[blindlaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers

Michal Nowicki mnowicki4 at icloud.com
Mon Nov 14 21:40:47 UTC 2016 

Hi All,

This is a very useful thread. One tool I have found indispensable to my
legal writing is Text Analyzer: a feature that was added to JAWS several
years ago. Text analyzer detects various formatting inconsistencies in a
Word document, including font changes, space runs, and stray punctuation
marks. I find it especially useful in making sure that I don't have large
blocks of underlined text, which sometimes happens when I underline a case
name, but turn off underlining just before typing the comma that follows,
because Word doesn't like when part of a word has font attributes that
differ in any way from the rest of the word. I hope you all find this
helpful.

Best,

Michal

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Laura Wolk
via BlindLaw
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 12:49 PM
To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers

Randy and Angie,

Randy, yes, global changes work, except for one little wrinkle: if you do a
global change to smart quotes, any quotation mark nnext to an em-dash will
end up facing the wrong way.  Sigh.

Angie, yes. Regular straight quotes are ascii value 34, where as smart
quotes are 8220 and 8221.  Regular apostrophes are ascii value 39, and smart
apostrophes are 8217.  Such useful knowledge I have!!

For the record, you can actually do an individual find for these. If you hit
control+f, then hit shift+the number 6, you can type in the ascii value you
are looking for. It has to be three digits, though, so to search for
straight quotes you must type 034, and for apostrophes 039.

I hope that's helpful.

Laura

On 11/14/16, Farber, Randy via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> The easiest way that I have found to make sure that apostrophes and 
> quotes are the same throughout the document is to do two global 
> changes.  Change an apostrophe to an apostrophe and then change a 
> quote to a quote.  Word changes all apostrophes and quotes to the kind
that you have set.
>
> Randy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Angie 
> Matney via BlindLaw
> Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 10:41 AM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List
> Cc: Angie Matney
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers
>
> This has happened to me also. Using a sound scheme in JAWS that reads 
> font, attributes and color helps, but I still don't catch everything.
> As far as quotes go, I believe if you ask JAWS to read the ASCII value 
> of the character, you can tell that the quotes are different, but 
> absent doing this, I'm not sure how you can reliably tell if the 
> quotation marks you use are consistent throughout your document. (I 
> assume there's a way to do this with other screen readers, but I don't 
> know what that is.) One of my assistant's tasks with every document I 
> send her is to make sure that quotation marks are consistent.
>
> I think a wiki of some sort would be a good idea, and I would be happy 
> to contribute to it.
>
> Angie
>
>
> On 11/14/16, Jim McCarthy via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Agree, Laura and just as flummoxed as you on that one.
>> Jim
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
>> Laura Wolk via BlindLaw
>> Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2016 7:38 PM
>> To: Blind Law Mailing List
>> Cc: Laura Wolk
>> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers
>>
>> Just one note though, Kelby.  Learning how to cite check and edit a
>> **sighted** person's work is one thing.  Learning how to proof your 
>> own work, written as a blind person, is quite another.  I.e., a 
>> sighted person probably will notice if suddenly the font turns from 
>> 12 point black times new roman to 10.5 gray garamande.  How this happens?
>>  I haven't a clue.  But these types of strange and inexplicable 
>> things have happened to me many times.
>>
>> On 11/12/16, Shannon Geihsler via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>> Where do I find the course?
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> Shannon Brady Geihsler
>>> Law Office of Shannon Brady Geihsler,PLLC
>>> 1001 Main Street, Suite 803
>>> Lubbock, Texas 79401
>>> Phone:  (806) 763-3999
>>> Mobile:  (806) 781-9296
>>> Fax: (806) 749-3752
>>> E-Mail:  sbg at sbgaal.com
>>> NOTICE the information contained in this communication is protected 
>>> by the attorney/client and/or the work/product privileges.  It along 
>>> with any attachments here to, is also covered by the Electronic 
>>> Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. sections 2510-2512.  It is 
>>> intended only for the personal and confidential use of the
>>> recipient(s) named in the communication, and the privileges are not 
>>> waived by virtue of this having been sent by electronic mail.  If 
>>> the person actually receiving this communication or any other reader 
>>> of the communication is not the named recipient, any use, 
>>> dissemination, distribution or copying of the communication is strictly
prohibited.
>>> If you have received this communication in error, please immediately 
>>> notify us by telephone (please call collect) and delete the original 
>>> from
>> your  system.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>>> On Nov 12, 2016, at 5:55 PM, kelby carlson via BlindLaw 
>>>> <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Brian Hartgen has a very useful training course on how to use MS 
>>>> Word with JAWS; it's expensive, but worth the price. I have thought 
>>>> of recording something similar as a basic intro to Word for bling 
>>>> attorneys and law students. I'm on law review now and do all the 
>>>> cite-check assignments myself; my editors don't send too much back.
>>>> There are definitely ways to do it.
>>>>
>>>>> On 11/12/16, Nicole Askins via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>> Hello all I just wanted to add to this conversation another 
>>>>> question. Is there already a template for legal writing that could 
>>>>> be used? If not could such a template be created? I'm fairly 
>>>>> certain that a template that is generally acceptable could be 
>>>>> useful to all in the legal Community. Any thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Nov 12, 2016 6:38 PM, "Chang, Patti via BlindLaw"
>>>>> <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> This is why I like a system where I get the document as perfect as 
>>>>> I know how, send it to a proofer, and have the proofer either tell 
>>>>> me what to change or tell me what they changed so I learn as I go.
>>>>>
>>>>> The idea of developing a list of style and proofing tips for 
>>>>> lawyers is a good one.
>>>>> Maybe one of our CLE topics at national convention can cover this 
>>>>> and end up with a style guide specifically for screen reader users?
>>>>> Keep those tips coming.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Patti Chang
>>>>> (410) 659-9314, x 2422
>>>>> (773) 307-6440
>>>>> National Federation of the Blind
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of 
>>>>> Gerard Sadlier via BlindLaw
>>>>> Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2016 4:28 PM
>>>>> To: Blind Law Mailing List
>>>>> Cc: Gerard Sadlier
>>>>> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] decreasing reliance on readers as proofers
>>>>
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