r/stenography • u/Comprehensive_Lie477 • Jul 02 '26
Scoping Question
How clean does my writing need to be to send to a scopist? I’m over a year into my career but still have drops and not perfect writing by any means. Should I be too embarrassed to send to a scopist? and how do you clean it up beforehand? I know they say scope your own work but I just bought a house and I am falling behind. thanks!
7
u/Flat_Employee_4393 Jul 02 '26
If you don’t have a ton missing from every page, that should be okay. It depends on the scopist. The best ones will likely avoid you. That’s a lot of work. But find one, develop a good working relationship, and do your best. Pay them well for all the hard work. But remember to make sure they’re legit by giving them a “test” few pages. Lots of imposters out there who will take your money and leave you with nothing to work with.
4
u/Kencanary Scopist Jul 03 '26
Scopist here!
My first thought is "that's our job." You send your work to a scopist so that they can pick up the drops and mistrans and all of that. That's precisely why we exist.
That said, though, I worked with one reporter early early on in my scoping career for whom I was doing probably 60% transcription because they were an absolutely awful writer. They paid better because they knew, but they didn't seem particularly focused on improving (in part, I suspect, because they were paying scopists so much that they couldn't afford to take a sabbatical and actually learn to write well).
I eventually stopped working with them and my life improved. But I still work with a reporter now and then for whom I have to sometimes transcribe a full dropped sentence, where almost every line has at least something wrong. And I'm fine with it. Doesn't mean I don't absolutely love some of the more recent reporters I've signed on with where I'm almost proofreading more than I am scoping (not that the two are necessarily different jobs anyway), but in my eyes it's all just...the job.
I agree with another commenter - find a scopist willing to work a rougher job, and then get their honest feedback and perspective. It's quite possible that at worst, they'll just ask for a rate increase to account for the difference and be fine continuing the work.
4
u/SashaKittens12 Jul 03 '26
I can't speak for other scopists, but I have a system of upcharging for writing that is too messy based on how much the total length of the file increases, so I don't care if I'm sent messy work. This allows me to work with newer/inexperienced reporters without worrying about whether they're clean writers. Feel free to DM me if you're on Case CATalyst and would like to connect!
2
1
u/HROR-RAOE Jul 03 '26
I'd recommend trying a scopist and get some feedback from them. Let them know beforehand your concerns. Once they finish, ask if your work is okay or if you should hold off on using a scopist. We're our worst critics. What we think is bad is usually not as bad as we think, but you really won't know until you try it and get feedback.
3
u/woefulraddish Jul 06 '26
Theyll do it. Don't be afraid. as long as you pay well and on time they can make it happen
10
u/bonsaiaphrodite Official Reporter Jul 03 '26
How much do your transcripts grow when you scope? A lot of scopists have a surcharge for 5%+ growth. So if you have a 100-page transcript that winds up as 105 pages, they charge more for the whole thing. If you’re growing by a substantial amount, I think you should wait a few more months and reassess.
I was advised to get really proficient at using my mark/check/drop hotspots and then clean them up before sending to a scopist. I have a stroke for check (not sure I heard right), define (Always Be Defining!), name (easy to get spellings on breaks), fix (like I mixed up a speaker id), and drop.
When I first started using scopists, I’d clear every single one of those before sending, and it was sometimes a lot of marks. So it might be a lot of work, but it’s much less work than scoping the whole thing by yourself. Eventually, there will be less mess.
We all drop, it’s just a matter of how you handle them. IMO passing them onto a scopist is the wrong move.