The Transcription Place

Why Do You Need a Transcript for Your Podcasts and Other audios?

 Podcasts were initially used to allow people to distribute their own content or radio style shows to a wider audience. The clarity of a podcast digital recording has been ideal for a variety of media, such as interviews, teleconferences, lectures/speakers, oral history interviews, writers, radio broadcasts and more.

So why do you need a transcript if you have the audio?

1. A quality audio supported by a transcript will always generate more interest and a bigger audience than an audio on its own.

 2.  If someone is hearing impaired, their only option may be to read a transcript. A transcript can do for the hearing impaired, what books on tape do for the visually impaired.

 3.  Reading a transcript can also be helpful if voices on the audio are hard to understand. Having a back-up transcript can be helpful in such circumstances so they may be able to clarify any bits they did not hear clearly the first time around.

 4. Some people prefer to read content because it is quicker for them rather than listening to an audio file.

 5.  Some people may only want to listen to a small section at a time and without a transcript they would have to listen to the whole recording or spool back and forth in order to try to find the relevant part.

 6. Transcripts can be tweaked to ensure the search engines can find you by adding relevant hyperlinks and keywords.

 7. By providing all options for your audience, they will remember which audios are more user friendly than others.

Provide your audience with choices; they will thank you for it!

Next: How Can Speakers benefit by having a transcript?

Who Will Benefit by Hiring a Professional Transcriptionist?

There are many people who will receive  benefits of turning their recorded audios into professionally transcribed manuscripts. To name a few:

 1. Podcasters

 2. Speakers

 3. Interviewers

 4. Writers

5. Coaches/Consultants

6. Teleseminar Leaders

 7. To put on your website

Anyone who would like a print version of their audio product!!

So be creative and add your own ideas to this list.

Next: Why do you need a transcript of your Pod casts and other audios?

What Does a Professional Transcriptionist Do?

 Whenever anyone asks me that age old question, what do you do, I say “I am a Professional Transcriptionist. Their first comment is, “Oh so you do medical transcription.” This is the first and sometimes the only thing that comes to anyone’s mind when you say transcription. I have to admit, I felt the same way at one time.

After I retired from the 9 to 5 corporate world I thought I would like to be my own boss and start my own business. I thought the obvious thing for me to do would be to provide transcription services from my home.

 I did some research and discovered that of course medical transcription was not the only field for transcription, there was general transcription. This opened up unlimited possibilities so I decided this would be my niche. As I connected with people my business started to grow and I soon found out just how many people were in need of a transcriptionist to get their valuable messages out to the world.

 The art of high quality transcription is comprehension, not just putting words on paper, but putting the right words on paper. I do more than just type the words. I am deeply interested in whatever it is I am transcribing. There is a creative, collaborative give and take between my clients and me that seems to be of benefit to both of us, beyond the action of me just transcribing their audio recordings. I do enjoy what I do!

 There are so many wonderful rewards that come with my business. First of all, I have made a connection with so many extraordinary people, most of whom I have never actually met face to face. The range of topics that I have been privileged to transcribe cover many areas; from informational to inspirational, and everything in between.  From interviews of people in the far off islands in the pacific, to radio personalities; from NASSA software engineers to global warming; from history to astronomy, from spirituality to human interest stories; and many more. Is it any wonder I love what I do?

Next: Who Will Benefit from Hiring a Professional Transcriptionist

Why Hire a Professional Transcriptionist to Convert Your Audios to Typed Text?

Not too long ago someone mentioned to me that she uses a voice recognition software program for converting her audios into typed text. That certainly is a legitimate question – why should someone hire me if they can buy the software.

Since I have never worked with this kind of software, I thought about it and I came up with the following questions that I had to ask myself.

• With audio recordings of interviews, groups, or live teleseminars and so forth, how does the software distinguish between multiple speakers? How does it know to punctuate and break the text into paragraphs appropriately?

• When people just speak naturally, their speech is filled with tons of ‘ahs’ and ‘umms’ and you know’s’ and so forth. Does the software know to filter those out when appropriate? People also string multiple sentences together with ‘and’, forever! Does the software know when to break the sentences apart?

• How about when the quality of the audio recording is not top-notch, such as when there is background noise or people speaking on top of each other…how does the software handle that?

• Even when there is only a single speaker, if they do not dictate punctuation, paragraphs, etc., does the software take care of that?

If the software does not handle these issues well, how much work is involved in cleaning up the text?

Then too, I do more than just type the ‘words’, I am deeply interested in whatever it is I am transcribing. There is a creative, collaborative give and take between my clients and me that seems to be of benefit to both of us, beyond the action of me ‘just’ transcribing their audio recordings. I do enjoy what I do!

I have a valuable, worthwhile service to offer my clients. I am very proud of my skills and my dedication in assisting my clients to creatively contribute their valuable knowledge and experience to the world.

Video Transcription – the Wave of the Future

What determines the length of time it takes to transcribe an audio?

