What do you expect from a scopist?

[Marla Sharp]

I'm wondering if most reporters are expecting what I'm expecting from a scopist. I'd be curious to hear both reporters' and scopists' opinions, of course.

Do you expect your scopist to:

Look up on the Internet spellings of any proper noun, i.e., company names, cities, doctors, products?

Fix wrong punctuation at the end of a sentence? Example:
"You were there what dates."

Follow your preferences as best they can? Examples:
Paragraph frequently
Put "BY" lines after any interruption in Q&A

When it's a video, go over the videotape word for word and be sure every word is in there?

Follow basic punctuation rules? And I know this is an area of much controversy and disagreement, but there are several basic punctuation rules that both Morson's and the rest of the world uses (Chicago Manual of Style and others). I'm very curious what punctuation most people can agree on.

How about these:

Comma between two independent clauses connected by a coordinating conjunction. Example: "He was happy, but he didn't like it." "She went up the stairs, and she fell down on her crown."

Break up run-on or choppy sentences - at least in SOME way. Example:
Q Do you recall during the time, I think you told me you worked there for about a year, during the time you worked at Rain Bird, was there any type of safety training that went about there?

Let me know what you think. Are there basics we all expect?

[K.C. Corbin]

Catherine-

I hope you are not a dinosaur, because as a fairly new scopist, I feel the same way. It is our job to be sure we check all aspects of the transcript and alert the reporter when we need clarification or just plain can't validate something. I have a reporter which I work with regularly ( and am looking for more by the way! ), and she is also generous when it comes to less than optimal transcripts. A relationship of mutual respect between reporters and scopists help both of us pay the bills.
By the way, working weekends and having a day off in the week means shorter lines at the bank and other places I need to go! Not so bad.

Best regards to all.

[Renee]

This is an interesting discussion. I am a fairly new scopist (two years). I agree with Marla on all that a scopist should be doing. I research names that I don't know how to spell, and I flag the ones I can't find. I scope line by line, usually with full audio. The three main reporters I work with rely on the audio.

There have been times when the audio was horrible and the reporter didn't get it down and there was no way I could figure out what was going on. On jobs like that, I have done my best and sent it back to the reporter without charging her. I have had her insist I charge her something. But if I feel as though I did a terrible job, I don't think she should pay me. It keeps her coming back because she knows I'm more than fair.

A good reporter is difficult to find. I appreciate each one of the three that I work with, and I will bend over backwards to get things done for them.
Needless to say, the three main reporters I work with are very happy with my work.

I do take jobs from a few other reporters here and there and I'm currently looking to add another reporter to my clientele.

For those of you who have had horrible luck with scopists, I hope you can find one that you are happy with.

[Sheena Stobaugh]

In regards to working weekends, it's important to remember that not everyone leads the same lifestyle and has the same circumstances. When I was a single mother, I had to work weekends whether I liked it or not because I had to take on so much work in order to pay my bills and keep food on the table that I needed seven days a week to get it all accomplished.

Now I'm remarried and generally don't have to work quite as much. My kids are in school during the week, so I like to have my weekends free whenever possible so that I can spend time with my husband and kids. That's extremely important to me. I don't want to look up one day, my kids are grown and gone, and I'm out of touch with my husband all because of work.

The reporters I work for all respect this and would never dream of insisting I work weekends. The fact is, I'm an independent contractor. I set my own hours and rates. I'm not employed by a reporter. We are in a partnership, and that commands mutual respect for one another. My reporters let me know when they need a job back. I either accept or decline, based on my current workload.

So while some scopists don't mind working weekends, others have very good reasons for not doing so.

Sheena Stobaugh
Scoping since 1996
Case CATalyst, Eclipse, DigitalCAT
www.PremierScoping.com

[Tina Wheatley]

Hello Marla,

I have been a court reporter for six years and have used scopists and wondered why I paid them a third of what I made. I guess I thought if I paid them that much that aside from their questions about the transcript that it would be ready to turn in when they were done with it. I live in Oregon now and I don't have a third of the work I used to, so I started scoping for people on the side and they've been very pleased because I edited the job, listened to most parts of it (unless they requested all); and then I proofed it when I was done and highlighted in blue the things I could not find on Google. But I looked everything up. On top of that, I only charged $1.00 a page, and they were so pleased I was wondering if I was going beyond what a scopist is supposed to do. But that is exactly what I wanted to be paying for. Otherwise, I'll just do it myself. :-)

[Sheila Pham]

Hi TIna,

I'm a new reporter looking for an experienced scopist to listen to full audio. I have a lot of work waiting to be edited. If you can email me the rates that would be great. Are you on CaseCatalyst?

