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Frequently Asked Questions
- Who is Ascopist4u?
- Are you accepting new clients?
- What are your rates, turnaround and billing procedure?
- Do you provide a preference sheet for the court reporter to fill out?
- What software do you support?
- Will you take the time to learn how I write (Sometimes I swear it's either with my feet or my fists! Just a bunch of glops.), how I punctuate, learn my consistent mistrans and insert the right word, and (horror of horrors!) how I clean up drops?
- Will you mark the deposition in any way if you have a question or are not sure about something that is said or written?
- Will you do the proofing after scoping the job so I don't have to do anything but deliver the job?
- Will you send my work to outside scopists without my knowledge?
- How can I tell if I am ready to use your services? Should I be concerned my notes are too bad?
- Do you offer proofing, and, if so, how is it done?
- Do you require audio for proofing jobs?
- I want a proofing job done, not a scoping job. Do I transfer via TAF as well?
- What punctuation and grammar books do you use?
- Do you hire independent scopists as subcontractors?
- Who is Ascopist4u?
A. I am a native of the state of Washington and have lived in both northern and southern California, Florida and Alabama. I attended the University of San Francisco in California, and received my B.A. in medical anthropology.
After graduation from college, I worked at the University of California at Santa Cruz in academic personnel, and I owned and operated Pacific Spectrum, Inc., a residential and commercial construction corporation. I was an officer of the corporation and held a general contractor’s license and a real estate license.
I finally decided, at long last, to follow my mother’s advice as well as in her professional footsteps and go back to school to become a court reporter, and court reporting became the profession I had been looking for.
I began my court reporting career doing Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals hearings, working in Juvenile Court, Bankruptcy Court and as a pro tem in Superior Court. After five years of courtroom and hearing experience, I entered the area of freelance reporting and because of my background I found myself specializing in medical malpractice, construction defect, real estate, and patent litigation.
After another 15 years of freelance reporting and a total of 20 years as a court reporter, it became the right time to change my professional focus from court reporting to scoping, and I now own and operate, Ascopist4U.
I have been a scopist since 2004, continue to feel the court reporting profession is meant for me, and I have a great appreciation and respect for both court reporters and scopists.
I personally strive to serve the court reporting profession to the fullest, and I am looking forward to you contacting me with your transcript needs.
- Are you accepting new clients?
A. Yes.
- What are your rates, turnaround and billing procedure?
A. Please go to the Rates Page for this information
- Do you provide a preference sheet for the court reporter to fill out?
A. Yes. Please go to the Preferences Page for this information.
- What software do you support?
A. In general, we support CaseCATalyst, DigitalCAT and Total Eclipse.
- Will you take the time to learn how I write (sometimes I swear it's either with my feet or my fists! Just a bunch of glops.), how I punctuate, learn my consistent mistrans and insert the right word, and (horror of horrors!) how I clean up drops?
A. A scopist can and should learn your punctuation, learn to put the right word in where you have blobs and mistrans, learn to put in your drops correctly. That's their job. If any scopist doesn't do a good job or learn how you want your job after doing several of them, including constructive criticism and feedback from you, just tell us and we will find someone that can do what you want. It's always a good thing to find at least two scopists that are proficient in doing your work just in case something comes up that one or the other is unavailable due to illness or some unforeseen circumstance.
- Will you mark the deposition in any way if you have a question or are not sure about something that is said or written?
A. Probably neither you nor we can adequately make any kind of decisions or representations without each of us seeing what the other's work is like. Will you be sending audio with your jobs or not sending audio? If good audio is used by the scopist, there should not be a question about what was said. Without audio, the scopist will put a * or an ^ as a flag to you that something is not right at that point that the scopist cannot figure out and that you need to check it.
- Will you do the proofing after scoping the job so I don't have to do anything but deliver the job?
A. As far as proofing, no matter how careful a scopist is, a scopist is just like a court reporter doing their own editing and will make "proofing mistakes." Their eyes may skip over "it's" and "its" or "there" and "their." Their eyes may also skip over a transposition, "have to" and "to have." Proofing is a second procedure after the job is scoped and needs to be done either by the court reporter or a proofreader. Scopists, just like CRs, can have good days and bad days, so it is usually not a good idea for the scopist to also do the final proofing because they will frequently go over the top of the same mistake again. There are very good proofreaders that are used, but the job is going out over the court reporter's name and it is strongly felt that the court reporter should do a final once-over.
- Will you send my work to outside scopists without my knowledge?
A. We have backup scopists available in case of an emergency and to cover all contingencies. Your work will never be sent to an outside scopist without your prior approval.
- How can I tell if I am ready to use your services? Should I be concerned my notes are too bad?
A. You're always ready for a scopist and your notes are absolutely not too bad for a scopist. Using a scopist can improve the quality of your translation if you incorporate the dictionary updates we send back to you into your translation dictionary.
Why don't you send a short job that you consider to be really bad, so that we can take a look at it. We'll do 10 pages of it at no cost either with or without audio. We will need a sample job and preference sheet. You will be able to see a small sample of work at least our work.
- Do you offer proofing, and, if so, how is it done?
A. The proofreaders will print the job out, read it, and then make spelling changes and punctuation changes directly to the job. If there is anything they question or anything they feel cannot be changed without the CRs approval, a ^flag or *flag is put in for the court reporter to check one more time.
- Do you require audio for proofing jobs?
A. Audio is not necessary, but it may help to clear up a couple of questionable spots and not as many flags will have to be used. It will not be used line by line but as a quick check only. Proofing with line by line audio is at a higher rate and usually is not necessary if a qualified scopist or the CR has done the work once off of audio.
- I want a proofing job done, not a scoping job. Do I transfer via TAF as well?
A. Just make sure you make it very clear that it's a proofing job only. Send it the same way you send your other jobs, right into your folder. It is also really nice if, when you put on your sticky note, you let us know how many pages the job is (both proofing and scoping).
- What punctuation and grammar books do you use?
A. The most standard references that court reporters use "Morson's English Guide for Court Reporters" by Lillian Morson, and "The Gregg Reference Manual" by William Sabin. They can be purchased through NCRA or online through a variety of online book sources. There are a number of online dictionaries, but www.merriam-webster.com is a very good one to use as it also includes a thesaurus, medical dictionary and encyclopedia.
- Do you hire independent scopists as subcontractors?
A. Scopists who have previously been working court reporters or Scopists graduating from an approved training course may send a resume for consideration as a subcontractor. Any Scopist interested in subcontractor work must take and pass the test we provide. Qualified applicants will be contacted and sent additional information.
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