NY Court Reporter study plan

Transcribe 10 five-minute dictated passages at 140-160 wpm and calculate per-passage accuracy percentages to establish a baseline error rate.

Build a personal brief bank of 40 high-frequency words and phrases (legal and general) with consistent outlines, then drill them until each is written from recall without hesitation.

Identify your three most frequent stroke errors by category (misstroke, hesitation, phrasing) and log them in an error tracker.

Dictate and write 30 minutes of continuous new material daily at the baseline speed with no more than a 5-minute total pause budget.

Increase dictation speed by 10 wpm over baseline and hold 95% or better transcription accuracy on three consecutive 5-minute takes.

Practice 20 minutes daily of unfamiliar-material dictation (news, essays, technical text) to reduce reliance on predictable phrasing.

Expand the brief bank to 80 entries and demonstrate recall by writing each entry cold at the start of every session.

Record and review two of your own takes to isolate hesitation points, then drill those specific phrases until hesitation disappears.

Push dictation speed another 10 wpm and sustain 96% accuracy on two of three timed takes.

Transcribe two 10-minute takes from your own shorthand notes into clean copy, applying standard transcript format (speaker designations, page and line numbering, parentheticals).

Proofread your own transcripts twice, once for meaning and once for mechanical errors, and log every correction by type.

Complete 10 minutes daily of read-back practice, reading shorthand notes aloud accurately without transcribing first.

Achieve 98% accuracy on three timed dictation takes while maintaining the current speed.

Complete 150 punctuation and capitalization exercises drawn from legal-style sentences, scoring 90% or better.

Correct 100 commonly confused word pairs (affect/effect, principal/principle, credible/credulous) in context and log any misses.

Apply a fixed three-pass proofreading routine to every transcript produced this week and record time-per-page.

Master 120 legal terms and Latin phrases (voir dire, habeas corpus, prima facie, sua sponte, res judicata) by writing definitions and correct spellings from memory.

Score 90% or better on a self-made 50-item legal terminology and spelling quiz covering parties, pleadings, and motions.

Rewrite 20 run-on or ambiguous legal sentences to eliminate misplaced modifiers and unclear pronoun references.

Build a personal legal-term brief list of 50 entries and drill them until written from recall.

Diagram the flow of a civil case and a criminal case from filing or arraignment through appeal, labeling each stage with correct terminology.

Explain in writing the roles of judge, clerk, court reporter, bailiff, and jury, and where the reporter's record fits in each proceeding type.

Summarize the rules for handling sidebars, off-the-record discussions, in-chambers conferences, and exhibits in the transcript.

Score 85% or better on a 40-item self-test covering court structure, jurisdiction basics, and terminology.

Write four 300-word summaries of sample court opinions, each capturing holding, reasoning, and disposition in plain English.

Draft a written explanation of confidentiality obligations covering sealed proceedings, sealed exhibits, and improper requests for transcript access.

List 10 ethical scenarios (ex parte contact, conflicts, gifts, correcting errors after certification) and write the correct response to each with reasoning.

Read two appellate opinions and identify the procedural posture and standard of review for each.

Complete two full-length simulated exams covering all eight domains and score 80% or better on each.

Set up a records system (file naming, exhibit logs, storage and retention rules, chain-of-custody notes) and document it in a one-page procedure.

Run a timed 15-minute dictation at target speed and produce a certified-quality transcript with 98%+ accuracy.

Review all error logs from weeks 1-7 and re-drill the 30 most frequent remaining errors until each is corrected in a fresh take.