The affidavit is a written declaration made under oath before a notary public or other authorized officer.

Appearance means coming into court or to a deposition as a party to a suit.  A court reporter may in some cases be paid an appearance fee.  The appearance fee is paid when the court reporter arrives at a scheduled deposition but the deposition does not occur.

ASCII is a computer term.  It is a means of exchanging text among dissimilar computers and computer programs.  The term ASCII in reporting is usually used to mean a file on a diskette, or the diskette itself, which contains an ASCII copy of a transcript.  ASCIIs are the most common form of litigation support offered by court reporters at this time.  Having an ASCII of the transcript allows a law firm to load the text into a computer for fast searches and extractions of portions of the testimony.  The programs used for this purpose range from common word processors to sophisticated text databases.

A calendar, in the field of law, is the schedule of upcoming appearances in court, or a schedule of legal proceedings.  Attorneys keep a calendar of times when and where certain activities are to take place.  An important section of the court reporting firm handles the scheduling assignments of the court reporters along with any changes in those assignments.  A job which is scheduled to be done is said to be on the calendar.

Computer aided transcription systems, or CAT systems, are comprised of computer equipment and programs that perform three main functions.  First, they translate the reporter’s notes into English.  These notes typically are in some electronic format such as a file on a disk.  Secondly, they provide an editing system that is highly specialized for court reporting which allows the roughly translated text to be put into full, final transcript form.  This step is also called scoping.  Finally, the CAT system prints the transcript in the format required by legal practice:  numbered lines, double spacing, and a box around the text.  Early CAT systems were based on a mainframe or mini computer.  CAT programs came into use in the 1980s with the rise of the personal computer. 

A computer integrated courtroom is the application of computer technology in a courtroom or deposition room so that all parties present have immediate access to the text of the proceedings as it happens, plus resources such as past testimony and exhibit images. 

A miniaturized copy of the original transcript printed in such a way as to place eight or more pages of transcript on a single sheet of paper, front and back, is a condensed transcript.

The adjournment or postponement of a legal proceeding to a subsequent day is a continuance.

The court reporter or stenographer witnesses and reports on what is said at a trial, deposition, or hearing.  A court reporter makes notes during the proceeding, then produces a written transcript of what was said from these notes.

A certified shorthand reporter, or CSR, is a stenographer who has been specially trained to take shorthand by machine, primarily for legal proceedings, and has been certified by the state.

A custodian of records deposition is a type of court reporting job in which the person being deposed is there not so much to answer questions verbally, but rather to convey records of some kind that he has control of.  The person subpoenaed to appear is the custodian or keeper of records being sought by the attorney.  The subpoena will have charged the deponent with the duty of bringing with him all of the records identified in the subpoena.  Custodian of records depositions are usually short in terms of time and text, but have a great many exhibits which must be marked and indexed by the reporter and then copied and bound.

 The defendant is a person accused of wrongdoing or the one being sued in a court of law.

The person who testifies, especially in writing, under oath, is the deponent.  This person answers questions put to him, and these questions and his answers are recorded in shorthand by the court reporter.  After the text has been transcribed, the deponent is typically given the opportunity to read the written record of their statement, amend it or correct it as they see fit, and then sign their name to it as being correct.

 An essential part of a CAT system used in translating the reporter’s notes into English is the dictionary.  The dictionary contains correlations between stenographic notes and English text.  Since stenographers develop their own writing style and system of abbreviations, dictionaries are specific to each individual reporter, and are built up through repeated writing and correction by the reporter.