[Tina Wheatley]

Hi. I usually only charge $1.00 a page. If it's a really difficult more, I might charge more, but I rarely do. You can write me at [e-mail]. I'm pretty wide open for work right now, and I am on Case Catalyst. Thanks!

[Joy Volz]

Hello Sheila,

While I'm not an experienced scopist, I feel that my court reporter training at Erwin Technical in Tampa has given me the skills necessary to produce an accurate transcript. I have passed the WKT Skills portion of the NCRA certification and am anxious to gain some experience in transcript production.

Currently I have reached 180 wpm, but I need to start earning some income. After reviewing the documents that Marla posted, I feel I have the punctuation, grammar, spelling, and research skills necessary. And I'm willing to work whatever hours are necessary to produce an accurate transcript with the fastest turnaround possible.

If you would be willing to give me the opportunity, I could scope the first 20 pages of a small job free of charge so you could judge the quality of my work. Also, if you could provide a sample of one of your completed jobs, I could copy your transcript format. I am using Case Catalyst Version 8 w/ Audio Sync.

I can be reached at [phone] or by email at [e-mail].

Any advice or assistance you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your consideration,

Joy Volz

[Linda]

I'm a scopist and I do look up words, names of cities and try to find doctor's names, although I'm not always successful. I like having copies of exhibits to utilize. I do punctuate . If the reporter has any special things they like done, like capitalizing or not capitalizing, I try to do the best I can to follow what each reporter prefers.

I happen to like to use wave files . If something doesn't seem right in the transcript or if the reporter puts check or get or something along those lines, it makes my job easier because I don't have to sit and try to figure out what it should or could be. I, also, do videos and go through them twice to make sure they're word for word. I absolutely don't think you're asking too much. Any scopist who is unwilling to do these simple things, isn't interested in doing a quality job.

I charge $1 a page for scoping and $1.50 for word for word videotaped depositions. I'm on Eclipse NT. My email address is [e-mail]. I'm always looking for more work.

Hope that helps.

Linda

[Stacy Warpool]

Hi Marla,
I just felt I had to add a little bit of my own perspective to this discussion. I am a former reporter with 16 years experience, working in the biggest firm in our city, doing just about any type of technical work you can think of, e.g., construction, product liability, asbestos, medmal. I am now a stay-at-home mommy and scopist.

First, let me say there are some talented reporters out there working their --s off. There are also some reporters out there just aren't up to par and as a scopist you're expected to be a transcriber.

As a scopist I have any reporter fill out a short preference sheet and try to adhere to it as best as I can. I do look up or Google any spellings that I can. I should be able to find all drug spellings or street or city names, company names, etc. As far as punctuation goes, I am of the belief that if I see it, I will fix it. I'm more or less talking about commas here. I do look at just about every ending to a sentence. However, I think that tends to fall to the proofreader's domain. I think you'd be more upset if I didn't get the words right.

As far as video depos, I do listen to all the video. It is imperative to do that because usually the transcripts are sync'd up to the video nowadays. However, I have found that there's a wide variance in what is acceptable to the reporter. If a witness says "the" four times, do you put in all four?

Really, I tend to agree with most of what you're expecting from a scopist with just a slight difference of opinion when it comes to punctuation.

We all know there are scopists out there who should not be doing this line of work and reporters who may need to refine some of their skills, too.

The key to it all, though, is open communication! :-)
Thanks for listening.

[Sheena Stobaugh]

Stacy,

Are you saying it's not a scopist's job to fix all incorrect or missing punctuation? If I'm understanding your post correctly and that is, in fact, what you're saying, you are absolutely incorrect.

A proofreader's job is to be the last set of eyes on a transcript and pick up any small errors that the scopist may have left behind. By the time a transcript gets to a proofreader, the transcript should have been scoped word for word by a scopist or reporter, which means all untranslates and mistranslates have been corrected, all missing or incorrect punctuation has been corrected, all proper names are spelled correctly and consistently throughout the transcript, any nonsensical portions of the transcript have been corrected and a spell check has been performed. Basically, a proofreader's job should be very quick and easy. There should be little to no errors for them to find after the scopist has done his/her job.

Sure, occasionally a scopist will miss a comma or leave a question mark when it should technically be a period, and a proofreader's job is to point that out. But it should never be left up to a proofreader to be putting in missing punctuation that should have been taken care of by the scopist. Proofreaders aren't paid enough for that function. Scopists are paid more to perform the functions I listed above.

