Color pencil – We all have used it but it’s not used for the same purpose by everyone. It serves a different purpose when in the hands of a kid, a graduate student, a professional or an artist. Similarly, typing is one of the required skills for a Typist, a Stenographer, and a Transcriptionist but all three of them are not same at all. Let’s check:

1. Typist is helpful for note taking for corporate/boardroom meetings. They may also involve in data entry, sorting emails, etc. Typists are like general transcriptionists who create documents out of recordings or from already written notes. They type notes/dictation taken from senior professionals.
2. Stenographers or court reporters; type what they hear in the real time during courtroom hearings and other oral proceedings where the transcript is required immediately. Stenographers are required for jotting down everything that is spoken in the courtroom to maintain a record for future reference. Traditionally, stenographer must be available in the courtroom to note every dialogue but with the help of technology, stenographer does work remotely and are called CART – Communication Access Real-time Translation Specialists.
3. A transcriptionist is who provides speech to text services from a pre-recorded audio or video. The recording could be of an interview, meeting, conferences, medical procedure, academic research or legal proceedings etc. To be a transcriptionist it requires a special skill set to create transcripts with high accuracy and efficiency. A transcriptionist must be familiar with the terminology of the type of transcription he/she is involved into and must have relevant and detailed knowledge.

So, typing is the main essence of all three professions but the skill sets, job roles and the area of employment is completely different. You need a typist; a stenographer or a transcriptionist depends upon your business needs.