Transcription and Editing

I was recently asked to transcribe a long and rambling interview and edit out the 'unimportant bits'. I think the client was under the impression that I would be able to edit the audio as I typed it. Unfortunately this was not the case; it would have been impossible to edit the transcript from the audio. Instead I had to transcribe the audio in its entirety and then go through it on screen to edit out what I deemed to be the 'unimportant bits' (tricky).

As I offer transcription services and editing is not something that I am normally asked for, I was unsure of what I should charge for this service. However, I came across this page at the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), which sets out suggested minimum rates for freelancers. I found this page useful as a guide so I am sharing it with you.

Convert cassette tapes to digital format for transcription

I came across a really useful article on converting cassette tapes to digital media, which I thought I would share with you: http://www.andybrain.com/archive/convert-cassette-to-cd-digital.htm

As you will see from this article it is quite easy to convert cassette tapes to digital media. This principle also works with mini cassettes, micro cassettes and minidiscs providing the respective players have a headphone jack.


Converting your own analogue-to-digital could save you money if you’re sending it to a transcription services company for transcription as you may be charged more for the conversion.


An important point in the article: ‘You should record a ten-second clip at first, so you can play it back immediately in Audacity (green triangle button) and make sure your volume levels are right. If the recorded audio is too loud or has too much static, decrease the volume on your cassette player.’

If you’re sending your digital audio to a transcription services company the transcriptionist will listen to the audio through headphones which can sound different to listening on loud speaker. So if you have some headphones, have a listen through them to make sure it sounds clear.


On occasion I’ve received audio for transcription where at full volume quietly spoken words were inaudible so try to ensure that the recorded volume is adjustable for the transcriptionist, i.e. the volume can be turned up to an audible level and higher if necessary for quietly spoken words.


In the UK a male-male stereo audio cable can be purchased at electrical stores or at Amazon. Gold plated plugs give better sound quality.

What are transcription services?

I am sometimes asked what I do and what transcription services are. The simple answer to this question is I convert the spoken word from audio recordings to text.

Say for example Bob has a digital audio recording of an interview he has carried out for research purposes and he needs a typed transcript of what was said in the interview.

Bob will send the digital audio recording to me via the internet and I will load the audio recording into my transcription software (I use Express Scribe).

I will then listen to the digital audio recording through headphones using a foot pedal to control playback and type what I hear into a Word document, thus producing a typed transcript of everything that was said in the interview.

I will then send the completed transcript of the interview back to Bob as an email attachment.

To find out more about transcription services visit the website.

Transcription Services: first-come, first-served

Here at KATTS I work on a first-come, first-served basis as workload can change from minute-to-minute. Therefore projects are accepted in order of when the transcription Project Booking Form is returned.

Transcription Project Booking Forms are accepted via email attachment in Word .doc format, as PDF or by post. Obviously email attachment is the quickest method of returning the form.

For more information visit the website.

Confidential transcription services

If you are looking for confidentiality and continuity for your transcription project then KATTS can help you.

All transcription is carried out in house by Sarah King. You can therefore be assured that your transcription project will be processed in a completely confidential way and continuity will be maintained throughout.

KATTS do not outsource your transcription projects to outside agencies.

If you would like a quotation for a transcription project you can visit the website at http://www.kingaudio.co.uk/.

Hey! What did you say?

Certain transcriptions take longer to transcribe than others, this is because I have to recognise words and voices. The stronger the accent, the harder it is for me to understand.

This isn’t usually a problem because I am an experienced transcriber (30 years) and can understand people more clearly. If there is a word I can’t understand I look up what it sounds like and distinguish what it is.

It also depends on the speed the person speaks at. Sometimes faster speakers are harder to understand if they don’t speak clearly. But it’s not only that, if the audio recording isn’t very good quality or you get a lot of background noise in the recording the transcription process can be more difficult.

These are things to bear in mind if you are recording say interviews for transcription. Digital recorders are pretty good these days, but it's always wise to do a sound check with your audio equipment and listen back with headphones.

If you would like to find out more about my transcription services please visit my website at http://www.kingaudio.co.uk/

Thanks

Transcribers: what keyboard do you use?

I recently replaced my keyboard with a bog standard keyboard to use when providing transcription services. The keyboard is okay but I’m finding that it’s not ideal for the high volume transcription that I do.

So I’m interested in what keyboards other transcribers use. I know I could read product reviews on the internet, but I’m specifically interested in what other transcribers use as they will be using their keyboards for high volume transcription too.

I asked this question on Facebook and my friend, Linda Christie, who is also a freelance transcriber, recommended the Microsoft Wireless media centres, i.e. keyboard and mouse 1000 version, which I will be looking into, and James P King suggested a gaming keyboard for responsiveness.

