[blindlaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers

Sat Nov 12 19:51:39 UTC 2016

Rod,

I'm still in school, but will be doing a clinic next semester and will likely have to do filings. Would you mind describing the routine you use for your documents?

----- Original Message -----
From: Rod Alcidonis, Esquire via BlLaw  <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
To: "Blind Law Mailing List"  <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Date: Saturday, November 12, 2016 2:46 pm
Subject: Re: [bllaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers

>
>
> Laura:
> 
> Excellent idea. In my practice, I can draft a document and be about 90 
> percent confident that it is well-formatted by using a few tricks I also 
> learned from an administrative assistant a few years ago. As oppose to 
> asking her to correct my errors, we sat down and she told me the most common 
> formatting errors that she had to fix in my documents that JAWS was not 
> picking up on. I now follow a specific routine to finalize my drafts, even 
> though  they might be error-free to a sighted person. That gives me a chance 
> to fix some of the more obvious errors before final inspection by someone 
> who's sighted. Notwithstanding this level of confidence, I would not file or 
> submit a final document to the court or a professional colleague without 
> first having it inspected by a sighted person. There are some funny things 
> that Microsoft does on occasions that can only be observed with a pair of 
> eyes.
> 
> 
> Rod Alcidonis, Esq.
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Laura Wolk via BlLaw
> Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2016 2:02 PM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List
> Cc: Laura Wolk
> Subject: [bllaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers
> 
> This message is in response to Patti's observation that blind students
> and attorneys sometimes rely too much on their readers, an observation
> with which I generally agree.
> 
> But I don't think this is the entire problem.  i think, in large part,
> blind people don't even know what questions to ask, because it is hard
> to know what errors are out there unless someone thinks to tell you.
> I have been inordinately blessed by friends who have given me tips and
> tricks both on style and also on mechanics about which I was utterly
> clueless.  Things like the fact that if you copy and paste directly
> from Westlaw, your quotation marks and apostrophes will look different
> than those that arise when typing directly into word. Or, if typing a
> single-spaced document with footnotes, it may behoove you to put a
> blank line between the footnotes for ease of a sighted person's
> reading smaller text.  or that global format changes such as
> justifying text "above the line" do not transfer to your footnotes,
> resulting in your footnotes remaining unjustified.  Or how you can
> connect a heading with the first line immediately following it to
> ensure that your headings are never on one page with the accompanying
> text on the next page.  These are all things about which I had no
> intuitive knowledge as a completely blind person.  Without having been
> told, I would never even have known to ask the question, and would
> have continued turning in documents with quite obvious errors that
> even proofing with braille would not have caught.
> 
> I think it would be beneficial for these purposes for the NFCbi'b lawyers
> division to compile a list of similar formatting issues, perhaps in a
> wiki-type format so that everyone could contribute.  Of course, some
> of these things come down to stylistic preference, but many of them
> don't.  Has anyone else ever thought of this?
> 
> Laura
> 
> On 11/11/16, Chang, Patti via BlLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> > I think the bigger question here is what should you be doing. If you rely
> > too much on your readers for proofing then you do not become a really good
> > proofer   for yourself. We should all use Proof readers in the final
> > instance to catch visual things we miss but I see too many students were
> > lying to heavily on their proofers.
> >
> >
> >
> > "Every day we raise the expectations of blind people in the National
> > Federation of the Blind."
> >
> > Patti S.  Gregory Chang Esq.
> > Director of Outreach
> > National Federation of the Blind
> > Direct phone: (410) 659-9314 extension 2422
> > Mobile: (773) 307-6440
> > WWW.NFB.org<http://WWW.NFB.org>
> >
> > On Nov 11, 2016, at 8:57 PM, Aimee Harwood via BlLaw
> > <blindlaw at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindlaw at nfbnet.org>> wrote:
> >
> > Greetings everyone,
> >
> > I am getting a reader who is paid by the state.  This reader will perform
> > reading of any material for school purposes that I need them to read. 
> > They
> > will also proof any assignments before I hand them in.  I will use them
> > during research to help locate something on the screen that is hard to
> > locate it is too time consuming to navigate to just to get that one bit of
> > info. Basically the individual will assist with anything vision related.
> >
> > My school assigns a judicial opinion the first semester of the 1L year. 
> > All
> > graded assignments have restrictions on students getting outside 
> > assistance.
> > We are not allowed to let anyone see our work or assist us in any way
> > regarding the assignment including research. If a student violates any of
> > the restrictions, they violate the honor code.
> >
> > Now that you have the basic situation, can the school penalize me for 
> > using
> > a reader to assist me in any visual aspect of the assignment? If I use the
> > reader to verify the formatting or point out any issues they see that I 
> > may
> > have missed because I didn't see it?  What about penalizing me for using 
> > the
> > reader to assist in research to find what I ask them to find  or highlight
> > what I ask them to highlight? Basically, can they penalize me for the 
> > reader
> > performing non-essential tasks on graded assignments?  How much control 
> > does
> > the school have over the person paid by the state to assist with outside 
> > of
> > class activities as long as I am the one doing the legal work?
> >
> >
> >
> > Aimee
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
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