Caroline Pauser

From the speech to the “official report” (plus shorthand notes)

Vienna – Austrian Parliament 29th July 2005.


PRESENTATION

First I would like to introduce myself and my colleagues to you: My name is Caroline Pauser. I have been a member of staff of the Official Report Department (ORD) for eight years now and I am going to inform you about the working methods of our department. You could sum up the whole working process, namely the making of verbatim reports, with: “From the speech to the official report” (plus shorthand notes). The ORD consists of ten parliamentary reporters (pr) in the permanent staff and five pr working on a freelance basis on days of plenary sittings. Only 20 percent of the whole staff are male, so women outnumber men for once. In addition 14 typists are working freelance on days when plenary sittings take place.

Process in general

The making of verbatim reports of plenary sittings of both chambers of the Austrian Parliament according to the Rules of Procedure – until their publication in print and by means of electronic media – is a diverse process requiring IT-support. In the following I would like to describe the intellectual as well as the technical realization of this process as it is carried out by the ORD.

The whole process will be explained in the light of plenary sittings of the Austrian National Council. On the basis of the IT-implementation reports of

·       plenary sittings of the Federal Council

·        symposiums

·        joint sittings of the National Council and the Federal Council on the occasion of the inauguration of the Federal President

·        ceremonial sessions, e.g. the commemoration ceremony against violence and racism on the 5th of May

·        committee meetings, subcommittee meetings and

·        other events taking place in the parliament

are produced as well.

Full details on the technical background will be given by Mr. Schenk of Rodlauer later on.

I mention briefly:

    ·       the administration of the speaking time

    ·      the audio-recording

    ·      the administration of the sitting (navigator)

are available.

The entire sitting is recorded electronically by means of the audio system (‘audio client’). This recording is the basis for the making of the reports in the next editing steps.

Furthermore the electronic speaking time administration is used; you can check precisely the speaking time of each MP. So you can follow the duration of a speech to the second. The MPs have to confine their speeches to the subject matter of the debate and must observe the time limits imposed.

Overview

The ORD is entrusted with the producing, printing and publication of the transcripts on the intranet as well as on the internet.

The different phases are described as follows:

·        When the parliamentary reporter (pr) is in the plenary chamber he/she writes down in shorthand interruptions, applause, the beginnings and ends of speeches, incidents taking place in the plenary chamber during a plenary sitting (e.g. when folders are thrown down from the visitors’ gallery). These are elements that cannot be recorded by the central audio system. He gets hold of newspaper articles or texts of motions from the MPs. The pr is in the plenary chamber for twenty minutes (two times ten minutes up to four times a day).

·       first draft of the transcript is typed by the typist at the time the parliamentary reporter is still in the plenary chamber.

·        In his office: revision of this first draft by the parliamentary reporter and stylizing of the speech which means correction of grammatical or semantic mistakes, these are editorial corrections; adding of interruptions, applause, beginnings and ends of speeches; getting hold of long motion texts in electronic form; inclusion of the wordings of amendments and motions, results of votes, incidents having taken place in the plenary chamber to the text; the main thing is a production of a version ready for printing for ►

·        publication of the so-called Temporary Stenographic Report on the intranet three hours later, but due to editorial reasons documents won’t necessarily appear on the intranet in chronological order at first, 10.30.doc can be earlier on the intranet as the 10.10.doc depending on the number of interruptions for example (= version without authorization by the speaker)

·        mailing of the individual parts of the report to the speaker for the purpose of authorization during the night or on the next day (only editorial corrections possible; re-mailing by the MPs and check by the parliamentary reporter if corrections are admissible, in case of doubt: decision by the President of the National Council

·       production of the final version

·        publication in print of 50 copies (in the ORD; duplication in the parliament’s printing works) and on the internet

Basis of the Official Reports of the National Council are the Rules of Procedure.

The making of the reports is regulated by the Geschäftsordnungsgesetz (Rules of Procedure) and is executed by the ORD.

§ 52 (1) Stenographic Records shall be made of the public sittings of the National Council and published in printed form; these records shall reflect the deliberations in extenso.

(2) Each speaker shall receive, before his/her statements are printed, a copy of the Stenographic Record so that s/he can make editorial corrections. In case of doubt the President shall rule on the admissibility of such corrections. Unless objections are raised or the copy is returned within the period allowed for correction the record shall go to print.

(3) The Stenographic Record shall list the items of business received during and/or since the last sitting.

The period allowed for correction is 24 hours. If there is a week-end in between we may extend this period. In the Federal Council the period allowed for correction is not fixed, it states: within an adequate period.

Process in detail

The typist’s first draft

The audio data are electronically at the typists’ disposal within a short time delay. 10-minute-tapes are assigned to each typist in a fixed schedule in rotation by means of the audio application. There is also a fixed schedule in rotation for the pr, long working hours without a break. These tapes can be listened to on the computer, like on a tape recorder or a dictating machine. This is done with the usual devices like a pedal and headphones.

Each 10-minute-tape is typed in a document and is administered by the navigator.

Navigator

The navigator is optimized for the making of reports. It is a Windows-application especially designed for the administration of the Official Parliamentary Reports. The sittings are represented in a so-called tree, where you can navigate per mouse-click. The sitting is shown in a tree structure where you can see the chronological structure, time-related. The tree shows the structure of the legislative term (XXII. GP), types of sittings (National Council 117. NR, Federal Council) et cetera. The single entries are marked by graphic symbols. There are different colours that show the current status of the document: grey still used by the typist, red pr can open it, yellow it is being worked on by the pr, green it is finished.

