Conquering Your
Conflicts
BY LINDA EVENSON
Irecently had a discussion about
conflicts with one of the graduates
from my scoping course. Although
I haven’t dealt with conflicts for
quite some time now because I work
with Merit and CRR reporters who have
pretty much eliminated them, I remembered
some of the tools of the trade that
can help resolve the conflict conundrum.
1. Use your software to its fullest
advantage. All of the CAT software
companies have built into their programs
some sort of conflict resolution tools such
as these: a/an resolution that will put an
before a word starting with a vowel; suffix
resolution that will take out an ending
when a suffix like ed or ing is added;
conflict resolution that will remember their
house and choose their the next time it
comes up; and other tools. The reporter
must choose to use these functions by
setting options for translation. Doing so
will save many editing changes.
2. Don’t set up conflicts with uncommon
words. If you have a problem with you
a and awe, for example, awe is going
to come up rarely. Define that stroke
as you a and fix it on the rare
occasions when it should be awe.
Otherwise, you’re just making work for yourself.
3. Define whatever you can. When I
used to receive files in which there and
their was a conflict, the first thing I would
do is define that stroke as there. There is
probably going to come up more often
than their, so I’ve just saved myself more
than 50 percent of the fixes I’d have to
make otherwise. Then I keep a sharp eye
out for their appearing incorrectly.
4. Phrase out other conflicts. Even
though phrasing out their car, their house,
their dog may create boundary problems
down the road, until the reporter can
change the way he or she writes these
words, I’m saving myself a lot of corrections
by globaling phrases. And once the
reporter starts distinguishing those
words, he or she can go back into a personal
dictionary and can extract and delete
those obsolete phrases.
5. Suggest writing changes. If a
reporter struggles with a word or a conflict,
I go into files from some of my
other clients to see how they write the
words. Then I can make suggestions to
the new reporter (for example /THR,
THEUR, THAEUR) and let the reporter
choose whatever works best. The
reporter can then put these words on a
sticky note on top of the machine and
practice writing them until they become
habit. To prevent this process from
becoming overwhelming, don’t attempt
more than about two words at a time. As
those words become engrained, more
can be added. The patience and effort
will yield much cleaner transcripts
within about six months.
6. Use briefs. The more strokes used
to write a word, the greater the chance
for error. If the reporter can come up
with a briefing methodology to eliminate
keystrokes while writing, the work
will probably translate cleaner and need
less editing. An example may be writing
mesothelioma /PHES /OMA or even
/PHES /PHES; or maybe writing salicylic
acid as /SAL /EUD, because the word
salad is unlikely to appear in a medical
transcript. One of my best clients uses the
beginning and ending sound to make a
brief. For example, Mr. Jones may be
written as /PHR-PBS. Once I understand
a reporter’s briefing technique, I can
usually figure out almost any brief.
7. Brief on the fly. When dialogue is
very fast or when you’re having trouble
writing a particular word or phrase,
don’t try to amaze your scopist by finding
16 different ways to write the same
word. Come up with a brief on the fly;
then global it into the file. When introducing
a new brief, you are wise to leave
a note for the scopist the first time so she
can recognize it in the future if it comes
up as an untran.
8. Create global tables. Especially when
working on a case that contains
odd terminology or many document
titles, the scopist and reporter may want
to build up a global table to apply
through those files. This step will prevent
undesirable globals from going into
the reporter’s dictionary, but it will save
a lot of editing time.
9. Save global tables. Most reporters
know to save and build their job dictionaries
to use in translating continuing
cases. However, saving global tables that
apply to the English text can also eliminate
a lot of editing work, especially for
things such as quotation and italics
marks, capitalization, etc.
10. Have both parties work on building
the reporter’s dictionary. Most CAT
systems have a way of saving personal
dictionary entries separate from job
globals. The scopist should dictionarydefine
words that will probably come up
again in other cases, then should send
this list of new words, with the steno, to
the reporter to add to the dictionary.
With two people working on building
the dictionary, files will constantly translate
cleaner and will save everyone work.
The preceding are just some ideas of
how the reporter and scopist can work
together to produce the best transcript
with the least amount of time and effort
involved. If one is part of a successful
reporter/scopist team, the possibilities
for high-quality transcripts are endless.
JCR Contributing Editor Linda Evenson is from
Lolo, Mont.
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