The Congressional Record explained

What the Record is and who controls it

Under 44 U.S.C. 901, the Joint Committee on Printing controls the arrangement and style of the Record and shall provide that it is substantially a verbatim report of proceedings ². House Practice says each House controls the content of its own portion ³.

The Record is not the official record of House business. House Practice says that role belongs to the Journal ³. The Record covers only House and Senate proceedings, and unrelated matter is excluded ³.

The four parts of each daily issue

• Daily Digest: a summary that acts as a table of contents ¹. The Congressional Research Service calls it the key to use of the daily Record ⁴.
• House section: the proceedings of the House ¹.
• Senate section: the proceedings of the Senate ¹.
• Extensions of Remarks: tributes and statements ¹. It holds most of the House's unspoken remarks and insertions ⁴.

Revise and extend

Members ask permission to revise and extend their remarks. Since the 106th Congress, the House has often authorised all Members to revise and extend and to include extraneous material within two Record pages, for a session or a whole Congress ³.

Revisions to spoken remarks are limited to technical, grammatical and typographical corrections, which the Member must authorise ³. A speech revised in substance is printed as delivered and then again as revised in distinctive type ³. Members may not use revisions to alter colloquies or other Members' statements ³.

How to tell spoken words from inserted words

The Speaker has instructed the Official Reporters to enforce the rule that revised material be clearly distinguishable by typeface from the verbatim account ³. In the Senate, undelivered remarks are marked with a bullet, according to the Congressional Research Service ⁴.

Extensions submitted on the day a bill is considered appear right after general debate in a different typeface. Later submissions go in Extensions of Remarks ³.

Daily edition and bound edition

Daily editions are collected, re-paginated and re-indexed into a permanent bound edition, which GovInfo holds as a separate collection ¹. So page numbers in the two editions can differ ¹.

The House, not the Speaker, may correct printing errors, meaning errors in the transcript or printing rather than a Member's factual error ³. No corrections may be submitted after the permanent edition of the volume is published ³.

Committee hearing transcripts

Committee hearings are not in the Record. GovInfo describes a hearing as a meeting or session of a Senate, House, joint or special committee, usually open to the public ⁵. GovInfo holds select hearings from the 104th Congress (1995 to 1996) onward, not every hearing, and availability depends on the committee ⁵. Hearings can be published two months to two years after they are held ⁵.