[DebbyS]

I liked to use ellipses to indicate a pause, and a dash to indicate a change of direction of speech, broken speech, incomplete sentences, etc. Then someone told me not to use ... in legal transcription because it mean word/s/phrase/s were being skipped! Yikes! For legal transcription -- transcribe everything! (unless it cannot be heard, then I use [inaudible] or [unintelligible], depending on if there was noise drowning out the speaker or if the speaker was chewing food at the same time or something they could have been smarter about). I continue use the dashes, though, to indicate fragmented sentences or interuptions.

Witness: And then i said --
Counselor: You called him a murderer, didn't you?
Witness: -- "there's always time for pie."

All these legal rules now creep into my transcribing or typing stories, where I think sometimes we really need to indicate that thoughtful pause....