When you get your transcript back, there are a few tips that can make your final edit more useful and productive:
- If you search (control+F) for “[“ within the document, you will find all instances of my notes and tags. All inaudible tags will have a timestamp associated with it, so you can move to that section in the audio file and listen to it yourself.
- I use research to resolve spelling and terminology issues, but sometimes I just can’t hear something. In those cases, I will use the tags. These are some of the tags I use most often:
- [unintelligible 00:01:23] for sections I could not transcribe
- [foreign language 00:01:23] for sections spoken in a language that is not English
- [crosstalk 00:01:23] for sections that I could not transcribe due to two or more people speaking at once.
- [music 00:01:23] for sections of music. I do not transcribe the lyrics of songs into the transcript.
- [phonetic 00:01:23] I may need to guess the spelling of a word or name. When I do, the first instance will be tagged like this:
[Emile Arbour 00:01:23]
In every subsequent use, I will spell it the same way with no tag (Just “Emile Arbour”) so you can do a search and replace to replace all instances with the correct spelling if my guess was not correct.
- I may use other tags too, so always do a final pass searching for “[“ to find all of them.
- Unless specifically requested, I use “standard verbatim,” (sometimes called “regular verbatim” or “clean verbatim”) which means I leave out “uh,” “um,” other filler words, and stuttering. I also do some very light editing to enhance the readability of a transcript, such as eliminating “false starts”. A false start is where someone starts out saying one thing, then changes to another. For example:
“I want to — the best thing to do would be…” would be transcribed as:
“The best thing to do would be…”
- If you request it, I can also do “strict verbatim,” where I set down every utterance as it is spoken. Strict verbatim is most useful in police interviews, courtroom settings and the like. In most other cases, you will probably find standard verbatim to be far more useful and readable.