How do you write a stutter or repeated word in a court transcript?

With the interruption dash: "the -- the contract," "I -- I don't know." That is the convention certified transcripts actually use — we counted more than 650 dash-marked repeats across four certified U.S. Supreme Court transcripts alone, plus the same treatment in federal trial transcripts and Michigan depositions. A repeated whole word is never welded with a hyphen ("the-the").

Is it ever correct to hyphenate a repeated word, like "the-the"?

Not for a stutter. In roughly 2,500 pages of certified transcripts by more than a dozen reporters we found zero hyphen-welded stutters. Hyphenated doubles that do appear are real words — idioms like "lose-lose," answer forms like "uh-huh," and in-word stutters like "e-enrolled," where the hyphen sits inside a single word rather than joining two complete ones.

When does a repeated word take a comma instead of a dash?

When the repetition is deliberate: emphasis ("very, very important," "many, many years") and repeated answers ("No, no." "Yes, yes.") take a comma, because the speaker meant to say the word twice. Some reporters also use a comma for a quick unintentional double ("you're, you're"); that is an accepted minority treatment. The dash marks broken speech; the comma marks intended repetition.

Do stutters have to be in the transcript at all?

Not always. The federal Judicial Conference's transcript format policy says false starts and stutters are "not normally included" in the interest of readability, but must be transcribed whenever leaving them out could change a statement's meaning. Many reporters smooth simple stutters out of routine proceedings; strict verbatim work keeps them. When they are kept, the dash is how they are written.

Stenobox Guides · Verbatim conventions

How Do Court Reporters Write Stutters and Repeated Words? ("The -- The," Never "The-The")

Published July 14, 2026 · Sources: certified U.S. Supreme Court oral-argument transcripts, federal trial and agency transcripts, Michigan depositions and hearings from the public record, Guide to Judiciary Policy Vol. 6 Ch. 18

Quick answer: When a speaker repeats a word by stumbling — "the, the contract," said as a stutter — the certified convention is the interruption dash: the -- the contract. A repeated whole word is never welded with a hyphen ("the-the"): across roughly 2,500 pages of certified transcripts by more than a dozen reporters, we found over 650 dash-marked repeats and zero hyphen-welds. The comma has its own job — deliberate repetition ("very, very important," "No, no.") — and the hyphen keeps its two: stutters inside a word ("e-enrolled") and spelled-out names ("M-O-B-L-E-Y").

The dash convention, in the certified record

Court-transcript punctuation for broken speech is barely documented anywhere, so we went to the primary sources: certified transcripts in the public record, produced by working reporters whose pages are accepted by courts and agencies every day. The pattern is remarkably uniform.

Certified transcript	Repeated-word treatment	Count
4 certified U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments (Heritage Reporting, 2025 terms — Kennedy v. Braidwood, TikTok v. Garland, Trump v. CASA, Ames v. Ohio)	Dash: "and -- and," "of -- of," "the -- the," "You're -- you're"	652 dash repeats, 0 welds
Michigan depositions filed in federal court (Rodgers v. Fenton Area Public Schools; Caudle v. Nielsen, E.D. Mich.)	Dash: "I -- I," "you -- you," "they -- they," "It's -- it's"	85 dash repeats, 0 welds
U.S. v. Google bench trial (D.D.C. 2023, official court reporter)	Dash: "then -- then," "not -- not," "being -- being"	7 in one session, 0 welds
Michigan PSC hearings (multiple reporters, incl. a 100-plus-page public-comment session)	Dash: "that -- that," "I -- I," "in -- in," "no -- no"	0 welds
FERC evidentiary hearings (2026)	Dash: "what -- what," "we -- we," "have -- have"	0 welds

One sentence from the certified Trump v. CASA transcript shows the whole system working at once — a dashed false start, a legitimately hyphenated idiom, and a dashed stutter, side by side:

"So I think it's a -- you know, it's a lose-lose-lose proposal that the government is offering. I'm -- I'm a little…" Trump v. CASA, certified oral-argument transcript, May 15, 2025

"Lose-lose-lose" keeps its hyphens because it's a real compound the speaker meant to say. "It's a -- you know, it's a" and "I'm -- I'm" take the dash because the speech broke. That distinction — hyphens join words; dashes mark breaks — is the entire rule.

