Notes analysis using iAnnotate
The value of analyzing steno notes cannot be overstated. When I was a student I printed out pages and pages of my practice and would carry them in with me to the restaurant where I worked, where once we were set up we’d have a few hours before the rush hit, and nobody minded if I analyzed my notes in the meantime. What you see above is simply applying tools available in the $9.99 app in the same way. I’ve been picking apart this piece for a little over a month now after analyzing a pass and then breaking down the master transcript I made from the same take (see my post entitled Deep (Stenography) Practice for more details on that approach). From my analysis before breaking down the strokes I learned that I hesitate on my briefs for: “kindergarten,” “preschool,” “public school,” and “private school” and my hesitation caused me to drop shortly after those words were dictated. This is valuable information.
I also learned that I wasn’t clear on how I write “bitten,” “Andrea,” “Raymond,” and “Katherine,” and that those words should go on my Future 5s (FPP55) list. Another insight was that my brain wants to phrase has~ phrases, and so I was compelled to find a way within my system of writing to do that. And I came up with a good phrase for “at the time of the incident” that comports with the guidelines of my theory. These insights have already made me a better writer as I’ve worked very hard on “kindergarten” and it’s come up in my work several times since. What I really appreciate about iAnnotate is that I can keep a library of my notes in the cloud and pull them down at any time to engage my steno mind and mine the gems of improvement that come from a close-up view of my game in action. And doing the split-screen thing as pictured above makes it much easier to find out what I dropped and why. Of course you don’t need iAnnotate to do your notes analysis, and I would highly recommend that any student or working reporter looking to improve their skills to start doing it on paper if they aren’t already. But I like finding ways to allow modern tools to support my goal of getting better every day, and if you’re the same way you might consider adding this one to your arsenal.
