Brand Spankin' New Steno Audio to Practice


Court reporters, students, and lovers of all things steno need to be energized with new dictation audios to practice once in a while, so it's about time I do another post on the subject.

First up is an oldie but a goody. It's the Fancy Pants Loves Binita blog audio download page. It's probably one of the first steno student blogs out there, and along with the audio files at that link, there's lots of motivational and technique stuff to be learned from there. Check it out.

Another new site to me is Dictation Download which comes courtesy of @nerd_for_words on twitter, and the page I've linked to is their free sample audio page. The files are of excellent quality. Audios available are 100 wpm lit; 160-200 wpm legal, lits, and jury charge; and best of all, some 200 wpm four-voice files. Not to be missed!

Another couple dictation files in the 4-voice category are two videos of the OCLRE high school mock trial championships from 2009 and 2010. Those should be some great real life-type practice.

And finally, I posted a new steno drill that covers common medication names. They seem to rattle them off so quickly, so it helps to practice these a few time and put the terms in your dictionary. That's all for now, folks.

Links to my other posts on free steno dictation materials can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Right Brain/Left Brain and Steno


To be successful in anything, especially court reporting, CART, or captioning, one has to have both halves of their brain in on the deal. I found an excellent article online that explains the idea that we're really two different people coexisting in the same body. It says that because each half of the brain is wired to the opposite side of the body, one can actually express two emotions at the same time. That helps explain why when I force a smile occasionally, it comes out as a half-smile.