dictionary building..

[Mike Rowell]

I started with a StenEd dictionary with something like 68,000 entries, and I'm wondering what some of you did to incorporate inflected endings onto your outlines.

I've been making hundreds of adds a week, sometimes hitting close to a thousand, but it doesn't seem the end is in sight! Now, not everything I'm adding is a simple alteration of an old outline for an inflected ending. Sometimes I get carried away with adding in new briefs and phrases that I might not use, and I also add a ton of misstrokes as I see them. I think I made close to 400 adds today. This begs the question, how much is too much in terms of making adds in the middle of practicing dictation?

Also, I remember seeing a while back that you can load a dictionary behind your personal dictionary in Case Catalyst and was wondering if many people have done this and what their experiences are. I'm afraid if I did, I might not catch my misstrokes when they translate onto an entry from a MagnumSteno dictionary. Any shared experiences on this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
-Mike

[Tami]

I keep adding every day, too, Mike, after all these years. I still only have about 85,000 entries, I think. I haven't checked for a while. I run a very high tran rate with it, though -- probably because I write criminal cases only day in and day out.

You can add Mark's dictionary behind yours. I never opted to do that, but probably should have. I just wanted to get the new Stenomaster/Magnum outlines in myself. I had the same hesitation, it sounds like, that you're having, but I'm amazed at what trans for Clay. He started with Mark's dictionary right from the get-go because he was taught to write like him, but Clay has still worked very hard making it his own, and it's definitely paying off for him.

There's your phonics table that might help you out a bit, too. I'm sure Case has something similar to Eclipse's Translation Magic.

As far as adding in the middle of practice, I'd make it second to speed building. Here and there is okay, but if you're interrupting your time too much and it's getting in the way, perhaps you can save time at the end of practice to make entries before calling it a day.

I add the few entries I need to make right when we take our recesses during the day. It takes a minute or two to check my fix-it notes and untrans and/or miss trans, and when I get done at the end of the day, I just need a good proofer.

Thanks for asking the question. Hopefully you'll get more advice from our learned group.

[Mike Rowell]

Thanks for the advice, Tami. Today, I made a point of separating out where I would work on my dictionary vs. when I was speed building, and I only interrupted myself a few times. I'll stick with it, and I'm sure I'll keep progressing that way.

I know you are an incredible writer, so it's encouraging to hear that your dictionary is at 85,000 entries (I've read where other people have over 300,000!)

[Tami]

You're welcome and thank you, Mike!!

Guess I should add . . .

I'd need to do a whole lot more work on my personal dictionary if I decided to become a captioner, which is something I've sure kicked around from time to time, but it works fine for what I do day in and day out.

[Jenny Griffin, RMR CRR CCRR CRC]

Mike, I'm on Eclipse, but I'd think CC has something like our integral prefixes and suffixes feature for dix building. I'm attaching a pic of my screen. I just put in the ROOT word for suspend = SWEN. Because I have a check on integral prefixes/suffixes, when I hit enter to add the SWEN stroke, it gives me all the possible endings I might want for it. I can choose all of them with one click, or just click on the ones I want to add to my dix.

Because I have tweaked the prefixes/suffixes table just the way I want it - as I write internal Rs and Gs - this is what I get.

If you don't know what I 'm talking about, call support, or maybe someone reading this on CC can explain.

[Mike Rowell]

Thanks for the suggestions! I had never been into my phonetic table until today, so I don't really know what I'm doing with it and am proceeding with a little caution.

I know that when you make an add through the dictionary rather than global define, you can check a box to add suffixes, but it doesn't seem to like tucking endings for words. Maybe I can fix this by tweaking my phonetic table?

Anyhow, the Eclipse options look beautiful :D

[Jenny Griffin, RMR CRR CCRR CRC]

I spent a full day figuring out how to tweak my table. I was so stubborn I wouldn't give up.

I was going to add to my post by saying when I first got Eclipse, I did merge the entire StenEd dix into my very tiny personal converted main dix because I didn't want to take the time to put in all my own entries. I did get a great tran by doing that, but I've spent six years now taking out StenEd entries that I don't use.

In order to get my CRR, I thought I needed to have as clean a dix as possible. Maybe I was right as I did pass it two years ago on my first try. Of course, I did have 28 years or more of reporting experience behind me!

[April McMillan, CRR, RPR, CSR]

For Eclipse users, you can also get the suffix suggestions by checking the "Suggestions" box when creating a global. You need to create a global from beginning to end with the box checked, save it, and then every time thereafter you will receive "suggestions" in a pop-up box. There's no need to touch your Phonetics Table in the Users menu in order for this to work. (I'm letting out a big sigh of relief here :D )

For example, in your personal dix or a job file, type Control+G, add the outline for your new global, check "Suggestions" box, click on Save/OK. Next time you global something the Suggestions pop-up box will have the "add-on" globals for that particular stroke, (-ED, -ING, -S, etc) and you can just click on "Accept All."

[Ian Dawson]

As well as adding 'suggested' integral suffixes when adding new words, you can global a word that already exists in your dictionary. Eclipse won't replace it, but it will suggest all the derivative words for you to 'Accept All' quickly.

This is how I added most of them, and it really doesn't take all that long to get the most common ones in. I went through my theory book, writing out the lists of words and adding in the integral suffixes with the 'suggestions' method.

Now, this is where a little knowledge might be a dangerous thing ... so apologies in advance if what I say below messes anything up!

In the Eclipse programming tab, find "Integral Prefix and Suffix Definitions". Click on that, and you should get a table which shows Eclipse what to offer when you use the Suggestions tick box that April mentioned. You can then tweak to your liking.

Mine reads as below. It looks a bit strange, but the help file explains it all fully.

^ed=-D,-SDZ
^ed=-T,+D
^eds=-D,-SDZ
^ing=-G,-GSZ
^ings=-GZ,-GSDZ
^s=-Z,-T
^s=-S,+T
^er=-R,+-FPLGTSD,-PL
^ers=-RS,+GT,-FRPLSD
^ers=-RZ,+GDZ,-FRPLTS
dis^=STK-,STK-,+TKPW

(It needs a bit adding so that it suggests DZ for -ing in certain situations)

All that said, I think there's probably a better way of doing this by playing with the phonetics table...