Stenograph University - From Court Reporter to Captioner

Course Overview

From Court Reporter to Captioner

This course is designed for graduate realtime steno writers currently at speeds of 225 words per minute or higher with good accuracy. Its goal is to provide such professionals with the knowledge, writing skill modifications and proper practice to function effectively as broadcast closed captioners. While any graduate steno writer working at this speed level may benefit from the course, you should already be writing realtime with a high degree of accuracy on literary materials at this speed to get the most out of it.

Getting Started

You can sign up for all three courses at the same time and take them one after the other or you can sign up for one course at a time. It’s your choice. Your access time for each course will not begin until you actually enter that course for the first time, even if you sign up for all three at once. If you ever find you will not be able to access the course because of an emergency, unforeseen assignment, illness or other interruption, just contact Stenograph to reserve the balance of your access time for later use.

You need to complete Captioning I before proceeding to Captioning II and/or Captioning III. You may take Captioning II and Captioning III concurrently, however. In fact this approach is the author’s recommendation.

Personalized Writing Skills Evaluations

In each course, you will be asked to complete one or more Personalized Writing Skills Evaluations. Evaluations require you to write from unrehearsed streaming broadcasts and submit an unedited ASCII file of your steno to the author’s evaluation team.

You may take each evaluation when you are ready. Except for the second evaluation provided in Captioning III, Personalized Writing Skills Evaluations are not graded. They are intended to provide you with a personalized report on exactly what you need from the course to write effectively as a realtime steno captioner.

Captioning I provides one Personalized Writing Skills Evaluation in the course fee. You must complete this evaluation before beginning Captioning II. Captioning II also provides one Personalized Writing Skills Evaluation. It is recommended that you complete this evaluation as soon as you have completed your required study modules, but you may choose the time most convenient to you. In Captioning III, your course fee includes two Personalized Writing Skills Evaluations. You may take them at any time, but you must pass the second evaluation with an accuracy rate of 98% or higher to receive your Certificate of Completion.

Equipment and Software

Please check the "Professional Technical Requirements" section under the "Technical Information" tab on our Web site at www.stenographu.com to make sure you are properly equipped to take this course.

If you are using captioning or CAT translation software which is NOT Windows-based, please contact the author at chrisc@captcolo.com with a description of your software, steno machine and computer before purchasing the course.