CERTIFICATION TESTING
AAERT's ongoing certification program for electronic
court reporters and transcribers is a test of our members'
professional skills by written and direct practical
examination, with either an analog or digital
focus.
Current Examination Schedule:
Click here to view the
standard TEST DAY SCHEDULE.
Date / City
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Address | Proctor[s] |
Saturday, October 21, 2009
Registration begins September 15 |
Cities to be announced by September 1 |
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Mail application / check to:
AAERT 2900 Fairhope Road Wilmington, DE 19810-1624 |
OR |
Contact AAERT's Treasurer, 609.586.2311 (Eastern Time), if you would like to fax your application and remit via credit card. |
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For questions concerning the certification process, contact Certification Committee Chair Steve Simon, CERT, at ctadss1@ocnjcc.org. |
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NOTE: Submitting a registration form
and / or fees does NOT complete the process!
Applicants must receive advance notice from the Certification Committee before they can sit for any examination. Previously registered applicants currently in prepaid status must give the Committee advance notice of their desire to participate in a scheduled test, AND must receive acknowledgement — in advance of the test date — that they can, in fact, be accommodated at that site. The Committee provides pre-test instructions to accepted applicants.AAERT does not supply equipment or computer hardware / software for either reporters or transcribers who are taking the tests.
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ELIGIBILITY:
who may take the exams?
Note: A member with less than one year of experience may sit for examinations if referred by an AAERT-certified member or a current employer.* A referral must be signed and submitted in writing to the Certification Committee along with the test application form and corresponding fee. *Read more . . .
To become an AAERT member, click here.
OTHER FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Reporters view a twenty-minute, five-voice courtroom scene on video, one prepared specifically by AAERT for this purpose, and are scored on their actual note-taking skills. Digital reporters arrange for their own laptops, log-noting software, and properly formatted CDs or diskettes.
Transcriptionists
listen to an AAERT-prepared audio recording of a court proceeding, whether analog
or digital, to produce ten (10) text pages of verbatim transcript
during a 120-minute test session. Transcript accuracy must
exceed 98.0 percent.
Technical requirements are specified in
advance, so appropriate templates or macros can be prepared.
The final transcript file may be submitted in WordPerfect,
Word, WordStar, or as a generic ASCII ("plain text") export to CD or
diskette. Transcripts are not hard-copy printed at the test site,
but are printed by the Committee for subsequent scoring.
AAERT uses the federal
district court transcript format
as our national
transcription test standard.
AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT AAERT
Introduction to AAERT's
CERTIFICATION TEST STUDY GUIDE
This copyrighted (1996, 2003) 246-page manual
is available in PDF format as an Internet download; $45.
Click here for an overview of the Guide's table of contents.
Electronic reporting / transcribing is an industry with a varied clientele; therefore, no single manual can address all situations or cover all bases. This selection covers at least a wide range of professional skills required for proficient electronic court reporters / transcribers. Transcript formats center on federal district court transcript requirements and practice.
Whether reporters, transcribers, or both, we share a professional goal: turning ephemeral human communications (messy, "non-literary," and disorganized, as they almost always are!) into a permanently accessible record — on paper or disk, via tape or video — and on what is yet to come!
Sometimes there are no "right" or "wrong" solutions to particularly sticky problems, and we are left with questions of professional good judgment — always keeping in mind that our product must present an undistorted, reliable reflection of proceedings, at the same time useful and helpful to our clients.
Those who master a field not only know what they are doing, but also why. Thus, certain sections contain remarks on developments over time. These may even spark your curiosity to delve further into some of the esoterica people lump together as "the law."
IMPORTANT NOTE: When downloading
the Guide, we strongly recommend that you use the current
version (9-series) of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Older versions may no longer download and / or display properly,
if at all.