Which CEUs have improved your punctuation decisions and formatting consistency on real transcripts? I wrapped a 90-minute hyphenation/compound modifiers session last week and used it to clean up my Case CATalyst dictionary, but I’m looking for the next course that measurably boosts reliability when I’m scoping overnight trials.
Margie Wakeman Wells’s “All About Commas” (NCRA CEU; https://margieholdscourt.com) gave me the biggest precision bump — I built briefs for appositives and a Case CATalyst macro to flag sentence-adverb commas, and my overnights stopped chasing commas like stray cats. Small caveat: local format guides can override; have you tried a numbers-focused CEU like her “A Few Good Numbers” yet?
Piggybacking on @andrews92, the biggest bump came after an NCRA on‑demand session on interruptions/parentheticals; I built a ‘comma‑suspects’ pass in Case CATalyst that flags appositives (‘, which,’ ‘including,’ names in commas) and numbers‑in‑series so I can sweep them in under a minute at the end. Caveat: it only pays off if you keep a tiny exceptions list per judge; want the find/replace string?
Quick example: after an on-demand punctuation lab, I started using “dash if the syntax breaks; comma if it doesn’t,” then I run a dedicated dash pass with a one-key toggle to swap a comma to an em dash where the interruption breaks syntax. I also set a global so double hyphens convert to an em dash only when flanked by spaces, which killed those random mid‑word dashes on rush trials. Catalog’s here if you want to browse: https://www.ncra.org — want my toggle mapping?
I got the best lift from an NCRA numbers/measurements lab; after it, I built a quick ‘numbers pass’ where I search 1–12, times, and currency to enforce ‘spell out one through nine’ and keep ranges consistent — not glamorous, but it crushes sneaky inconsistencies… If you want something deeper, a Morson’s refresher on capitalization/citations helped me normalize exhibit labels on rushes; have you tried a citation-specific CEU?
Margie Wakeman Wells’s restrictives/nonrestrictives webinar gave me the biggest precision bump; I built a “which/that” pass that searches for bare which/that and who-clauses to confirm comma use, plus a macro to flip which↔that when needed. It’s a tiny time hit on overnights but it lint-rolls the transcript; @r_kim88, her “essential vs. extra” rule makes the pass quick. Want the search string?
A parentheticals/colloquy CEU gave me a measurable boost; I added a ‘quotes sweep’ that hunts unmatched quotes, punctuation outside the closing quote in Q&A, and inconsistent ‘THE COURT:’/‘THE WITNESS:’ tags — like reuniting socks that lost their mates, though if you’re light on Q&A the gains are smaller… Want the quick find strings I use; happy to share the ‘unmatched quote’ and ‘speaker tag’ checks I run after scoping.
Legal capitalization/citations CEU gave me the biggest precision bump; I used it to build a ‘caps & citations’ pass in Case CATalyst that flags party names, titles (‘Judge’ vs ‘the judge’), and exhibit labels, and enforces nonbreaking spaces in ‘U.S.’ and initials — so much fewer inconsistencies at 2 a.m. scopes. , inconsistent caps drive me nuts, but the caveat is it’s easy to over-cap defined terms, so I keep a short exceptions list. It pairs nicely with the 90-minute hyphenation cleanup you already did in your Case CATalyst dictionary.
If you’re scoping overnight trials, a 90-minute numbers/style workshop was the most practical boost for me; I built a ‘numbers sweep’ to catch mixed formats (5–six), 1990s/’90s consistency, en‑dash vs hyphen in ranges, and stray spaces around § so I normalize in one pass. If you want the pattern set I use, happy to share; it’s overkill on lighter jobs but it’s shaved about 45 minutes on money‑heavy civil days.
I got the cleanest punctuation lift from Margie Wakeman Wells’s commas-and-dashes intensive: https://margieholdscourt.com. After it, I built a Case CATalyst macro to flag “, however/therefore/moreover” and force a semicolon check — like a seatbelt for run-ons. If your commas are already tight, a quick module on interruptions/ellipses pays off for messy cross-exams.