Chris Clemens
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That's an interesting point. Have you seen such a situation? Have you seen a situation in which the opening inverted question mark or exlamation point is in regular typeface followed by text in a special typeface?
I think the purpose of this rule is to establish that the opening inverted puncutation, which is unique to Spanish, assumes the typeface of the text it is associated with in the same manner that the ending punctuation does. In English, opening punctuation, such as quotation marks and parentheses are not included in the typeface indicators regardless of how they are printed. The same is true in foreign language. This rule covers the unique instance of the inverted question mark and exclamation point. I think most print situations are covered here.
It you do have such a situation in print, where the opening punctuation is clearly not emphasized, I'd like to see it so I can discuss it with other. I would be reluctant to separate the opending puncutation from the text it belongs to with a typeface indicator, but as I said, I would discuss it with others if you have such a situation.
--Joanna
I have checked with a couple of other committee members, and it seems that there has not been a more recent update to this material.
Betty
[quote=FisherLJ][quote=joannavenneri]Formatting a table in braille depends on how that table is printed, on how it looks. I have to be able to see the actual table. I can't tell how wide anything should be without seeing how wide it actually is in comparison to whatever else is on the page. Please send a scan of the actual print page.
I'm sorry, but on this one I can't help you without seeing what you need help with.
--Joanna[/quote][/quote]
[quote=joannavenneri]Formatting a table in braille depends on how that table is printed, on how it looks. I have to be able to see the actual table. I can't tell how wide anything should be without seeing how wide it actually is in comparison to whatever else is on the page. Please send a scan of the actual print page.
I'm sorry, but on this one I can't help you without seeing what you need help with.
--Joanna[/quote]
Formatting a table in braille depends on how that table is printed, on how it looks. I have to be able to see the actual table. I can't tell how wide anything should be without seeing how wide it actually is in comparison to whatever else is on the page. Please send a scan of the actual print page.
I'm sorry, but on this one I can't help you without seeing what you need help with.
--Joanna
Thanks so much for the info. Wow, I never thought to think about the seven seconds. Of course the count would have continued until the yips began. So let me summarize what I think you have said. I would ignore the fact that there are only three dots in print format and would put the ellipsis with a period (15.3a). Then start the new sentence. This is what I had in my mind to do, but I wasn't sure about going against the print.
CherylHi Cheryl,
Thanks for the question. These can be a little tricky. Print spacing has to be ignored in a situation like this. It's important to look at the surrounding text to get an idea of what is actually being conveyed. Is the ellipsis showing an incomplete sentence or not? You are on the right track. The capitalized word He tells us a new sentence is beginning, but we need to look just a little further. The following sentence tells us he counted to seven. That is where we find the answer. Since we know that he counted to seven, it's obvious that (One, two, three) is incomplete, so we would treat this as an incomplete sentence brailling the ellipsis first and the period last.
SaralynThat's it exactly. Most of the time the distinction between the regular text and the displayed material is pretty clear in braille, just by virtue of the blank line. But in the case of your complex print, that distinction will tend to get lost in the braille, leaving the reader to depend on what the words actually say. The print reader of your book can rely more on relative position, but that is not available to the braille reader.
As mentioned, the new Formats rules will address this in new and interesting ways.
--Joanna
Hi,
I attempted the exam twice and did not make it. I successfully passed all 16 lessons of the Nemeth course through an NLS assigned instructor--you have to pass each lesson before you are allowed to go onto the next lesson. The course covered the math concepts well. I used to teach high school math so luckily the math concepts themselves weren't a problem for me.
But the course doesn't really cover the Nemeth formatting issues needed to pass the text.
I was praised by my grader how I did many complex math topics in braille correctly, but then I got the formatting wrong. My grader thought I was unusual but I think and have heard that my experience is common.
Who ever heard of taking a text covering formatting concepts you were not taught or exposed to?For the past few months I believe, NFB was not letting anyone apply or take the Nemeth (and literary certification tests too) I was told. I think they may have been standardizing their grading procedures or restructuring the exams or something like that. I was told people can take the exams again now.
But what I found disheartening was the way the grade report is done. It's totally different from the literary test. Yes, they give you 1 chance to correct your 1st attempt, so that is why they can't tell you on which lines errors may have occurred (since you will be attempting to make corrections).
But then when you get the final report after you attempted to correct the 1st submission, you don't get told (like with the literary braille test) on what lines and pages of braille the errors occurred.
You just get told for example "Somewhere in this exam, this kind of error was made one time" and "3 times within the exam, this other kind of error was made".
It's just very hard to learn from your errors and see where the mistakes were when you don't get told what page and line the errors were on.
There were very complex triple integrals and all kinds of nested radicals and messy algebraic equations on the test, and it would have been nice to at least know if an error was made within a certain equation.
Basically you are just left guessing as to where your specific error occurred.Hi Tina,
If you have not already completed the lessons in An Introduction to Braille Mathematics, you should contact the National Federation for the Blind for information regarding the Nemeth course.
Yes, it is difficult, but will broaden your knowledge base and should (since there are few certified Nemeth transcribersres) result in further transcribing opportunities.
If you have already completed the lessons, then no, we cannot give any advice on the certification exam.
BettyIt would seem to me that if the textbook has already explained that a vertical bar has been replaced with a colon, then to change it again in the braille just adds unnecessary confusion. Although we know how it [u]should[/u] be transcribed in braille, by keeping the information the same as the print, the reader will then have the same information as the rest of the class and be able to understand any discussion regarding the print rendition. Our job is to transcribe, not interpret.
This is just my opinion, not something that is addressed in Nemeth Code.
BettyWhen transcribing in Nemeth code, regardless of grade level, you must use the letter sign and the punctuation indicator with the itemized letters. Within the text, a letter standing alone that means a letter (unless its a [u]word[/u] like "a" or "I") uses the letter sign.
Hope this clarifies things.
Betty Marshall
