Machine Shorthand Dictation and Transcription Accuracy
What this domain tests
This domain covers the mechanical core of the job: writing machine shorthand at speed, managing your own dictionary, and turning steno notes into a transcript that survives proofreading. Georgia's certification skills examination is built on three five-minute dictations - literary at 180 words per minute, jury charge at 200, and question-and-answer testimony at 225 - each of which must be transcribed within the Board's accuracy standard, commonly described as 95 percent. Speed without accuracy earns nothing.
Core rules
- Steno order is fixed. Initial consonants, then vowels, then final consonants. A stroke written out of order produces an unmapped outline and a hole in the transcript.
- Never test a brief on exam day. A brief you have not written under pressure is a transcription error waiting to happen.
- Write through misstrokes. Stopping to repair one stroke costs you the next two sentences; mark the spot mentally or with a marker stroke and fix it during transcription.
- Resolve conflicts deliberately. When two words share an outline, add a distinguishing stroke or write one of them phonetically, then lock that choice into the dictionary.
- Never invent a word. If a syllable is lost, write it phonetically or leave a bracketed flag for audio review; guessing produces confident nonsense that scores as error.
- Hunt sound-alikes, the most common silent error: council/counsel, waive/wave, statute/statue, principal/principle, marshal/martial, affect/effect.
Worked example
Dictation: The defendant's motion in limine was denied. Your dictionary maps the single stroke PHOEGS to both 'motion' and 'emotion,' and the transcript reads The defendant's emotion in limine was denied. The problem is a dictionary conflict, not hearing. The fix is not a spell-check pass but an added distinguishing stroke tested before the session, plus a search of the dictionary for every other word sharing that outline. On a scored take, one unresolved conflict can repeat five times and sink the transcript.
Traps that cost marks
- Leaning on auto-briefs you have never written at speed.
- Dropping a word and smoothing over it, which alters the record.
- Correcting a witness's grammar, which is not the reporter's role.
- Failing to retain steno notes and audio backup for the period the Board requires; without them a challenged transcript cannot be verified.
- Proofreading only for sense, not against the steno notes, which lets substitutions survive.