Record on Appeal
Also known as: The Record
Everything the appellate court is actually allowed to consider: transcripts, evidence, rulings, and filings from the trial court proceeding.
The record on appeal is the official collection of what happened in the lower court, transcripts, admitted evidence, motions, and rulings, that the appellate court reviews. An appellate court generally cannot consider anything outside this record. If an objection was never made, or an argument never raised, at the trial level, an appellate lawyer cannot introduce it for the first time on appeal.
This is why appellate strategy sometimes starts before there's an appeal: what makes it into the record during trial determines what an appellate court can ever review later. FloridaOnAppeal.com's guide to preserving issues for appeal walks through the trial-level habits that build a usable record.