Advanced Scribing Techniques

Overview

When you first start out as a new employee of Copytalk Business Services, most of your focus and attention is spent trying to understand what the customers are saying, and trying to remember all the Formalizer basics, Standards and Common Terms. However, the longer you continue to work as a Scribe, those aspects of the job demand less of your attention, as you become more familiar with your basic job duties. Learning where and how to refocus your skills and attention is key to becoming a productive and proficient transcriptionist. In order to be a productive and proficient transcriptionist, you must recognize, understand, and master the following:

• Typing Speed
• Hearing/Listening Ability
• Foot Pedal Use
• Industry Knowledge
• Focus & Attention
• Multi-Tasking
• Macros

The concepts and ideas covered throughout this document will all interconnect with one another. Reading this whole document in full will be a lot of information to process all at once. It is recommended that you refer back to this document as you continue to implement the suggestions and strategies it presents.

Typing Speed & Keyboard Skills  |   Hearing/Listening Ability  |   Foot Pedal Use  |   Industry Knowledge  |   Focus & Attention  |   Multi-Tasking  |   Macros  |   Additional Tips & Tricks

You can visit www.typingtest.com to determine your base typing speed. Select the 1-minute version of "Aesop's fables", and note your typing speed, errors, and adjusted speed scores. Then take that very same 1-minute version of "Aesop's fables" again, and note your typing speed, errors, and adjusted speed scores. Now take the same 1-minute version of "Aesop's fables" again, and note your scores one final time.

Hopefully, you should notice that your scores improved from the first test to the third test. This is because familiarity makes it easier to predict what you'll be typing; when you already know what you're going to type, you'll type it faster, and you'll type it more accurately. When you improve your understanding of the content of the calls, you can start to predict what the customer will say, and you will improve in your typing speed and accuracy.

Hunt-n-peck vs. QWERTY touch-typing: Having the ability to touch-type makes it easier for you to read along and pay attention to the screen, instead of paying attention to what your hands are doing and where your fingers are going. You need to be able to trust your fingers to go to the right keys most of the time – your fingers aren’t perfect, and will make typos, but that is what macros are for.

Hot keys – You will need to become comfortable using your keyboard to do most things in Formalizer quickly. There are hints on Formalizer if you can’t remember all of the hotkeys; they are indicated by the underlined letter (and can also be found on the Speed and Accuracy doc). Some helpful hotkeys include:

• CTRL+backspace – erase an entire word instead of just a few letters. It is faster to erase an entire typo and retype it than it is to back up a few letters and retype a few letters.
• SHIFT+ALT+UP – Capitalize One Or More Words In A Line – this is particularly helpful for fund names and subject lines, or if you failed to capitalize the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun. (Hint: Don’t use your mouse to go back to the word that needs to be capitalized, use your hotkeys to navigate through the text)
• Navigation – Get in the habit of using Ctrl + the arrow keys, Home and End, Ctrl + Home and End, and the Page Up and Page Down keys to navigate through the transcription. Once you master the navigation hot keys, you will be able to go back and correct mistakes faster with your keyboard than you could do with your mouse.

Spellcheck – It is not faster to use your mouse in spellcheck. It is not faster to use your mouse in spellcheck. It is not faster to use your mouse in spellcheck. Use your hotkeys on spellcheck every time. You need to go cold-turkey off using your mouse in spellcheck for an entire week, and that is all it will take to learn the hotkeys in spellcheck; (remember ALT+ underlined letter). You can also use tab and the arrow keys to navigate.

• Learn how to anticipate what words will wind up in spellchecker. While you’re typing, remember what words you’ve typed that spellchecker will catch (typos, proper nouns and industry jargon). Then you can immediately react to them when they pop up in spellchecker and immediately hit the correct hot key to move on to the next word.
• Add words to the spellchecker dictionary. Add any Common Term that the spellchecker doesn’t recognize, along with any proper nouns or industry terms that aren’t on the Common Terms list.
• If the correct word is not the first word in the dropdown suggestion box, or is not immediately visible, then it would be faster to just type it out in the “change to” box, instead of using your arrow keys to search for it.
• Learn and remember how many “tabs” it takes to get from one button to the next. Your muscle memory will eventually kick in and you’ll navigate spellchecker much more quickly.
• Do not hit cancel to go back and fix the word! This wastes time, as you will have to re-spellcheck everything you’ve already spellchecked. The only time this is necessary is if you committed a typo across two words that spellchecker cannot fix (For example, if you typo “in the” as “int he”, spellchecker will catch “int” but will not catch “he” because “he” is a valid word. So the only way to fix this is to cancel spellchecker and fix it manually).