So if any transcribers out there have other suggestions for a good keyboard or keyboards to avoid I’d love to hear from you.

UPDATE 28.2.10: Since posting this I have now purchased a new keyboard. I decided to go for a Cherry eVolution stream corded multimedia keyboard. It is an ‘ultra-flat design keyboard with plug & play performance. It has ultra-flat keys pleasing to the touch and whisper keystrokes for extremely low-noise use’.

The keyboard is ultra-flat, a bit like a laptop keyboard and certainly is low noise and very responsive. It is a pleasure to use as it has a really nice feel to it and exactly as described on the box. It is perfect for my transcription services.

This keyboard was recommended to me by web designer Max Glenister. Thanks Max.

How long does transcription take?

I'm going to talk about factors that can influence transcription turnaround times and primarily the factors that can increase the time it takes to transcribe an audio file.

The quality of a recording can have a big influence on how long a transcription will take. A noisy environment with lots of background noises can play havoc with the transcription process.

For instance I had an interview transcription that had been recorded in a fairly busy café or restaurant. The microphone picked up all the other customers, their children and the coffee machine that hissed and popped every few minutes. At first this was amusing to listen to in a ‘fly on the wall’ sort of way but it almost completely obscured the voices of the participants and soon had me losing my sanity. This added to the transcription time and to the amount of inaudible words in the final transcript.

The speed of transcription can also depend on the speakers themselves and whether they speak clearly and at an audible rate. Some people are fast speakers and this coupled with say stumbling over words can make a transcription more difficult.

A good rate of volume on a recording is important. A good quality recording with a low volume that cannot be increased can be as troublesome to a transcriber as a poor quality recording.

Bear in mind that your transcription services provider may not be familiar with the subject matter of your recording and it would therefore be very useful to give them as much information as you can about the contents of the recording, i.e. names of speakers and URLs of websites that relate to the subject matter.

If your recording contains more than two speakers who do not introduce themselves then give your transcriber the order in which they first speak so the transcriber can try to recognise the voices of the individuals.

Here’s a quick checklist to save your transcriber’s sanity and get you the best transcription turnaround:

Avoid noisy environments
Encourage your participants to speak clearly and at an audible level
Check out the quality and volume of your recording by recording a 2 minute test file and listening back through headphones
Provide ancillary information to your transcription service provider


Check out King Audio Transcription & Typing Services for more information.

Positive steps when choosing transcription services

Since my last blog I thought it would be useful to list some positive steps in choosing the right transcription services.

Like anything these days one has to be careful when choosing the right transcription services provider for your project. Searching randomly on the internet is a gamble. You could be lucky enough to find a good transcription services provider, in which case treat their details like gold dust and keep them safe OR you could end up with a sub-standard transcription.

Here are some positive steps which may help in your selection process:

Check who will be transcribing your audio
Will it go to more than one transcriber
Is the transcriber a native English speaker
Is there a sample transcript to show an example of work
Check what's included in the price – e.g. some companies charge more for verbatim transcription
Will the completed transcript be proof read against the audio for accuracy

If you find a good transcription services provider, keep the details so you can use them in the future and recommend them to your friends and colleagues.

If you work in a company share details of trusted service providers with your colleagues. Perhaps a database, resource page or a Linked in account could be used for this purpose. My Linked in account is here.

Encourage colleagues to check there first before searching randomly on the internet.

So those are just a few steps. If I can think of anything else I'll add it later. However, if you would like to discuss your transcription project with me please feel free to contact me at King Audio Transcription & Typing Services.

Choose the right transcription services and save money

I was approached by a new client this month who had used a random transcription services provider for interview transcription. He had two interviews to transcribe one of which he had already had transcribed by the provider. Fortunately for the client, the transcription service provider was unable to transcribe his second interview so he came to me at King Audio Transcription & Typing Services.

When I had completed the interview transcription and returned the transcript, the client telephoned me to say he was really pleased with the quality and speed of my transcription. He said he had only just had a chance to look at the transcript provided by the other service provider and there were whole sentences omitted from the transcript with no markers indicating this. He said overall it was of very poor quality and of little use to him with so many omissions so he asked me to transcribe that interview as well.

Unfortunately for for the client he ended up paying twice for one of his interview transcriptions, which obviously is not a good situation for anyone to be in. He could have saved money if he had come across King Audio Transcription & Typing Services in the first instance.

In my opinion the audio was clear and audible and there were no strong accents so it is difficult to understand how the other transcription company missed out so much in their transcript.

