WHAT ABOUT PROOFREADING?

Proofreading would be an excellent way to get your "foot in the door," so to speak.

You don't need any special software to do that portion of the work, as long as you have software to be able to open text files, because all the CAT software has the capability of producing ASCII format jobs, then all you have to do is send back an errata sheet with the corrections or the actual printed-out transcript if the reporters are in your area. I no longer work for reporters in my own area (my biggest reporter source has now joined me in the scoping/proofreading arena), but I send corrections back either with the errata sheet or via fax, when I do proofreading.

Of course, with proofreading you have to read a lot of pages to earn what you can earn as a scopist - but it also takes less time because the jobs that you receive should be as near perfect as possible at the outset, whereas when you are scoping you're dealing with raw material that you have to figure out untranslates (words that don't translate into English with the reporter's CAT software) and punctuation - which sometimes is hard to do, misstrokes of the reporter that can sometimes take forever to figure out (sigh), etc., etc., etc.

Whatever you choose to do, do it well and make yourself indispensable so that the reporters will wonder what in the world they ever did without having you working for them before this. :)

In order to proofread, does one need to have a CAT system?

No. You could proof by receiving an ASCII (text) file and either proofing it in a word processor or printing it and marking the corrections on paper. If you don't print the job, you would need to work out with the reporter whether they want all corrections flagged or just ones you think they might question. Or you could give them a list of corrections with line and page numbers and then they would make the corrections.

>>to get the feel for working over the internet...

I think you could quickly become comfortable receiving and sending jobs via the Internet.

>>when you proof, do you print out the entire transcript or just proof from the computer?

I personally proof the job right in the CAT system. Others feel they can spot errors better by printing the job.

I want to mention that .10/pg. is way too low for proofreading. A more typical charge would be .25 and up. (I charge .40)