Hello,

Just found about scoping and now I'm curious and want to learn more.  In the early 90's I completed training for stenomask reporting, and passed my state's Supreme Court tests and the stenomask assn tests with 97% accuracy.  I'm very detail-oriented, friends call me "the walking dictionary," and I love to look for errors and correct them.

My court reporting career was extremely short-lived.  I feel like that-home course I followed gave me the book smarts, but not the street smarts.  I plastered the town with business cards, went around and introduced myself to attorneys.  Got a couple of jobs but one atty took 9 months to pay for my services.  During the other job, right in the middle of the deposition, the atty instructed me to do something I had never heard of -- and my training did not cover this or prepare me for it.  Had I learned from someone with more experience perhaps I would have known what he was talking about. 

Anyway, I did not keep my certification current.  Just tracked down the phone numbers to call and find out exactly when I took the tests for the sake of putting that on my resume.  I never even refer to it -- I've worked as an administrative assistant/secretary/executive assistant for the last 13 years and now I'm finally completing my college degree and not working.

Are there any opportunities for scopists who used to do stenomask?  I live in a medium-sized city where stenomask is not accepted, but the counties surrounding my town are OK with it.  My problem was I wanted to work in town, but no one wanted a mask reporter in town, so I ended up driving an hour away to get jobs.

It was one of those deals where I jumped in, studied hard, knocked the socks off the test, then didn't have the practical knowledge necessary to get it off the ground as a freelance business.

Sorry to babble on...  I am now curious how I would learn the shorthand needed to be a scopist.  And, since my test scores were so high, is it necessary for me to go through an ENTIRE scopist course?  Can I just do the parts I need?  Or since it's been so long, would the refresher do me some good?

Thanks a bunch!

You can get info on scoping here at scopists.com or at:

   http://www.scopistssupportgroup.com/toc.htm

Also there is a great scoping course at:

    http://www.bestscopingtechniques.com/

Cindy

Hello, Jill.

I somehow hit the wrong button, and posted before I got my message written.  And now I can't delete the former message.  So....here goes again.

Your story is a familiar one.  I've trained a lot of people through the years who have been first trained either as stenomaskers, or as "regular" steno reporters.  In all cases, they've spent a lot of their time and a lot of their fortune, only to face frustration once they've completed their course of study.  Some spend years in training, and just never finish.  And very often, if they do, they've married and had children along the way, and really want to work from home.

Your past experience will be very appealing to other reporters.  You just need to expand on what you've already done by mastering the steno language.

I've been training people to do scoping for many years, and would be happy to talk with you about what you need to do to launch an at-home career as a scopist.  You can train at your own pace, and be "in the business" in a very short time, if you are so motivated!

For a free in-depth report about scoping in general, and my training program, in particular, you can send an e-mail to

          scoping@primemail.com

If you would like to discuss this great at-home career with me, feel free to call the toll-free number you'll find in that report.

Judy Barrett
Scoping Training Consultant

banda becrowd deutomalal canoeload endogen beevish proirrigation philopatrian
Polaris Scuba
http://www.telekom.com.sb/