Volume Levels – Check to see what a comfortable level is for you, and don’t be afraid to adjust the volume for different customers if you need to.

Wave Settings – The wave settings can also be adjusted to increase the volume, if the max volume is not loud enough for you. However, often if the wave setting is all the way up at the highest level, this will increase the amount of background static/noise that is coming through the phone line and might make it more difficult to hear. So, if the volume is too loud for you, try adjusting the wave settings before adjusting the volume settings.

Speeding Up Dictation – Speeding up a job is not only good for going faster, but also makes the speaker’s voice rise in pitch. Often, this makes it a lot easier to understand more subtle nuances between sounds, especially with male speakers whose voices tend to be in a lower register and mumble.

Syllables – When you cannot understand exactly what someone is saying, you sometimes have to simply take a guess. Generally, if you cannot clearly hear a word, you should be able to hear the simple rise and fall of someone’s inflection and use that as a guide to make a more accurate guess. Focusing on hearing syllables and the way words sound will help you be able to determine what the customer is saying the first time you hear it, regardless of the quality of the audio, so that you do not even have to guess. For example, you should be familiar with the phrase "action item", because many customers say this phrase multiple times. Therefore, you should be able to understand it, even on a job with poor audio, because the phrase contains easily recognized syllables, and the speaker's tone should still rise as "AC-tion I-tems" is being pronounced.

Listen Ahead for Context – It is beneficial to let the customer get ahead of where you are typing, as long as you can remember exactly what the customer has been saying. For most people that is about 6 to 8 words ahead of where they are in the text. If you let them get more ahead than that, you may start to paraphrase instead of typing exactly what was spoken. Often, something that is unclear at first contact will become clearer a few words later as context is added, eliminating the need to re-listen.

Constant Stream of Audio – Listening a few words ahead of where you are typing will also help your speed because you will be less likely to have to pause to catch up with the customer. If the customer gets more than 7 or 8 words ahead (or however far ahead you feel comfortable with your accuracy) simply tap the foot pedal to bring the customer back –- not back to where you are in the text, but back to the last word you can remember them saying. Keep the audio moving and your fingers will keep moving.

Listen and Type Phrase by Phrase – Again, context is key. Phrases and strings of words often go together, and you might have macros for phrases – but your fingers won’t know that you should use them unless your ears are listening phrase by phrase. (Hint: If you find yourself typing "disa ins" and "term life ins" instead of "dii and tli", that probably means that you are listening word by word instead of phrase by phrase). You want to listen far enough ahead to use your macros efficiently.

Advantageous Pauses - Get in the habit of waiting to make changes and corrections until the customer pauses, takes a breath, or says "ummmmmm". This is much quicker than pausing the audio to go back and make a correction as soon as you notice your mistake. Learn how to follow the customer's cadence and how to predict their pauses. Make corrections on their time, not on your time.

Foot Surgery - Separate your hand from your foot. It’s an unconscious reflex for many people to tap the foot pedal when they hit the Backspace key to go back and make a correction. Learn how to keep your foot pressed down on the pedal. If you’re going back to correct a mistake or typo, you do not need to re-listen to anything, so your foot should not be tapping the pedal along with your finger tapping the Backspace key.

It’s important to know which words go together, and how words are related. As stated earlier, familiarity makes you type faster and more accurately. Being familiar with what the customer is saying will make it easier to predict what they are going to say, and make it easier to guess at what they said based on how many syllables you hear and the context.

          Can you figure out what goes in the blank sections of the following two sentences?
          The nurse will call Jim to schedule a ___________. Jim told me he is taking medication to control his high __________.

          If you could successfully figure out those blanks by reading the sentence, you should also be able to successfully predict what would come next after hearing "medication to control his high" and start scribing it before the customer even says it. (Hover over the blank lines with your mouse to reveal the answers.)

Acronyms – Knowing what your acronyms stand for will also help when you otherwise might not be able to tell which letters the customer is saying. Clearly, if they are talking about life insurance and want an illustration run for VUL – if you know that VUL stands for variable universal life, then you would be easily able to guess that they did not say ZUL, DUL, CUL, EUL, etc. because you know that none of those things mean anything, and the most likely guess is VUL.

Hint: Your macros for acronyms are set up so that vul = VUL and vull = variable universal life, so when in doubt, try doubling the last letter and seeing if that is a macro. If it is, read it and see if what it says makes sense given the context of what the customer is talking about. If it doesn’t make sense, or if what you typed doesn't even pop up into a macro, it might be a good idea to try some other combination of possible letters instead.

Red Flags – The more you know about the industry, the more often you will be able to catch red flags such as when you hear "enforce" and 99% of the time it is "in-force"; "profiteering" is 99.99% of the time "profit-sharing"; "state" is 90% "estate"; "index annuity" is 100% "indexed annuity" – those types of things. Context is key though, but most often it is the safest bet to go with the common term.

