Transcription, Formatting, and Record Production
Anatomy of a transcript
A certified transcript typically carries a title page, appearances, an index (witnesses, exhibits, proceedings), body pages with numbered lines (commonly 25 per page, but confirm your jurisdiction's rule), an exhibit index, a certification page, and, where required, an errata sheet. Body format is normally question-and-answer: Q and A labels at the margin with the examining attorney identified once as "BY MR. REYES:" rather than repeated in every question. Colloquy between the court and counsel uses role designations (THE COURT:, MR. REYES:) and runs in narrative form. Parentheticals record non-verbal events: (Witness excused.), (Exhibit 4 marked for identification.), (Recess taken.)
Producing an accurate, usable record
Spell names consistently and verify them against the record rather than accepting a spell-checker's guess. Mark exhibits at the point they are identified, so page and line references in the index are correct. When audio is genuinely unintelligible, use a bracketed notation with a timestamp, for example [inaudible 00:14:32], and never guess at a word or silently drop a phrase. Condensed and electronic formats (ASCII, PDF with hyperlinks) are delivery variants of the same certified text, not new records.
Traps: renaming an attorney mid-transcript inconsistently; omitting an exhibit from the index; certifying before a final read-through; and treating a cleaner-sounding paraphrase as an improvement.
Rule of thumb: if you cannot hear it, say so on the page. A marked inaudible passage is defensible; an invented word is not.
Worked example: a juror's question is read by the clerk. Attribute it to THE COURT or the clerk per local practice, and note in a parenthetical that the question came from the jury.