Inaudible

[Erica Abbott]

Okay. So here's the hypothetical; you took a deposition down that was fast, you got everything and it made sense at the time, but when you got back home and were editing and reading over your job, what you have for an answer doesn't seem to make any sense. The audio back-up is not of any help. Now, is this where you use the (inaudible)? If so, is it absolutely dreaded to use the (inaudible)?? I seem to worry that if you have even one trascript that says (inaudible) in it, that the attorney is not going to want to hire you back.

What does everyone else think??:)

[Phil Stillerman]

First of all, if you heard "something" it's not inaudible, it's ... uhm ... indecipherable, or unintelligible. But, that's a
last-resort-parenthetical. Post your translation (a little before and after the questionable portion for context), and post along with it the corresponding audio on one of the forums (CRF, DEPOMAN, CSRNATION, for example -- and there are others on MSN and Yahoo!) and see if other reporters can help.

I've had to resort to the parenthetical [mumble] because the assistant county attorney is foreign-born, never lost her accent, and trashes the English language punctuation-wise and grammar-wise, etc. The first dozen times or so I asked her to repeat, she did, exactly how it came out the first time. I gave up and resorted to [mumble]. But, that's another story and problem.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

I feel like I'm the only one who does this and in fact I recently had an agency take severe exception to this and in fact will never call me to cover for them because I did this (they say it's the CR's responsibility to get it at the dep blah blah blah real idiots) but sometimes we CANNOT get it at the dep (short breaks, no lunch, wit. runs out of room immediately at the start of break, attys concentrating on what's coming up after the break and don't want to deal with questions about things that happened before the break, everybody running out of the room immediately after dep concludes for airplane flights, etc. Not to mention that often we don't realize at the dep that we need help deciphering what the hell they mumbled or interrupted with.

Here's what I do: I email sound clips, 1 clip per email, directly to the witness or atty or whoever uttered the indecipherable and let them tell me what they said. I create the small sound clips in Transcription Buddy. They're well under 1 meg. And I paste lots of context into the email with the indecipherable part shown as best I can do phonetically or I'l put "sounds like" and then the word, bolded and underlined.

After the one agency had a total conniption about this (I asked her in advance if she was OK with it and she was but later told me she thought there was only 1 spot which of course is totally NOT what I told her which I have the email to her confirming that little factoid) I spoke to a few CR friends and not one of them does what I do. They just put (inaudible) even if it's a video, even if it's in the middle of a sentence. I feel that since I have the ability to get the record straight that I should do that. But maybe it's not worth the damn effort if the attorneys and agencies don't like it. It's a small PITA to do it and of course I'd rather not have these damn annoying spots that I have to listen to again and again and slow down as much as I can and then finally give up and make the damn clip. You think I like doing this? Hell no. But, again, since I have the ability to, I have been an idiot and do it and have no "inaudibles" in my transcripts. But once again, it seems to be not appreciated so maybe make a macro to quick insert (inaudible) and on our merry way we go.

[Phil Stillerman]

Erica
What's the outline (brief) that you have? Where does the "outline" fit in the example you gave? Between "and" and "to get"?

>>we cut and ground and -- to get it to all through the ring

The missing word could be routed, sanded or any type of abrasive process.

[Erica Abbott]

I'm so sorry. lol. I did not make myself clear. I can hear and understand up to to get it to" but then the "through the ring" part is the part I am having trouble with. Where there is a dash, he just stuttered and changed directions. The ring part is what I even wrote in steno, it just does not sit right with me.

[Phil Stillerman]

If they are talking about plumbing in the construction trades, it could be "ring". They use O-rings in pipe joints to prevent leaks.

The alternative is put a [phonetic] after the questionable word.

[Sabrina]

Erica,

When I reported and I came up against something like this, I would just call the witness and read them their answer and see if that was correct. Things may be a little more lax here in TN, but the attorneys I worked for never minded if I made phone calls to the witness for spellings or stuff like this.

But while I was in the job, I would mark, as I was writing, any spots like this to ask the witness before he left the depo room. That made things a lot easier on me, and it meant I wouldn't be having to bother the witness by calling him/her later.

Sabrina

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Andrea,

Often it is impossible to do that because they ignore you or you know the attorneys hate being interrupted or when you do say excuse me, they start in another direction and you don't get clarification of what you couldn't hear. In a non-video, NBD and who cares. But in a video...

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Attorneys are snakes and they'll smile and then call the agency and complain. It could be TWO INTERRUPTIONS ALL DAY (not me; a friend of mine). In that case, the agency told him about the complaint and said "don't worry, the client is a jerk but wanted you to know." Me, they'd never call me again to cover and I'd never know why. The agency I was with for 20 years got a complaint about, again, 2-3 "excuse me's" all day and client says "never send her back" and agency gives zero support, such creeps. Very bad taste in my mouth as you can understand.

[Erica Abbott]

Thank you for all of your help!! This has not come up with me before. I am going to take everything into consideration and work it out! I really appreciate it!

[Kyung]

Do you have digital back up? Sometimes you can tell what is on the backup when you can't tell what it is on through the audio sync.

[Erica Abbott]

I don't think I do. It's nothing that I know of anyway... lol. Where do I find that?

[Kyung]

I have my audiosync, but I also have a digital recorder that I take to the depo in case anything goes wrong with my laptop like it crashes or something. Sometimes I double check that if I'm uncertain about a word.