When the document is typed, the items on the agenda and the speakers are administered by means of the navigator and are inserted into the document as well as into the data base. You can see who was the previous speaker and who will be the next speaker. The navigator also communicates with the audio player and establishes the time, e.g. when a speech begins.

While the speeches are being typed the subdivided structure in the navigator is already at the user’s disposal. At this point the information of the speaking time administration is used as suggestion for the beginning of a speech.

A first draft of the report is, so to speak, available in real time. Therefore the President who chairs the sitting has the possibility to call an MP to order immediately in case he/she has just used unparliamentary language, that is: an offensive word or insulting expression in his/her speech, which is ‘backed up’ by the report.

Editing by the parliamentary reporter

After the completion of the first draft by the typist, this document is then available for the parliamentary reporter for further revision. The Parliamentary Reporters are of course the best shorthand writers, but they need professional skill, a comprehensive political and wide general knowledge, and they have a high responsibility for the preparation of the report. Furthermore excellent team-work is of paramount importance.

Editing steps:

Check of spelling; comprehensive grasp of your mother tongue German, command of other foreign languages (quotations in English), clarification of proper names and quotations, figures and technical terms (legal, financial terms) it is helpful to know Latin because foreign words mainly derive from Latin; delete fillers used by the speaker, correct apparent slips of the tongue; check of the continuity (you have to coordinate the beginning of your part the end of your colleague before you so that no sentence will be missing), production of a text that is ready for printing; text is stylized and edited.

The content of the speech has to be logical when being read and in addition the sentences have to do justice to the rules of speech, style, grammar and punctuation. As Mark Twain put it so nicely: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” But all the same you always have to stick to the speaker’s style and should not change it, which means: handling with care, being cautious, instinctive feeling in order not to destroy the speaker’s characteristics. But nevertheless the parliamentary reporter has to produce a well-legible product for the recipient describing the deliberations in extenso.

Further steps:

Getting hold of motion texts in electronic form, formatting and inserting these texts into the report (verbatim); additional documents (agenda, text of an urgent motion et cetera) are available as well, they are inserted into the document and need not be typed extra, but have to be formatted by the pr which is a rather difficult and time-consuming procedure as the caucuses use different formats; adding of interruptions and results of possible nominal votes; structuring of the report (new topic = new heading)

► afterwards: transfer of all parts (10-minute-documents) into the intranet. This unauthorized version can already be retrieved during the sitting by all intranet users. About three to four hours after the end of the sitting the complete Temporary Stenographic Report (in 10-minute-documents=time-related) is available on the intranet.

Mailing of the respective part of the report to the speaker for the purpose of authorisation according to § 52 (2) GOG-NR

After the publication of the single parts of the report (10-minute-documents) on the intranet, they are represented in a further editing step in a structure-related form, which means: speaker-related. This is called splitting. Only documents with the status “finished” can be split.

Behind each speech and each item on the agenda is the corresponding document. At the same time the representation on the intranet is updated accordingly.

After the splitting the documents may be mailed to the respective speaker for confirmation. Mailing is done by employing the person data base of the Parliamentary Administration which contains the mail-addresses of the MPs, ministers, undersecretaries and other people who are entitled to speak in a plenary sitting such as the President of the Audit Division. The application of the administration of the sitting keeps a record of the single processing steps, so the whole process from the first draft to the final complete document is comprehensible.

Re-mails

The MPs re-mail their speeches in the period allowed for correction. These re-mails are assigned to each speaker and are visible in colour in the navigator and are taken into consideration. (red)

Now the parliamentary reporters can by means of “local comparison of the documents” discern altered passages and check these corrections if they are concurring with the Rules of Procedure: Is it an editorial correction or already one as regards the content? Do you accept or disregard it? If you do not accept a correction you give reasons why you cannot accept it. You can distinguish the various corrections because they are in colour. Finally you do the proof-reading, e.g. check if there are still typing errors. At the end the reporter presses the smiley-button. (green)

All these alterations are reflected on the intranet

Making and publication of the complete document

In a next step the complete document is made out of the single text parts. It is provided for with a table of contents and the respective page reference. This process can take two hours. This is a complex operation demanding precision, so the Official Report is sure to be flawless. This complete document is subjected to a final check and is adapted in its layout.

The finished product is printed as single copy in the ORD, is copied in the own printing works and at the same time published via internet. The complete document is available on the internet for every user from all over the world on our homepage under the heading “Stenographische Protokolle”:

·        in total as PDF, ZIP

·       per page as HTML

In the HTML-form hyperlinks to other data of the portal of the parliament, e.g. biographies of the MPs, are set.

With the publication on the internet the Temporary Stenographic Report of each sitting on the intranet is automatically deleted.

Archives of the sittings

The structure-related as well as the speaker-related documents are preserved in the navigator and the user of this application is entitled to use them permanently.

To put it in a nutshell, the process of making a complete verbatim official report of speeches held in the parliament is lengthy, demands utmost precision and concentration because a lot of details have to be taken into consideration, requires best trained members of staff and nowadays cannot be done without IT-resources.