Court Reporter

A court reporter is an individual who has trained extensively in the art of either stenography or palantyping.  They spend much of their time in courtrooms using their skills to report on proceedings, as normal typists would simply not be able to keep up with the rate of speech.

Some court reporters may also use their skills to help the deaf or hard of hearing by converting speech to text in meetings, conventions, conferences and other similar situations.  Reporters will use slightly different machines for each job; traditionally in court the proceedings are typed directly on to paper in the style of a typewriter.  When translating for the deaf and hard of hearing a computer is used instead, which will convert the short hand into full English.