Court Reporting Skills: Literary, Jury Charge, and Testimony Transcription
What this domain tests
The exam splits transcription into three graded skills because each demands a different habit of mind. Literary material is dictated prose - letters, articles, reports - that you punctuate and paragraph yourself. Jury charge is the judge's charge to the jury: dense, formulaic, often read aloud from a written draft the judge may depart from. Testimony is verbatim question-and-answer record.
Literary
- You supply what the speaker does not: sentence boundaries, quotation marks, capitalization, paragraph breaks.
- Resolve homophones from context (counsel/council, liable/libel); verify proper nouns rather than assuming.
- Numbers, dates, and citations follow one consistent style sheet across the whole job.
Jury charge
- Expect "the Court instructs you," numbered instructions, burdens ("preponderance of the evidence," "beyond a reasonable doubt"), and statutory citations.
- Paragraph each instruction separately and treat party designations consistently throughout.
- The judge may read faster than dictation pace or skip language; record what is spoken, not what the draft says.
Testimony
- Verbatim means false starts, repetitions, and grammar errors stay in; only a stipulation on the record removes them.
- Identify the speaker at first appearance ("MR. HALE:"), then by surname; Q. and A. sit at the left margin.
- Never guess. Use (phonetic) or (inaudible) and flag the spot for read-back.
Worked example
The judge reads: "If you find from the evidence that the defendant was negligent and that such negligence was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's injuries, you will find for the plaintiff." In charge format this becomes one instruction paragraph with restored punctuation, not the spoken run-on, and "substantial factor" stays unhyphenated as a term of art. The same words in testimony format would be transcribed as delivered, with punctuation reflecting the judge's pauses and no invented paragraphing.
Traps
Guessing at proper names instead of marking phonetic; punctuating testimony into tidy sentences; dropping parentheticals for gestures; abbreviating counsel's name inconsistently after the first appearance.