• The quality of the recording – This can be affected as much by the recording equipment itself as by background noise which obscures the words or the recording volume.

• The type of microphone being used.

• The number of people speaking.

• The speed at which they are talking. This may sound odd but if someone is a fast talker, it will take longer to transcribe what they are saying than someone who speaks more slowly. For example, take two audios – both one hour in length. The first interviewee talks slowly, ‘normally’ the resulting transcription is perhaps 10,000 words long. The second interviewee talks at ‘machine gun’ speed and the transcript totals 16,000 words. Same length of audio – completely different results. A fast talker = more words. More words = more to type = more time taken = more time charged.

• Whether they speak in coherent sentences. Everyday speech is usually littered with ‘ums’ and ‘you knows’. People switch thought in mid-sentence or don’t speak in coherent sentences at all. In such situations, the transcriber must go back and work out where to insert the punctuation so as not to lose the thread of the whole piece. The more coherent speakers are, the less time it takes to transcribe their words. The transcriber can ‘type as they talk’ and rarely needs to go back and puzzle out the meaning.

• Whether there are any regional accents. Wherever a recording is made in the world, if the speaker has an accent which is difficult to decipher, this will adversely affect the time it takes to transcribe a recording.

• The amount of technical and specialized terminology involved. Material which is full of technical, financial, computer or specialized terminology which may be unfamiliar to the transcriptionist will increase the amount of time required to transcribe an audio. It may be necessary to re-listen to words, sentences or even whole sections several times in order to distinguish the words. In such circumstances, it helps enormously if a glossary can be provided in advance by the client or if words can be spelled out at the time by the person speaking.

It is in the interests of both the transcriber and the client to deal with recordings of the highest possible quality. A poor quality recording will result in a high number of ‘inaudibles’ and take longer to transcribe.

Good, clear recordings result in highly accurate transcripts. The less time it takes to transcribe your material, the lower your final cost will be.

Next: Why Hire a Professional Transcriptionist to Convert Your Audios Into Typed Text

Why is transcriptiion more complicated than just typing what you hear?

When a transcriptionist types it is not just a matter of putting down the words verbatim. It is about:

• Typing the right words.

• Inserting the appropriate punctuation and conveying the sense of the text as a whole.

• It is listening to what is being said.

• It is understanding that the flow of the words is important and that the wrong punctuation can completely alter the meaning of a sentence.

At The Transcription Place , we make every effort to render a transcript intelligible. We will not type any gibberish but neither will we make up dialogue to fill gaps. We type exactly what we hear and no more, while keeping in mind the four statments stated above.

I am deeply interested in what it is I am transcribing and believe that I have a valuable, worthwhile service to offer my clients. I am very proud of my skills and my dedication to each and every client I serve.

Next What Determines the length of time it takes to transcribe an audio?

What is General Transcription?

The art of high quality transcription is comprehension, not just putting words on paper, but putting the right words on paper. I do more than just type the words. I am deeply interested in whatever it is I am transcribing. There is a creative, collaborative give and take between my clients and me that seems to be of benefit to both of us, beyond the action of me just transcribing their audio recordings.  I do enjoy what I do.

There are so many wonderful rewards that come with my business. First of all I meet so many extraordinary people. The topics that I have been privileged to transcribe cover many areas:

• From informational to inspirational and everything in between.
• From interviews of people in far off islands in the pacific, to radio personalities.
• From NASA software engineers to global warming.
• From history to astronomy.
• From spirituality to human interest stories; and many more.

Is it any wonder I love what I do!

Some examples of transcription works that fall under the general transcription cagegory are:

• Interviews – Students, writers, researchers, and broadcasters are always conducting and recording interviews.
• PhD Candidates – have interviews transcribed for their dissertation or thesis.
• Podcasts - Many pod casters want their podcasts transcribed in order to post them on their website and send out to newsletter subscribers.
• Speakers - Convert recordings of your speeches into material for a book or an e-book to help establish your reputaiton as a credible expert in your field. Also a certain percentage of your audience my have hearing challenges and not be able to understand you  clearly, give them a transcript of your speech.
• Talk Radio  Shows – Talk radio show hosts have their talk shows transcribed for delivery through email, and post them on their websites.
• Writers – Free up your time to make your  fiction or non-fiction book a success. Do you want more time to come up with new ideas? Dictate your thoughts and have them transcribed as notes or a detailed outline. Dictate your first draft and have  it transcribed into a text file, then work with it on your computer.

Be creative and add your own ideas to this list!

Transcription isn’t the most glamorous job in the world but I love it. I’ve met people from many walks of life and I’ve learned so much while transcribing interviews with Shirley Maclaine, Mabel Katz or research projects at Harvard.

Anyone who needs an audio turned into print can benefit. Specifically those that have been clients have been:

1. Speakers
2. Internet Marketers
3. Workshop Facilitators
4. Coaches/Consultants
5. Teachers
6. Writers
7. Interviewers
8. Radio Personalities
9. Teleseminar Leaders
10. Focus Groups
11. Podcasters