I'm not aiming to be confrontational in my post, but with all the negativity surrounding the issue of incompetent scopists lately, I feel the need to try to educate any scopists, especially the newer ones, so that they are fully aware of what their duties to a reporter are.

I don't think it's false to say that 99.9% of all reporters expect that if they're paying a scopist, the scopist is correcting punctuation. A lot of reporters who contract a scopist don't also utilize a proofer for financial reasons. So in your scenario, the punctuation would then be put back in the reporters' laps to complete and/or correct. It's not hard to see where a misunderstanding such as this could lead to an invoice either being negotiated downward or not paid.

Reporters, this all goes back to what I keep preaching: Communication. When contemplating hiring a scopist, always give very detailed explanations of your expectations. As you can clearly see from the posts in this thread, there seems to be a wide array of understanding as to what a scopist's duties are. Give a small sample transcript to be scoped so that you can see what kind of quality you get back. Pay attention to posts and advertisements. You can almost always get a feel for a scopist's or proofreader's competence level by their posts or advertisements. If they make multiple or glaring mistakes in their postings or advertisements, what do you expect of their scoping abilities? I've seen proofreaders and scopists who have things such as "could of" or "would of" in their posts instead of "could have" and "would have." People who aren't very versed in grammar and punctuation don't know enough to even know they're not good at it! Pay attention to those things. It's not hard to find an excellent scopist. They're out there, but you've got to pay attention to who you're soliciting. When reporters start paying attention to quality and looking past the rate, they will finally be content. Think about it: If you're paying $1.00 per page for pure crap or more work on your end when you get it back than if you'd have just scoped it yourself, is it really worth it? Do you really call that a discount?

If you'd shop for quality rather than price, you'll earn an even larger salary because instead of fixing an incompetent scopist's mistakes, you'll be out reporting, earning more money, while your excellent scopist is doing such a superb job of scoping your transcripts, it takes you mere minutes to read through a transcript and get it out the door for billing. No more being taken off the books because of backlog. No more missing the billing deadlines and waiting for your hard-earned money. No more frustration. Imagine five days a week of reporting on average of six hours a day, send the transcript to your scopist, roughly an hour spent proofreading the transcript that's waiting for you when you return home from your job. You've worked seven to eight hours, and the rest of the evening is yours to enjoy, not to mention free weekends. What's that worth to you?

Can it be done? Absolutely. Don't believe me? Do the math. What's it costing you now in time and money to use a mediocre scopist at discount rates? How many more depos could you take and how much more money could you earn if you had a great scopist? Let's take, for instance, a scenario where a reporter has a mediocre scopist. The reporter is only able to take three depos per week and must be off the books two days plus part of her weekend to finish editing the transcripts that are still of relatively poor quality after being scoped. The reporter thought it was great because this scopist only charged $1.00 per page. But how much money is the reporter losing in reality? So let's say those three days netted 720 pages altogether; at $4 a page, that's 2880. Subtract your discount scopist's rates, you've earned $2160 this week.

Now let's compare that with the reporter who utilizes a great scopist. She took five depos this week because her scopist kept her caught up, did such a great job scoping that proofing was a breeze. Her five jobs netted her 1200 pages. At $4 a page, that's 4800. Subtract her scopist's rate of $1.30 per page, she's earned $3,240. This reporter made $1,080 more this week by using a great scopist rather than a bargain-bin scopist. That's $56,160 more per year! This scenario doesn't even take into account expedites and dailies that aren't possible with a less-than-stellar scopist. This reporter earned $168,480, while her counterpart above made $112,320. I don't think it needs to be spelled out any more clearly than that. The bargain-bin scopist just cost you $56,160. What a bargain!

Yes, it's true that some reporters don't make $4 a page. I know several who do, so I used that as an example. The numbers play out, no matter what per-page rate you use.

Also, think about this. When you have no backlog and your transcripts always look great, it stands to reason that you will move up the ranks and be sent out on better jobs, usually resulting in more copy orders. More money! The benefits of using a good scopist just keep going on and on.

If you have a great scopist, treat them right and pay them well. As I've outlined above, they are worth their weight in gold. They are helping you lead a very comfortable and prosperous life. If you don't have a great scopist, you owe it to yourself to start looking. They are out there. Hint: They're not the ones charging $1.00 per page.

Sheena Stobaugh
Scoping since 1996
Case CATalyst, Eclipse, DigitalCAT
www.PremierScoping.com

[Renee]

Sheena, that was an amazing post! I couldn't have said it better myself!

[Sheena Stobaugh]

Thank you, Renee!

Sheena Stobaugh
Scoping since 1996
Case CATalyst, Eclipse, DigitalCAT
www.PremierScoping.com