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All responses Most smiled responses
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My rates vary depending on the job, but I generally try to make the cost for two hours of CART the same as the cost for two hours of ASL interpretation from certified interpreters in my region. That way no one can try to force a consumer to use a particular service just because of the price; the decision should always be made by the consumer, according to their own personal preference. http://stenoknight.com/FAQ.html#cartasl
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Good question. Always a challenge. The best strategy in a case like this is to be very good at making on-the-fly definitions from your writer. Whenever there's a pause in the lecture, enter any words that were spoken and didn't translate properly. If there isn't enough time to define it, make sure you can fingerspell it quickly enough not to fall behind. It can be nerve-wracking, but those kinds of skills are invaluable in CART, so it's better to develop them sooner rather than later. The other thing you can do when you're preparing for the class is to look up various articles and books on the subject as a whole, and enter vocabulary that might be likely to come up over the course of the semester; then even if the professor diverges a bit from the syllabus, you'll have a good general glossary for the subject that you can fall back on.
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Freelance work is always tough to predict in terms of availability, but so far (seven semesters and counting) I've had fantastic luck. I've even had to turn a lot of people down, which is a shame, but makes me feel less worried that the work will suddenly dry up. Once a student did drop all his classes mid-semester, but fortunately I was already overloaded that semester, so it was almost a relief. Still, there are no certainties in the CART world. I have an emergency fund set aside in case things don't go as planned, and I'm always laying the groundwork for new clients and new business, even when I have as much work as I can handle.
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asked by sherry26
It's a Samsung Q1 tablet computer, connected to my steno machine via Bluetooth. So I can sit in the back of the room, reading the display from my laptop, and the student can carry the tablet around wherever they need to go. It's especially good for lab and studio classes, and for anything that requires a lot of mobility. I've occasionally even put my steno machine on a shoulder harness and walked alongside my client while they carry the tablet and converse with friends or colleagues.
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I usually send the resumes and cover letters out every May or June, but this year I'm already booked up through the fall semester, so I'm going to send them out in December instead.
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First, set up a webpage. That's one of the most important things you can have. It doesn't have to be fancy; your resume, a short bio, and some contact information are enough to start out with. To get contracts with schools, I compile a list of all the colleges and universities in the area. I go to their websites and find the contact information for the Disability Services Department. Then I write out a cover letter explaining what I do, the advantages of CART over competing technologies, and the things that make me distinctive as a CART provider -- my wireless monitor option, for instance, which lets students carry their CART display around the room with them. I print the cover letters and copies my resume on elegant linen paper and put them in an envelope along with my business card. I make sure that my resume features my web address prominently, so if people are interested they can go to my site for more information. I usually send around 27 of these letters out every year, and I'll hear back from maybe one or two universities each time. But one or two students are often enough to fill a CART provider's schedule, so sometimes that's all you need. Good luck!
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I'm going to let this one stand as a distillation of all the gloriously bizarre and wacky things people have asked me over the course of my career. Some of them have made just about as much sense, but were only half as well worded. Many thanks to my better half for the hilarity.
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Many of my clients have both hearing and vision loss, and I've done a fair amount of research so that I can provide appropriate CART accommodations to people with different types of vision loss. For instance, one of my clients with macular degeneration needed magnified text, so I increased the font size of my CART output and put it on a small tablet computer so that she could hold it just a few inches from her eyes. Another client had Usher's syndrome, which meant that his field of vision was narrow, but his central field acuity was pretty good. In his case magnification would have been counterproductive, because the bigger letters would have meant fewer words at a time within his useful visual field. A third client didn't disclose his specific vision issues, but mentioned that he had trouble reading information on the classroom's PowerPoint screen. Most students prefer that I don't transcribe onscreen information, but in his case it was very helpful to have all of the big screen text available on the CART display together with the professor's lecture. I'm happy to make accommodations for all forms of vision loss, and to work with my clients on font size, shape, and color so that their reading experience is as clear and comfortable as possible. So far I haven't had any CART requests from Braille users, but I'm very interested in the possibility of outputting to a refreshable Braille display, and I'd welcome any information on the subject.
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I'm a number bar user all the way, but a surprising number of CART providers and captioners that I know write out all their numbers. I would go with what seems to be easiest for you. Try each for a week and see which one comes more easily. If you do decide to go with the number bar, definitely take the time to add inversion, doubling, hundreds, and dollar entries. For example, 38 on the number bar will come up as 83 if I add -EU. 3 will come up 33 if I add -D. 6 will come up as 600 if I add -Z. 4 will come up as $400 if I add -DZ. You have to add them manually, so it's time consuming to set up, but I've found them absolutely invaluable in tax law, statistics, and pharmacy classes. If you decide to write numbers out rather than using the number bar, make sure you set numbers to null (or their alphabetic equivalents) so you don't get weird mistranslations if you hit the number bar accidentally.
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While it's possible for a CART provider to cater to an exclusively oral, hard of hearing, or late-deafened clientele, I think it's needlessly limiting to cut one's self off from potential Deaf clients, many of whom enjoy and appreciate CART as a complement to ASL interpretation in a variety of settings. I've been studying ASL for almost two years now, and I've gotten to an intermediate conversational level. I'm still sort of shy about signing with my clients, but I think several of them are glad to know that we could carry on a conversation sans steno machine if necessary. I've also made several friends and connections in the local Deaf community, and they've encouraged me to keep improving my ASL skills. When I first started CARTing, I asked one of my clients -- who voiced for himself and preferred Exact Signed English to ASL interpretation when not using CART -- what I could do to improve my skills as a CART provider. "Take some ASL classes!" he said, as if the answer were obvious. It was, and I did. An understanding of Deaf Culture is also very helpful in this line of work, but that's best learned from Deaf clients and friends directly rather than a classroom or a book. Just be courteous, open, and respectful; the rest will follow.
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I didn't usually get test jitters while I was in school, because I knew that if I failed a test, I'd get the chance to retake it the following week. I got terrible test anxiety when I went to take the Certified CART Provider skills examination, though. The test is only 5 minutes long, and sounds like a piece of cake (180 WPM literary, no hard terminology), but it's known as "the easiest test you'll ever fail" for a reason. I failed, waited six months, failed again, waited six more months, failed on a technicality (long story), waited six more months, and finally, finally passed (woo-hoo!) I don't have much advice for dealing with the anxiety, unfortunately. I think it was necessary to fail those first few times in order to become comfortable enough to pass; when I finally took the test that got me my certification, it was almost anticlimactic, it was so easy. Knowing that you have a comfortable 20 to 40 words per minute over the test speed helps a lot. Breathing deeply and making sure you're at a comfortable temperature never hurts. I also don't know how big a factor this is, but my passing test was taken on a machine with a much lighter touch than the one I used on the first three. Without the temptation to pound the keys, my muscles didn't seize up and I was able to maintain rhythmic accuracy and fine motor control. That might be something to look into, if you find that you tend to slam on the machine when you start getting nervous. The best technique is just to prove to yourself that you have the speed and accuracy to pass. That confidence will carry you through the jitters and out the other side.
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I was working as a qwerty transcriptionist, and even though I was as fast as anyone in my office, I still wasn't able to keep up with an ordinary rate of speech. I knew there had to be a more efficient way to transcribe spoken English, so I searched around on Wikipedia and found out about steno! It was love at first sight.
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Mirabai Knight’s Bio
Certified CART Provider (realtime stenographer for the Deaf and hard of hearing), ASL student, and novice Python programmer.
