Transcription Process for Freshers and Experienced Alike

The Transcription Process

Transcribe the audio using transcription software.

1. Express Scribe: http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html
2. Transcriber: http://trans.sourceforge.net/en/presentation.php
3. f4: http://www.audiotranskription.de/english/f4.htm
4. inqScribe: http://www.inqscribe.com/download.html

FIRST RUN [getting started]

The first thing that I always do is listen to the audio, at least, once and get a feel for the context and subject that is being spoken and/or talked about and do research about the terms that you come across. So, when you’re transcribing the audio, you know the terms and know what is going on rather than just jumping in blindfolded.

Always, keep and maintain a text file of terms that you encountered when listening to the audio. It would be good that you did the research and kept the correct spellings and terminology to help you out during the actual transcription process.

SECOND RUN [the actual]

Transcribe what you hear as fast as possible, without going back to hear if it is right or is accurate. Use abbreviations as much as possible and don't dwell on the correct spellings at all, especially of proper nouns (names of people and places). Mark speakers separately using numerical denominations unless you know the spelling (M1, F2, Male 1, Female 1, Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and the like, you get the drift, right?). If obvious, put in punctuation, but don't dwell on it at all. This is the most time-intensive run, so the key here is no to do anything but put down rough text unless the time it takes to do additional stuff is negligible.

Time taken for this process should be in the neighborhood of 50-60 minutes, but it greatly varies with audio quality, speaker enunciation and recognition of dialect/accent, crude typing speed, getting used to specific words, and using more abbreviations.

THIRD RUN [the review]

Go over the transcribed segment with the audio again, correcting proper nouns (names of people and places, format according to the template or what has been given by the client) with their proper spellings, punctuation, and first time phonetics and inaudible segments. Don't stop for spelling errors of non-proper nouns. Put in the correct speaker names (format according to the template or what has been given by the client, not first-time usage) using the software.

Time taken for this process should be in the neighborhood of 25-35 minutes, but it greatly varies with audio quality, speaker enunciation and recognition of dialect/accent, transcriber's knowledge of the subject.

FOURTH RUN [running errands]

No audio usage. This process is used at the end of the process when you have gone through the transcribed text and have finalized the transcript. Replace the abbreviations with full-form content (Use a macro will greatly fasten this process and will help in quickly doing the usual ones all at once). Proper case should be automatically done. Spell check the document before sending it off to the client or the end person (Time and again I cannot stress how important this is). Put in first time speaker references.

Time taken for this process should be in the neighborhood of 5-10 minutes, but it greatly varies with varies with the amount of speakers in the file.

[NOTE: The article "Transcription Process for Freshers and Experienced Alike" first appeared on the Transcription, Online Presence, Articles, eBooks, and What Not... blog.]

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