Industry Knowledge Exercise: See if you can match the following terms in the left column to a term on the right column. They are related to each other in some way. Some terms will have multiple matches, but each term has at least one match. So when you come across a term that has multiple matches, it might be best to skip it until you can narrow down which match is most correct. The example in red has already been done for you.           government employee                    college           orphan client                    life insurance           risk tolerance                    A shares           70 and a half                    SC           surrender charge                    FERS           occupancy                    forced savings           second-to-die                    disability           contingent                    CRC           ARDI                    ARM           assisted living                    RMD           home visit                    REIT           mortgage                    survivorship           front-end load                    401(k)           bull or bear                    IRA           QSs                    annuity           forced savings                    points for the day           max 17,000                    long-term care           Coverdell                    stock market           rollover                    balanced Hint: Hover your mouse over any term to see a clue/hint/answer. Try and see if you can figure it out without peeking!

This job requires an immense amount of focus and attention when you first begin. However, as you become more familiar with the job, it is possible (and beneficial) to pay "less attention" and "zombie-out" – but only after you’ve mastered the basics, and only once you’ve learned where your weak spots are. For example, if you frequently typo the word "from" as "form", you will have to teach yourself to "perk up" and look at the screen when the customer says "from". This basic example can be applied to whatever weak spots you learn you have.

Learn how to tell the difference between what is a good job for you and what is a bad job for you. When you get good XFs on jobs, try and think about what made it so easy. Conversely, when you get a bad XF on a job, try to pinpoint what made it so difficult. What were you focused on? Was anything distracting you? Was anything frustrating you? What tripped you up – specific words? The customer’s voice? The audio quality? Were there outside influences slowing you down that day: too hot, too cold, too tired, too much coffee, big test tomorrow? Learn how to pinpoint your weak spots, so you can adjust your focus and attention the next time these things happen.

Some people focus on different things while scribing. Are you a visual thinker? Are you listening in Macro-speak? Are you thinking of what this person might look like? Are you thinking of what you’re going to eat for dinner? Are you paying attention to the words themselves and not necessarily the context? Can you read along as you type or is it better to stare at the ceiling? Learn how to trust in your fingers and your macros to do most of the work for you, BUT make sure you are aware of your own "usual roadblocks" and make sure to pay attention when those situations arise.

You have to learn how to catch yourself when you’re not focused and not paying attention the way you should be (this is most obvious when you start typoing things you don’t normally typo or if you completely forgot what the customer had just said and need to re-listen).

Re-focus Your Attention Learn how to distract yourself, give yourself goals, and how to refresh yourself: Use your Profile (F3) tab to watch how many jobs you do and give yourself goals. Try doing 20 or 30 jobs before logging out – whatever you need to do to keep yourself and your brain fresh and engaged. Cover your time clock – Lots of people can’t stop looking at how slowly time is going and that is discouraging. Put a Post-It or a card or some paper in the bottom right corner of your computer screen so you can’t see the time clock. Snacks/Drinks – Reward yourself with one chip per job completed, or one sip of beverage per job. Instant gratification is often a good way to keep yourself motivated, especially if you’re working a long shift and get tired halfway through and slow down. Play with your schedule! This job offers a lot of scheduling flexibility. See how it feels to come in an hour or two early one day, or an hour or two later one day, or if you break your shift up between morning and night one day instead of doing a solid block of hours. If you’re normally over-worked and tired on Thursdays, then shift some of Thursday’s hours to Wednesday for one week and see how it feels. Talk to others. Lots of people stay motivated in different ways. Talk to the people who you see sitting here day in and day out. This job isn’t a very sociable job unless you make it sociable. Quietly introduce yourself to people in the kitchen area. That little bit of human interaction can go a long way in relieving tension. Don't get frustrated! – There's going to be customers who annoy you, jobs that are terrible audio, customers that are talking 400 words per minute, but just remember that luckily it’s not that many jobs.

Remember that to do this job you are not mindlessly throwing lettuce on a burger or putting a shirt on a hanger: you are listening, evaluating, comprehending, typing, proofreading, correcting, and anticipating, ALL at the same time, at a fast pace, repeatedly.

Evaluate which skill or skills need improvement – you are only as fast as your slowest skill.

If you having trouble with listening or understanding what the customer is saying, you may need to raise the volume on the computer, or you may need to familiarize yourself more with industry terms, or you may need to work on your typing skills so you can read along as you type to help yourself understand the context of what's being said, which in turn will help you understand more clearly what's coming next. All of these skills are inter-related, and they're all being put to the test almost simultaneously.

