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.

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.

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!

Back

Long time no post, again. I've still been plugging away with my two hours of practice every day. I kept up with my routine of using the actual live news for my speedbuilding practice until June, when I started doing the Caption Masters Series. I didn't exactly test into it, I just signed up for it, figuring I was probably good enough to do it. That's been true in some senses; I don't have any trouble at all keeping up with the homework, but I have yet to pass a test. You have to get 98.5% accuracy first-pass on live broadcasts, and I'm not quite there yet.

So far I've practiced the news and the weather. I can occasionally get a 5-7-minute weather segment at 98.5% accuracy on the first try, which is pretty cool. The teacher suggested we use "smart writing," which involves dropping adjectives and other things that might not be super important if it keeps us from dropping things that are important. It's been pretty effective. On the one hand, it's easier because you don't have to write things verbatim; on the other hand, it's harder because it adds an extra level of things you're thinking about the whole time. "What phrase wasn't important? What don't I have to write? How could I paraphrase that to make it quicker?" Of course, verbatim is always your ultimate goal. But it's more important to convey everything loosely than to convey half of it verbatim. Unfortunately, it's a strategy that's going to work against me whenever I take the CBC exam.

I don't use the tripod anymore. I felt like I couldn't reach the machine, so I went back to putting it on my lap. I just use a little leather portfolio folder to give it about 3/4 of an inch of extra height and keep it flat. That seems to be working out okay. I still feel like I'm a little shaky 75% of the time in terms of "finding" the keys, but I'm doing a lot better in that area than I was before.

I have a ton of free time to do steno stuff now, but I don't do it. I did spend about an hour working on a list of 30 "to-do" items I had come up with in the past few months, though. Here's what I fixed: 

-Defined "out-" as "O*UT," yet I still had ~50 words in my dictionary defined like RAED/O*UT.

-Finally went into my pre/suf table and deleted all the StenoMaster stuff I don't actually use - the integrated -able, -en, -ful, -ive, -ize, -ment, -ness, dis-, and -ly. Hopefully that will result in TM suggesting fewer of those, although I've already got so many defined it's kind of a mess.

-Deleted 300 entries I made using "DZ" for "-ing."

-Fixed problematic word endings with -lick, -rat, -line, -rid, -rig, -man/-men, -woman/-women, -ard, -son, and -gan.

-Updated my "ego-" to AOEG.

-Updated "TAIR" to "TA*IR" in 100 words.

-Decided to do LAM/NAIT, etc. and NA*IT for Nate; COMP/KAIT, etc., and KA*IT for Kate

-Finally got around to changing all 113 of my leftover "nk" words from "*NG" to "FRNG"

I came up with a couple more things to fix after I did that. I also just started defining conflicts. I think I've stayed away from them all this time because I didn't want to take the time to sit down and train the AI. But I defined one, and it picked up on it almost immediately, so I thought, what better time to work out the kinks than when no one can see them?