Helpful Hints
During this tutorial, and during transcription, some of the following practices
may facilitate your work.
Be Very Careful with Transcript Structure and Syntax
It is important that you meticulously conform to the required structure,
syntax, and special characters in your transcripts. The required
format is discussed in this guide, and you can always study and refer to
the example transcripts if you are
unsure about any of the specifics.
A computer program will scan over all of your submitted transcripts,
identifying any errors in structure and syntax. Transcripts with
errors will be returned to you for revisions.
Contact the Exercise Coordinator if a Particular
Case Just Cannot be Transcribed
The reference materials that are provided to you on this web site should
be sufficient to transcribe virtually every case assigned to you.
However, you will occasionally encounter a case that simply cannot be transcribed
with the provided materials, without grossly distorting the facts of the
case. Don't attempt to transcribe such a case. In such a situation,
you should promptly contact the exercise
coordinator and alert him to this issue. He will likely assign
a new case to you.
Opening Multiple Browser Windows
Especially during this tutorial, you will need to be able to refer to several
documents at once. While you can achieve this by following links and using
your browser's history commands, this method is somewhat ungainly, and
often slow as it forces the browser to reload and redisplay pages.
You may find it easier to keep several browser windows open at once,
each displaying a different document. Some web browsers have this facility
built in. In some browsers instead of following a link by selecting
it with the left mouse button you can open the link in a new window by
selecting the link with the right mouse button (or by holding down the
mouse button) and choosing "Open in New Window" from the menu that appears.
You may also be able to run multiple browsers.
Dealing with Multiple Windows
If you are going to use multiple windows, you may also wish to familiarize
yourself with an easy to way to switch between them. Under MS Windows,
for instance, use the Alt and Tab keys simultaneously
to switch between windows you have open.
The ability to switch easily between two or more windows will be very
useful during transcription, as you will need to switch between the browser
and MS Word often.
Using "Empty Template Rows" as an Aid in Doing Your
Transcriptions
The last section of each transcript is comprised of several tables containing
special characters. To avoid having to repeatedly retype these characters
and also as a convenience for rapidly adding new rows, it is recommended
that you always keep one "empty template row" (which is not actually
empty, it will contains special characters) at the end of each table while
you are transcribing a case. Whenever you need to add a new row to
the table, simply execute a copy-and-paste of the empty template row.
The transcript template that you will download
for the transcription work contains the empty template rows.
(Important Note: Be sure to delete the empty template rows when
you are ready to submit the transcript.)
Printing
If your browser does not support multiple windows, if you cannot run multiple
browsers, or if you simply work better with paper, you may wish to print
out some of the files from this web site. In particular you may wish to
print out the case used during this tutorial.
This web site does two things that make printing somewhat tricky, however.
The first thing is that larger files (like this guide) have been broken
into collections of smaller files to make browsing quicker. To keep you
from having to view and print each section separately, some of these files
have also been collected into single documents. You can find links to these
documents (if they exist) at the bottom of the table of contents for each
collection.
The other thing that makes printing tricky is the fact that this web
site uses "frames." This site uses HTML frames to divide your browser window
into several parts and display several documents simultaneously. In order
to print one of the displayed documents you must first select (click in)
the frame you wish to print before choosing your browser's "Print" command.
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