Why "the-the" is wrong

The hyphen-weld looks tidy, and speech-to-text output sometimes produces it, but no certified transcript we examined writes a stutter that way — not once, in any court, by any reporter. There's a good reason: in English, a hyphen asserts that two units form one word. "Fifty-fifty," "win-win," "uh-huh," "sick-sick" (as in "I'm home sick — sick-sick," from a real Michigan deposition) are all things a speaker deliberately said as single expressions. Writing a stutter as "the-the" invents a word the witness never said. The dash, by contrast, is the transcript's standard mark for broken or interrupted speech — a repeated word is simply speech that broke and restarted, so it takes the same mark: the -- the.

When a comma is correct instead

Not every doubled word is a stutter. Speakers repeat words on purpose all the time, and deliberate repetition takes an ordinary comma:

Emphasis: "very, very important," "many, many years," "way, way back" — all common in certified transcripts.
Repeated answers: "No, no." "Yes, yes." "Right, right." The speaker said the word twice and meant both.

The test is intent, judged by ear: did the speech break (dash) or did the speaker mean the doubling (comma)? There is also an honest gray zone. A quick, light double — "you're, you're with the township government" — gets a comma from some certified reporters and a dash from others; both appear in filed Michigan transcripts. Within one transcript, pick one treatment for that gray zone and apply it consistently.

Where hyphens still belong: in-word stutters and spell-outs

Two kinds of broken speech happen inside a single word, and there the hyphen is exactly right:

Partial-word stutters: "she e-enrolled in the program," "a r-round number" — both from a certified Michigan hearing transcript. The speaker fractured one word, so the notation stays inside the word.
Spelled-out names: "M-O-B-L-E-Y," "C-r-a-m-e-r" — letters joined by hyphens, universal across every deposition and trial transcript we checked. Never dashes, never spaces.

Do stutters belong in the transcript at all?

That's a separate question from how to write them, and the honest answer is: it depends on the work. The federal Judicial Conference's transcript format policy (Guide to Judiciary Policy, Vol. 6, Ch. 18, § 18.10.1.b) says false starts and stutters "are not normally included in transcripts" in the interest of readability — "but such verbalizations must be transcribed whenever their exclusion could change a statement's meaning." And practice tracks that: routine procedural hearings are often delivered smooth, while depositions and appellate arguments — where exact wording gets quoted back — keep the breaks. The Supreme Court's own certified transcripts keep hundreds of them per argument. When your work keeps them, the conventions above are how the certified record writes them.

Primary sources

U.S. Supreme Court certified oral-argument transcripts (Heritage Reporting) — the 652 dash-repeat count covers the 2025-term transcripts in Kennedy v. Braidwood, TikTok v. Garland, Trump v. CASA, and Ames v. Ohio
Certified Michigan depositions filed in E.D. Mich. dockets (public via CourtListener/RECAP): Rodgers v. Fenton Area Public Schools, No. 2:23-cv-13110; Caudle v. Nielsen, No. 2:17-cv-13737; Doe v. Whitmer, No. 2:22-cv-10209
MPSC e-dockets — filed Michigan hearing transcripts (e.g., Case Nos. U-21990, U-21906, U-22036)
U.S. v. Google LLC bench-trial transcripts (D.D.C. 2023, publicly posted)
Guide to Judiciary Policy, Vol. 6, Ch. 18 — Transcript Format (§ 18.10.1.b, "Editing of Speech")

Common questions

How do you punctuate a stutter in a court transcript?

A repeated whole word takes the interruption dash: "the -- the contract," "I -- I don't know." That's the convention in certified SCOTUS, federal trial, and Michigan deposition transcripts alike.

Is "the-the" with a hyphen ever right?

No. Zero certified transcripts in our survey weld a stutter. Hyphenated doubles are reserved for real words — "lose-lose," "uh-huh," "fifty-fifty."

What about "very, very" — dash or comma?

Comma. Deliberate repetition (emphasis, repeated answers like "No, no.") is punctuated as normal speech, because it is.

How are spelled-out names written?

Letters joined by hyphens: "S-m-i-t-h," "M-O-B-L-E-Y." Universal across every transcript we checked.

This convention, built in: Stenobox drafts render repeated words with the interruption dash automatically — "the -- the," never "the-the" — with idioms, spell-outs, and in-word stutters left exactly as spoken, so the draft already reads like the certified record. See how it works or start a free trial.

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