NVRA Realtime Verbatim Reporter cheat sheet

At 180 wpm, one minute contains 180 words, five minutes 900 words, and ten minutes 1,800 words; this equals 3 words per second.

Dictated words such as 'comma,' 'period,' 'new paragraph,' and 'quote/unquote' function as formatting instructions; omit the cue word and apply the format unless the word is clearly part of the prose.

American literary punctuation places periods and commas inside closing quotation marks; semicolons and colons go outside unless they belong to the quoted material.

A new speaker in dialogue starts a new paragraph; an em dash marks interruption, and an ellipsis marks trailing off.

Choose 'its' as a possessive pronoun and 'it's' only when 'it is' or 'it has' can replace it; the same substitution test distinguishes 'their,' 'there,' and 'they're.'

Hyphenate a compound modifier before the noun (well-known author, two-car garage) but not after the noun (the author is well known).

Use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list, explanation, or quotation; do not put a colon between a verb and its object or a preposition and its object.

Paragraph breaks follow explicit dictation cues or a change of speaker; a pause alone is not a paragraph cue because rhetorical pauses occur mid-paragraph.

In no-edit realtime, any untranslated stroke remains in the graded text; a brief that is not already in the dictionary cannot rescue that stroke during the test.

Jury-charge burdens: 'preponderance of the evidence' is more likely than not; 'clear and convincing' is intermediate; 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is the criminal standard.

'May' is permissive; 'shall' and 'must' are mandatory. Preserve the judge's modal verb; do not interchange them.

Retain full legal phrases such as 'preponderance of the evidence' and 'beyond a reasonable doubt'; a shortened form changes the standard and is not verbatim.

Latin terms keep their conventional spellings: voir dire, venire, res ipsa loquitur, prima facie, sua sponte.

Party labels remain consistent: plaintiff, defendant, appellant, appellee, petitioner, respondent; do not abbreviate unless dictated.

Instruction numbers and subparts ('Instruction No. 3,' 'element 2') are preserved; do not renumber the charge.

Procedural directions such as 'read that back' or 'next instruction' are not charge text; omit them unless the judge dictates them as quoted content.

At 180 wpm, a 10-minute jury charge is 1,800 words; repeated legal phrases recur across instructions and are written as single briefs when already defined.

Preserve 'and/or' as one connector; do not expand to 'and or' or choose one alternative.

Q. and A. labels: the examiner's turn begins Q., the witness's turn begins A.; the period follows the letter and the label is separated from the text.

Each speaker change starts a new paragraph; do not place a question and its answer in the same paragraph.

Non-verbal events go in parentheses, e.g., '(Laughter),' '(Pause),' '(Witness nods)'; they are not assigned Q. or A. labels.

Colloquy between attorneys or with the judge uses speaker labels such as 'MR. SMITH:' rather than Q. and A.; Q&A is reserved for examiner-witness turns.

A question ends with a question mark; an answer ends with a period; a fragment is punctuated by its function, not repaired with added words.

If an answer quotes a direct question, the question mark stays inside the closing quotation marks; do not add a question mark merely because the answer discusses a question.

Write 'Exhibit 12' with a capital E and a numeral; retain possessives such as 'Plaintiff's Exhibit 12'; avoid 'Ex. 12' unless dictated.

In two-voice dictation, a new turn is a change of voice, not every pause; keep the current label across pauses within one speaker's turn.

An interruption is marked by an em dash at the end of the interrupted text, and the interrupting speaker starts a new Q. or A. paragraph.