Many court reporters talk instead of typing

The technique was first adopted by the Navy after World War II.
DAYTON (AP) -- Detailed descriptions of criminal acts have passed through the lips of Janice Grill, who gets paid for repeating everything she hears.
Grill is a voice writer -- a court reporter whose words are instantly converted into a near-perfect transcript of legal proceedings.
Microphones in a high-tech mask that covers her mouth -- so as not to distract the courtroom speakers -- are wired to a laptop computer with voice-recognition software "trained" to recognize Grill's speech.
Grill's skill is rare in Ohio, although in some states as many as half of all court reporters are voice writers. There are as many as 15,000 voice writers in the United States, according to Linda Drake, immediate past president of the 1,200-member National Verbatim Reporters Association.
Used routinely in military courts, voice writers have been employed since World War II when the Navy chose the brand-new technology as its preferred method to record its legal proceedings.
Methods evolve
Voice writers originally used tape recorders to capture their spoken words, and transcripts were prepared from their well-articulated recordings. The technique was developed by Horace Webb, a Washington, D.C.-based shorthand reporter who sought a better, quicker way to record legal or administrative proceedings.
Grill still relies on her Marantz, two-track tape recorder, for most work. One track records her voice from the mask while the other track records what is picked up by a sensitive microphone in front of her. She types her transcripts from her official voice recording, relying on the second track as a backup.
A native of Washington, Grill has recorded murder trials in Virginia's state courts, congressional hearings and speeches given by high-level, executive-branch officials.
Grill's words come out as fast as 300 per minute, and she rarely focuses on the content of what passes through her lips.
"I want the word, not what the word means," Grill said.
Technology advances
With the advent of fast computers and ever more comprehensive voice recognition software, typing transcripts may soon be a thing of the past.
Grill began using her new voice-recognition software last month after taking a training course in West Virginia. Now, she is building a personal dictionary for it.
She played a tape recording of a court proceeding in Clinton County. As she repeated the tape's contents into her mask, the words spilled onto the large screen of her new laptop computer.
When the words are homonyms -- like "seen" and "scene" -- they are highlighted in red to catch Grill's eye during the proofreading of her transcript.
Grill said building the dictionary has become an addiction, distracting her from more mundane chores such as preparing dinner for her family.
"My job has always been addictive, but this could be a problem," she said.