There's Method(s) to My Briefing Madness

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Briefing on the fly is a very important skill that any court reporter or steno student needs to learn to be good at. It's essential for keeping up with speech above your current speed level. I think even Mark Kislingbury is a proponent of briefing on the fly. It's how he gets through his 300+ dictations, by briefing "gold bullion" as TKPWOUBL or whatever brilliant nonsense he might come up with.

To start off, what is briefing on the fly? It means you're making up a brief or phrase as you're writing for something that keeps coming up over and over, like a three-word place name or technical term or just a common word that you never thought to shorten before. There's a few methods, I'm sure, but I'm going to spell out a couple for you that I've been noticing I've been doing lately when creating new briefs.

7UP, Break Up, & Make Up

To 7UP, to make up, or to break up? Hmm. Why can't you have all three? With steno, you can. If you guys are longtime readers of Court Reporter Bound, you know I like word families. This week's post is about a word family that comes up a lot and has so many incarnations; The Up family.

I think I was given a few of these while I was in theory class, though I don't know if they were part of Sten Ed or something my teachers threw at us. Whatever. Doesn't matter. The point is that sometimes you can see patterns in a list of similar briefs, and then boom, you add to the family following the same principle(s). Here's my non-comprehensive list of the "up" family. Feel free to add to this list in the comments if you think of any good ones.

7UP                         #UP
(lolJK. Just came up with that one, but I kinda like it for no particular reason other than my guy drinks it all the time.)
back up/backup       BAUP    BA*UP
break up/breakup    BRAIP   BRA*IP
broke up                 BROEP
check up/checkup   KHUP     KH*UP
clean up/cleanup      KLAOEP  KLAO*EP
close up/closeup      KLOEP   KLO*EP
come up                  KMUP
flare up/flareup         FLAIRP  FLA*IRP
follow up/followup   FLOUP   FLO*UP
give up                    GI*FP
grow up                  GROE*P (beware, RTers, of possible, um, conflicts.)
grown up/grown-up GRUP    GR*UP
hold up/holdup        HOUP    HO*UP
line up/lineup           LUP        L*UP
lock up/lockup        LOUP     LO*UP
make up/makeup     MAIP     MA*EUP
pick up/pickup/pup  PUP       P*UP      PUP/PUP
(Not a great solution, I know. Suggestions?)
screw up/screwup    SKRAOUP SKRAO*UP
shut up                     SHUP
stand up/stand-up     STAUP  STA*UP
start up/start-up        STARP  STA*RP
stuck up/stuck-up     STUP     ST*UP
walk up/walk-up      WAUP   WA*UP

Philosophy aside: Strange how powerful the word "up" is. For being just two teensy letters, it's very transformative. Every word in this list seems so final or powerful but wouldn't be so much so if it were on its own. Huh. Everything really is a metaphor for everything else.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Here are some briefs inspired by dialogue in my absolute favorite Halloween movie, It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, one that until recently I hadn't seen since I was a kid. So I guess I'm back blogging again. It's been a bit of a hiatus, but now seems like a good time to get back to it since things are starting to settle down at work. I finally feel like I have a handle on things and am excited about things to come.

Halloween WHAOEN
sincere SAOERNS
sincerity SAO*ERNS
candy KAEND
apples A*PLZ
Charlie KHA(*)ERL
pumpkin PRUFRP

Happy briefing and Halloween!

Word Families

Another quick post today, as I'm doing takes this morning. I'm a big briefer and have been since the beginning. I can remember getting singled out in class for briefing words that kept coming up in dictation after dictation just because they weren't supplied by my teachers or our theory book.

These days I'm adding fewer single briefs unless they're really common or part of a word family. So make it your goal this week to focus on word families, and you'll become a better steno writer and court reporting student before you know it.

Check out the following link to see a free preview of 240 Word Families in Sentence Context which could be extremely helpful to a steno student trying to get a handle on specific word parts or structures.

perform P-FRM
platform PLAFRM
reform R-FRM
uniform YAOUFRM

carry KAER
marry MAER
vary VAER

imply KBLAOI
impose KBOEZ
improve KBRAO*UF

warfare WAFR
welfare WEFR

powerful P-FL
successful S-FL
wonderful W-FL

As a bonus, add in the asterisk to give these an -ly ending.

powerfully P*FL
successfully S*FL
wonderfully W*FL

New Steno Briefs

Here are a few new steno briefs and phrases that I added recently.

civil liberties SLIBTS
credit card KRARD
due diligence DAOUJS
good faith GAO*FT
I am sure MAOIRB
I'm sure MAO*IRB
in reality NRAELT
not really NRA*EL
no longer NLORNG
rely R-L
shortage SHORJ
talk about TAUBT
think about THIBT
tumor TAOURM
Walmart WARMT (Didn't that used to be hyphenated? Time to update my dictionary!)

A Brief Look at Briefs

In the world of steno and court reporting, it's important to know your theory inside and out, backward and frontward so that when words come up that you've never heard of, you can at least write them phonetically.

That said, when other common words or phrases keep coming up day after day that X-Theory doesn't have a brief for, a smart court reporter goes looking for a brief (or makes up their own). Go with what makes sense to you
or what you automatically went to write.

Here are my favorite brief sites for when nothing comes to mind.

The Brief Machine Have to register for free to use this tool. Well worth the effort! While you're there, check out out past issues of StenoLife Newsletter for some great tips and insight.

Steno Tips Great free resource. You can enter the term you're looking for in the search box.

Briefpedia Good and free for when the briefs you find conflict or are too hard to stroke.

iSteno Brief Machine for iPhones costs $6.99. Haven't used this myself, though.

On a personal note, I turned in another 190 Q&A on Thursday, and it came back as a 94.2% -- not quite a pass. On the other hand, I know that I'll get it really soon. I can taste it!

Names, Names, Names

The last few days’ dictations have been brutal, just brutal. It's the kind where every successive utterance gets progressively more annoying and tedious. When I analyzed just what the problem was, it seemed to me that these particular drills had a bunch of names and exhibit numbers given in rapid succession. Today’s blog entry will focus on the dreaded names category. I’ll save the numbers talk for a different day.

My plan of action for tackling names is outlined in the article found here. I highly recommend reading that if this concept is new to you. That helpful article is found at CourtReportingHelp.com, a great resource where you can find free steno drills, practice tools, inspiration, and myriad information on all things a court reporting student could ever want to know.

After writing them out once or twice to make sure I have them correct in the transcript, here's some of the names and how I’d shorten them. The idea is to capture as much of the name as you can, phonetically speaking, while keeping it readable and easy to stroke.

Dr. DR-, Mr. MR-, Mrs. SMR-, Ms. SM-
Sandra SA*RND, Sandra Colston SKO*LS,
Mrs. Colston SMRO*LS, Ms. Colston SMO*LS
Chuck KH*UK, Colston KO*LS
Chuck Colston KHO*LS, Mr. Colston MRO*LS
Michael Williams MAO*IMZ, Mike Williams M*IMZ
(shorter name gets the shorter outline)
Michael MAO*IBLG, Mike MAO*IK, Williams W*IMZ

This way of briefing names is something I’m trying to add to my court reporting arsenal, although it takes some getting used to. Hopefully if I practice this concept hard enough I will begin to be able to brief names on the fly.