On a test-passing roll!!

Yesterday I passed my 160 Jury Charge. The first of three tests that are needed to pass out of this 160 class. Now I need to get my 160 Lit and my 160 4-Voice.

Ever since looking at Lady Steno's site, it has truly motivated me and amazed me at how much she did during her practice routines, and how many hours she would practice. That was a big wake up call for me to step it up, and I truly have! I'm already seeing results!

Normally, I would just get home from school and not even touch my machine until the next day at school. NOT a good thing. Now my goal is to practice at least 1-2 hours every day after school. Spend about 30 minutes typing 160,180, 200 dictations. Then I go back down to 160.

I feel the need to practice some literary material though, and this is what I found on Lady Steno's site that I am going to try which sounds like a great idea:


Practicing from the Hard Copy



I was on e-bay all last month ordering back copies of the JCR. I came across an article about practicing from a hard copy in the May 2001 issue. This seems like the best thing for me. It will help me add build my dictionary, focus more on accuracy, build my vocabulary.

So here is the daily recipe for me:

1. Pick an editorial from the New York Times.
2. Identify preview words.
a. Words that might cause hesitation
b. Proper names
c. New words I have never heard of
d. Words with difficult strokes
e. Phrases that I want to incorporate
3. Practice the preview words by pyramid sentences, reading back, and finger spelling them.
4. Write from the straight copy as perfect as I can, and defining any untranslates.
5. Read back. Evaluate. Make notes.
6. Practice the weak spots I evaluated in my read back.
7. Write from the straight copy again, and time myself.
8. Write from the straight copy for the third time, and trying to beat my time by one minute.
9. Read back
10. Redo, until the hour is over!

I know if I continue to practice like this I will see great results, and get over this “plateau.”

Well, I'm off to find a newspaper or magazine article to write up! :)



-Alyson

Oh, Happy Day!!

Hallelujah!!!

So, today I passed my 140 four voice. It was SUCH a good test!!! I got so nervous/excited in the middle of the test because I KNEW I was getting every single word. You know that feeling, right? Heart pounding, trying to tell yourself to continue concentrating and move your fingers lol.

Anyway, after typing it, it came out to 10 PAGES long!! Yes, 10!! I felt so accomplished after finishing it. I also only had 14 errors for a 10 minute/10 page long test. I felt pretty good with myself!

Okay, so one of my practice routines I do here at my on-campus school is, I bought a 30 dollar voice recorder (you can get these at Wal Mart or Target). These are fabulous. They have great sound quality, are cheap, and in no way bad at all. Here is an example of one that almost got 5 out of 5 stars in quality. This one is from Wal Mart and is $34.81:

So I record my teachers in my classes and then during lab time (I have about an hour to kill in there before my final class starts) and so I plug in my headphones into the recorder directly (such a cool feature!) and I retype the day's classes. I also pull out a little notebook I keep with me and write down words I want to shorten or briefs I want to look up.

While other girls in the lab are surfing the internet, I decid to make the most out of my time at school and type, type, type!

Another way I make the most out of my time is, I always usually get into class about 10 minutes before it actually starts. This is a great time to review briefs I have written down in this notecard rolodex type thing. This is what I'm talking about:

These are similar to what I have. I have the notecards and they're held together by 2 tiny little binder rings at the top. These are great because you can stick them in your purse or backpack for school instead of having a million loose notecards floating around your room like I did! lol These bounded notecards are like 3 bucks. So, anyway, on one side I have like 10 words, and then on the back of the card I have all their briefs. I go through all of these before class. 10 minutes is a lot of time to review your briefs!!

I don't really have a routine that I do before taking tests. We get tested every day in all of my classes, and I don't do anything in particular to help me. I just try to block out everything in my mind and try to convince myself that it is not a test that I am typing lol. Which is very hard to do, but I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter if I pass or fail. Just try to get every word.

One thing that I think did help me today, was I was listening to my voice recorder in the lab, typing, and I was listening to a teacher's dictation today and she was doing a Q and A literally, it felt like, at 180wpm. I was barely getting half of what she said. So then, naturally, the four voice right after at 140 seemed slower.

Always practice about 40 over your speed limit.

-Alyson

Motivation

Found a new court reporting blog: http://stenonerd.blogspot.com/, thanks Linda! :)


I saw these pics on the above blog and I LOVED them. These were my fave.

-Alyson

Amazing Website

So, I stumbled across this website, and WHAT a goldmine!!!

Check it out. This is truly such a motivator.

www.ladysteno.com

Enjoy!!

-Alyson