There are different categories of transcription: business, legal, medical and general transcription. As the name suggests, it is broadly based and isn’t specified to a particular branch.
Unlike medical and legal transcription where you need to familiarize yourself with the lingo of the particular field, general transcription (GT) is mainly about things in the day to day existence. An example of subjects covered in GT are voicemails, meetings, interviews, podcasts, radio and TV shows, focus groups discussions etc., again, very general.
Why transcribe?
Different people require transcription for different reasons. Top on the list is that people consume information differently. There are people who consume better when they listen to the audio. Others need to flip through papers physically, highlighting important segments and even filing them away for future reference.
Transcribing is also a way to repurpose content. For example, if someone has a podcast on a topic like How To Lose Weight on Intermittent Fasting, that same podcast can be transcribed and be repurposed into an eBook in the PDF format.
Transcribing doesn’t have to be a hair-pulling kind of experience. Check out these available resources to help make the transcription experience a fun one.
What do you need?
You will need to have great listening skills and great typing speed. Both these skills can be learned and perfected over time. You can harness your listening skills by exposing yourself to a range of materials like podcasts, TV shows, earnings calls and testing your ability to follow through on those conversations. What I’ve found working for me, over the years, is closing my eyes.
It is true that when some senses are limited, others are enhanced. When I close my eyes, I’m able to focus better on what I’m listening to. But of course, I don’t close my eyes the entire time, just when a word seems to escape me. Invest in some noise-canceling headphones to get the maximum output of the speech. Low quality headphones will not only hurt your ears, you will spend more time playing a word over and over, trying to capture it above the surrounding noise.
The best way to get things done is to simply begin
~Charlene Adams
Typing Resources
Typing as a skill can also be learned. There are various free platforms where one can practice. These include:
They will indicate both your speed and your quality. They will also teach you the finger placement on the keyboard. As you continue to practice you improve both in speed and quality. Speed helps with quick delivery of your work and quality ensures you don’t have to spend too much time going over the transcript.
Rules of transcription
Delivery
Different companies have different needs when outsourcing transcription. Some companies want the transcript word for word (including the false starts, slang, stutters and unnecessary repetition of words e.g. like, you know, etc). This is referred to as verbatim transcription. Others require non-verbatim which means intelligible transcription. In such a case, you need to make sense of what is being said and report it as it was intended, cleaned up.
Unclear/Unintelligible words
This will also vary from client to client. If the words is unclear, should you type it out phonetically (sounding it out) or should you highlight it with a different color or should you both highlight and time-stamp (indicating the point in the audio where the word was said) for example [difficultword 01:23:34]. That way when the client is proofreading it, they can go straight to the point in the audio/video where you faced difficulty.
Language
Different regions have different ways of spelling words, the common examples being color/colour, labor/labour, favorite/favourite, center/centre, fiber/fiber. You need to pay attention what region the client is from so that the transcript makes sense for them. To do this, you can change the settings in your word processor’s spell checking tool and choose the language suited to that region.
Grammar Rules
Homonyms
These are words that sound the same but mean totally different things. Examples are lone/loan, know/gnaw, though/thaw, write/right. Pay attention to such words and be guided by the context of the audio. Remember, these are correctly spelt so they will escape the spell-checker so you should be very keen.
Proper nouns
These are names of places, people, organizations. Unlike common nouns, these are specific and unique and should always be capitalized, no matter where they appear in a sentence. An example is: her new neighbor is called Jane. They lived in Wisconsin.
They went fishing at Lake Cobbosseecontee. (I learned about this one recently and couldn’t resist using it here, hehehe). You can always cross-check such words using Google. If you are able to capture the pronunciation it won’t be difficult to find it on Google. It helps if you include the geographical context. Like in my case with Cobbosseecontee, the speaker had also mentioned Winthrop, Maine so it made the searching easier.
If it’s important you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse
Ryan Blair
Formatting
How do you label the speakers? Do you tag them as Male 1, Male 2, Female 1? Do you tag them as Participant 1, Participant 2, Moderator? Again, it depends on the instructions from the client. In some cases, they will require that you capture the participants individually, every time they speak. This is where your listening skills will come in handy because as you get into it, you should be able to tell their voices apart.
Transcribing numbers
Do you write them out in words or numerals? While this will also vary from client to client, the basic rule of thumb is that one to nine are written out in words and double digits are typed as numerals. Currency signs should be typed out as symbols to make it easier to read financial reports. So there you have it, the what, where and how of General Transcription. Get plugged in today and start to grow your business.