Testimony (Question-and-Answer) Dictation and Transcription
What the domain tests
Question-and-answer dictation tests speaker attribution and the conventions of a deposition or trial transcript. You must distinguish examiner, witness, judge, and counsel, preserve interruptions and objections, and record colloquy that occurs off the record only when the record is reopened.
Core rules
- Begin each new speaker's turn as a new paragraph with a clear Q. or A. designation, or with the speaker's name in full and subsequent short form.
- Do not correct grammar, slang, dialect, or false starts. 'He don't' stays 'he don't'; 'I-I saw' keeps the repetition or is marked as an interruption.
- Place an objection and the court's ruling in the stream of colloquy; do not bury them in a footnote.
- Use '(Inaudible)' or a comparable parenthetical sparingly and only when the words cannot be recovered from context or audio. Note a reading back or a pause only if it affects the record.
- When counsel says 'Let the record reflect,' capture the requested statement verbatim and attribute it.
- On strike, do not delete the testimony; the transcript preserves what was said and the ruling that struck it.
Worked example
Dictated exchange: 'Q. You saw the defendant leave, correct? Mr. Hale: Objection, leading. The Court: Sustained. Q. Did you see the defendant leave the building? A. Yes, I saw him go out the front door.' Reasoning: The objection interrupts the first question, so the Q. line closes at 'correct?' and the objection becomes its own paragraph. 'The Court: Sustained' is a separate ruling paragraph. The rephrased question begins a new Q. paragraph. The answer is a new A. paragraph. Do not merge 'The Court: Sustained' into the objection.
Traps
- Assigning an answer to the questioner because the witness's voice was soft.
- Cleaning up 'gonna' or double negatives.
- Omitting an objection that was ruled on because it seemed unimportant.
- Using '(inaudible)' for a word that is recoverable from the next sentence.