At King Audio Transcription & Typing Services the following is standard practice:

I always try to ensure that my transcriptions are as complete as possible and generally, providing the audio and speakers are clear, this can be achieved. However, I don’t want to be unrealistic here, sometimes words can be obscured by background noises for instance a cough or a laugh, so sometimes it is not possible to get every word spoken in which case a marker will be placed in the transcript at that point to indicate this.

I always research names and technical terms on the internet to ensure correct spellings where information is available online.

Quality control is ensured by carefully proof reading transcripts against the original audio.

King Audio Transcription & Typing Services offer competitive rates and all transcription is carried out by me in the UK.

You are welcome to visit the King Audio Transcription & Typing Services website and email or call me for a no obligation quotation. You can also follow me on Twitter at KATTS03.

Interview transcription example

Today I have transcribed an interview that I saw on a CNBC video at The New York Times to give an example of my interview transcription. If you click the link you will be given the option to open or save the transcript, which is in Word 2000 format.

I hope this goes some way to demonstrate the quality of KATTS’ interview transcription. I chose an interview in the public domain as an example as all interview transcription carried out by KATTS is treated with confidentiality.

KATTS offers a range of interview transcription services including:

One-to-one interviews
Multi-speaker interviews
Telephone interviews
Oral history interviews
Research interviews
Television and radio interviews
Recorded conversations

All interview transcription is carried out by me, Sarah King, in the United Kingdom. I ensure that each interview transcript is proof read carefully against the original audio. This is included in the quoted price and not added on as an extra charge.

KATTS offers flexible interview transcription. Speakers can be identified by name or initials or simply I = interviewer and P = participant. An interview template can be supplied by KATTS or alternatively the client can supply their own template for use in the interview transcription.

Interviews can be transcribed verbatim including every utterance like ‘umm’ and ‘err’ at no extra charge. Alternatively these utterances can be omitted from the interview transcript.

For more information about interview transcription visit KATTS’ interview transcription page.

New transcription services website

Towards the end of last year I was busily working on my website at King Audio Transcription & Typing Services and spent hours and hours coding. I’m really pleased with the results. I prefer sites with a clean interface and that’s what I’ve gone for with the KATTS website.

There are now several new pages on the website covering:

Interview transcription
Conference transcription
University transcription
Legal transcription
Focus group transcription

There are also pages covering:

Verbatim transcription
Minutes transcription
Dictation transcription
What’s included in the price
How to procure transcription services

Transcription Services SEO

Over the past couple of months I have been working very hard on search engine optimisation (SEO) for my transcription services website at King Audio Transcription & Typing Services. I had previously been on page 1 results in Google for some of my keywords, however, my site had slowly gone down the list over a period of time.

This could be due to a number of factors including lots of new transcription services businesses starting up and a number of sites copy and pasting content from my site. Google doesn’t like duplicate content and so it doesn’t help anyone if sites do this.

It now looks as if my hard work has paid off because King Audio Transcription & Typing Services is now showing up on first page results again in Google for all of my favoured keywords. I am so happy to have had such good results.

Transcription services provider - add to resources

It is amazing how many organisations use internet search rather than tried, tested and trusted service providers. It could be that other people in the organisation are not aware of these service providers that their colleagues have used because there is no central resource to share this information.

A simple database or resource page could be used and shared very easily. This resource could save you time and money.

If your organisation does not have a service provider database or a resource page then it is never too late and King Audio Transcription & Typing Services has no objection to being the first on the list.

4 December Last Royal Mail Airmail posting date to...

4th December is the last Royal Mail Airmail posting date to send things to South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Far East (except Japan), Asia, New Zealand and Australia.

How to choose a transcription services provider

I had a call from a gentleman a couple of months ago. He had been using a UK transcription services provider for interview transcription. He said the transcripts were so poor that he had to redo them himself. The UK company he had contracted had not offered to put the transcripts right when he complained and they were pushing him to pay their invoice. He said they were 'hounding him' and using 'mafia like pressure' to make him pay. This account reflects the gentleman’s point of view and if his account is accurate I think this is quite a shocking story.


I had a call today from a company who had been using an offshore transcription services provider. Unfortunately the transcription services provider had let them down and not finished the project. They were therefore trying to find a UK transcription services provider to complete the project in a hurry.

It must be very difficult to choose a transcription services provider as there are so many to choose from and you never really know what kind of job you’re going to get. It’s great if you are recommended to a transcription services provider by someone with experience of that company but that’s not always possible.

Some tips:

• Try to use a transcription service provider who has been recommended to you by someone who has used them.

If that is not possible:

• Check that the transcription services provider only uses transcribers whose mother tongue is English.
• Check yourself that your audio is clear and audible. If the audio quality is not good this may be reflected in your transcripts and may incur extra costs.

However, to avoid all this why not come to King Audio Transcription & Typing Services. I obviously would highly recommend it!