Prince Institute's Blog

For student reporters, nothing is more important than speed and accuracy, it seems. Passing your final tests and completing your academic courses takes a combination of hard work, dedication and homework, homework, homework—there are no shortcuts to graduation.

Look, I will be honest—I have had a Facebook page since 2008; I actively connect with LinkedIn, pin with Pinterest, and share with Tumblr and Vimeo; I have even been known to Tweet from time to time. What is the benefit of me taking a certification class on social media strategies when it is obvious that I am a social media maven? Plus who in their right mind would shell out real money to learn about virtual communities that are changing faster than I can think?

The National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) certified programs, as well as most Certified Shorthand Reporter licensing boards, require court reporters to capture a minimum of 225 words per minute … but simply passing may not be good enough. Reporters with strong written-knowledge scores, a solid vocabulary and grammar background, as well as those who are up- to-date on current events are crucial to an accurate transcript, but professionalism is somewhat of a vague term to encompass all that’s necessary when setting out on a reporting career.

My journey with the Prince Institute came about during a time in my life in which I was seeking new direction; a direction that I believe has led me to an incredible opportunity in my career. This journey began after my 14-year position as a risk manager was abruptly eliminated and, as a result, I made the decision to learn a new skill.

Caption Reporters Inc, (CRI) is proudly celebrating 20 years in the captioning and court reporting industry this year. A recent high point was the request by the Presidential Inaugural Committee to once again provide captioning services for the Inaugural Balls, the Children’s Concert, and the Inaugural National Prayer Service.

I had the chance to witness my very first National Court Reporter and Captioner Week (NCRCW) celebration just a few days ago. I will say that learning about court reporting over the past year has been an entirely new and exciting experience for me. I had never known such a tight group of people existed until I visited conventions, talked with professionals and explored the available careers. Every person I have met has greeted me with open arms and is always willing to help spread the word about the profession in any way possible.

When you tell someone you're a court reporter, they invariably stretch their hands out in front of themselves and say, "Oh, one of those..." as they wiggle their fingers. What usually follows is: "That must be so interesting," or words to that effect. They should know the half of it.

An Internet search of “personal branding” led me to the article “Becoming Your Own Brand” by Judith Sills, Ph.D. In the article, Dr. Sills defines a personal brand as follows:

I first became a court reporter as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. My Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) training took about three months and back then, the Marines used Stenomask (closed-microphone) reporters. Most new graduates aren’t ready to start in court, but as fate would have it, my first work assignment upon graduation was to take a court-martial proceeding.

As an instructor for the Great Lakes campus, I teach the general education and court reporting specific English courses to our on-campus students. The field of court reporting will require our students to prepare transcripts free of grammatical and spelling errors. Having a strong foundation in these areas is crucial to the production of a perfect transcript. This is precisely why we have students complete several English courses during their time at Prince Institute.