The Basics Typos – save time correcting your mistakes, and save time spent in spellcheck. Long Words – save time by typing less keystrokes. Variations on Verb Tenses – by default, always make the past, plural and future tense, plus any other variations of that word. Variations on Phrases with Pronouns (he, she, they, we, you, us, them, him, her, his, her, ours, theirs, etc.). Filler language – Filler language is all that stuff that customers say that they don’t need to say, that you don’t have a problem hearing, and that simply makes the text longer. Very rarely are the filler phrases “kind of”, “sort of” or “go ahead and” a necessary phrase, but the customers say them all the time, and these are phrases you should have macros for. Learn how to recognize filler language and make macros for them. If you can get through the filler language quickly, it will leave you with more time to listen to the harder sections. Quantity – Make a lot of macros. If you aren’t typing a macro every fourth word, you don’t have enough macros. Quality – Macros are no good to you if you can’t remember them. Make macros that are instinctually easy to remember. Make macros for things you type all the time. Don’t waste time making macros for words you’ll likely never hear again. Continuous Audio Stream – Macros allow you to keep your foot on the pedal longer without pausing. If the customer gets ahead of you, but you know you have macros for what they’re saying, you won’t have to pause the audio because you know you can catch up with a few short keystrokes.

How To Discover New Macros

Develop a Macro System Everyone comes up with macros differently. Your macro system is going to be something personal and individual to you. Sometimes you can ask someone what their macro is for something and you may like what they have. Other times, you think their macro doesn’t make sense. You’ll have to try and see what works for you. Use a system that you can repeat and remember, no matter what it is. Have it make sense to you. If you find you’ve made a macro that you no longer can remember, then chances are that wasn’t the best macro for that word, and you should try something different/easier. Shorten long words by cutting off just part of the word.            - Example: forw = forward, forwg = forwarding, forws = forwards, forwd = forwarded Try to make your macros as short as possible! Make them easier to type and easier to remember by cutting off unnecessary keystrokes.            - Example: fw = forward, fwg = forwarding, fws = forwards, fwd = forwarded. If a word is a compound word, made up of two smaller words, maybe make the macro the first letter(s) of each word.            - fu = follow-up, prosh = profit-sharing, cw = Commonwealth Often you can make a macro based on the syllables you hear most prominently, for example, if "appr" is your macro for "approximate" already, then what about the work "appreciate"? The syllables make it easier, you hear the A, the P, and the C sound – so “apc” could be your macro for "appreciate". With phrases, one method is to make the macro the first letter of each word, as in "fp" for "financial plan" (and then make fpg for "financial planning", fpr for "financial planner").            - If "fp" is your macro for "financial plan" and you want a macro for "family plan", then maybe your system is to go to the next two letters of each word as in "fapa". Or maybe you already have the macro "fam" for the word "family", so you can just use "famp" for "family plan". With longer phrases, make the macro the first letter of each important word. This will make the macro quicker to type and easier to remember.            - iyq = "if you have any questions" is shorter and easier to remember than iyhaq. (then you have ihq for if he has any questions, itq for if they have any questions, etc.) Make macros for your typos! Backspacing and retyping your typo wastes time – add that typo immediately to your macro list to auto-correct – EVERY typo            - Be careful about making macros that are also typos – for example "bene" for "beneficiary" might cause you problems if you often type "been" incorrectly as "bene"; or "fo" might be a bad macro for "find out" if you often mistype "of" as "fo" or "for" as "fo" Make macros for your typos of macros. If gua is your macro for guarantee, but you frequently type gau, then you should also make gau your macro for guarantee (and gaus for guarantees, gaud for guaranteed, etc.) Have variations on phrases that often end up in the subject line and therefore need to be capitalized – use the same system every time, for example if "ff" is your macro for "fact find" maybe have "ffx" be your macro for Fact Find, etc. or "cns" your macro for "case notes", have "cnsx" for Case Notes. Or your system could be to repeat the last letter of the macro too (fff for Fact Find, ffrr for Fact Finder, cnss for Case Notes). Have variations on words or phrases that frequently come before punctuation. For example if fri is your macro for Friday, make frii your macro for "Friday," that way when the customer says "Friday, January 25" you don’t have to hit space-backspace-comma to type "Friday,". This also works well with transition words like therefore, sincerely, so, and nevertheless.

How To Remember Macros

[Advanced Scribing Techniques] [Bookmarks] [Common Terms] [Compensation Policy] [Customer Ratings System] [CBS Employee Guidelines] [COSA] [CRM Standards] [E-mail Corrections] [Error Codes] [Reasons for FDS/FQA] [Referral Bonus Program] [Speed and Accuracy] [Standards] [Troubleshooting]