anything else, but they're better than the Depobook leather ones.
Positive Influences
I had the opportunity to talk with Stan
after the CBC exam, which was really cool. I got to test out his LSS (with
pads on the keys), and I did not like that at all. It was like trying to
write on a squishy mattress. I also got to see him write, and one thing I
picked up was that he writes periods with both hands. I'd read before
that's a good idea, to avoid stacking, but I just couldn't wrap my brain
around the idea of doing it.
Seeing Stan do it made me realize how easy it would be, though, and now I've got a two-handed stroke for periods, commas, and new speakers. Getting myself trained to use those strokes is easily the hardest thing I can ever remember doing in steno. It felt so unnatural! It seemed like there was absolutely no way it would ever work. But after a few days, it did. I still have hiccups and confusion with it from time to time, but I don't have stacking issues anymore, so it's probably worth it.
I was reading Mirabai's blog over the summer, and I read that she did transcription for offline captioning while she was in school. That sounded like the perfect job for a steno student. I wanted to look into it, but I wasn't sure what to do, so I asked on Depoman. I received some great advice, and one of the members pointed me in the direction of the WAHM forum for work at home moms.
Through that forum, I found an opportunity to do transcription at home. I don't use my steno machine, and it doesn't pay very much, so I tend to wind up working more hours than I might somewhere else, but I absolutely love being able to work from home whenever I want, completely at the whim of my own schedule. And it's about a thousand times better than where I was working, so I can't thank Mirabai and the Depoman forum enough!
Seeing Stan do it made me realize how easy it would be, though, and now I've got a two-handed stroke for periods, commas, and new speakers. Getting myself trained to use those strokes is easily the hardest thing I can ever remember doing in steno. It felt so unnatural! It seemed like there was absolutely no way it would ever work. But after a few days, it did. I still have hiccups and confusion with it from time to time, but I don't have stacking issues anymore, so it's probably worth it.
I was reading Mirabai's blog over the summer, and I read that she did transcription for offline captioning while she was in school. That sounded like the perfect job for a steno student. I wanted to look into it, but I wasn't sure what to do, so I asked on Depoman. I received some great advice, and one of the members pointed me in the direction of the WAHM forum for work at home moms.
Through that forum, I found an opportunity to do transcription at home. I don't use my steno machine, and it doesn't pay very much, so I tend to wind up working more hours than I might somewhere else, but I absolutely love being able to work from home whenever I want, completely at the whim of my own schedule. And it's about a thousand times better than where I was working, so I can't thank Mirabai and the Depoman forum enough!
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