About the Author

Margie Wakeman Wells has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California Santa Barbara; did graduate work in education and linguistics at UCLA; and is certified as a CRI, Court Reporting Instructor. She holds a life teaching credential from the State of California and has a 45-plus-year teaching career that includes high school Spanish; Peace Corps training; community work with Spanish-speaking women and senior citizens; and, since 1976, court reporting.

Margie has taught speedbuilding from theory to the exit speeds and everything in between and has helped design programs, write theory, and develop curriculum. Her background in English led her to teach grammar, punctuation, spelling, word pairs, proofreading, and transcript production. She has written several exercise books for English subjects. This is her first published textbook with its accompanying workbook.

After a 30-year career at the original Bryan College of Court Reporting in Los Angeles, Margie is currently teaching and consulting for College of Court Reporting in Hobart, Indiana, in the online reporting program. For 12 years she proofread for Miller & Company Reporters in Los Angeles.

Under the auspices of NCRA and various state and local reporting organizations, Margie has provided answers to the question "What do I do with this crazy, convoluted English in my transcript?" in over 300 seminars for reporters. In addition, she has shared her knowledge and ideas in numerous teacher and student seminars and writes articles for the Journal of Court Reporting and for several state newsletters.

Margie has two grown sons and lives with her husband, Bill, in Culver City, California.