Court reporters actually have two jobs. The first one is taking down what people say in a trial or deposition. Most people speak at a rate of between 150 and 250 words a minute, and court reporters must record this testimony word for word. To do this reporters use a stenotype machine, which resembles a small typewriter. It only has 22 keys on its keyboard, and more than one key can be pressed at a time to record different combinations of letters to represent a different sound, word, or phrase. The machine prints shorthand symbols on paper and records them on computer disks. Read more …