Help with creating (and proofreading) transcripts of SOTT Talk Radio shows
- Thread starter herondancer
- Start date
These transcriptions are super but in one or two of them I've had to remove tonnes of "mm-hms", "ehms", "yeahs" and "uhms"! Unless somebody says 'yeah' or similar in response to a direct question, then that level of super-detailed transcribing actually confuses, rather than clarifies, readers' ability to understand what's being said. If we transcribe literally, people who are hard of hearing and rely on the transcript won't understand what's going on. As part of doing that, transcribers have license to 'put words in our mouths' to clarify points.
What you could do is read back to yourself what you've just transcribed, then ask yourself: "Ok, now does that make sense in writing?" If not, change the transcript to make it grammatically correct and/or remove things that are redundant to the point being made. You don't have to go overboard with rewriting stuff either. It's more about leaving out superfluous stuff. A classic example is when someone starts to say something, then quickly restarts their point. Those first few words don't need to be transcribed.
Example:
Harrison, in the Information Theory show, said at one point: "The philosopher Alfred Whitehead, he had, he said something interesting..." --> Just delete the part prior to the point where he reformulated what he was going to say: "The philosopher Alfred Whitehead, he had, he said something interesting..." So now it looks like this: "The philosopher Alfred Whitehead said something interesting..."
The transcripts are lots of work and very long already - we can afford to cut corners and save our own time, and listeners/readers' time!
Thanks all,
Niall
What you could do is read back to yourself what you've just transcribed, then ask yourself: "Ok, now does that make sense in writing?" If not, change the transcript to make it grammatically correct and/or remove things that are redundant to the point being made. You don't have to go overboard with rewriting stuff either. It's more about leaving out superfluous stuff. A classic example is when someone starts to say something, then quickly restarts their point. Those first few words don't need to be transcribed.
Example:
Harrison, in the Information Theory show, said at one point: "The philosopher Alfred Whitehead, he had, he said something interesting..." --> Just delete the part prior to the point where he reformulated what he was going to say: "The philosopher Alfred Whitehead
The transcripts are lots of work and very long already - we can afford to cut corners and save our own time, and listeners/readers' time!
Thanks all,
Niall
Thank you for the guidance Niall. I have a question. When I transcribe I set the Word style to double space to avoid extra paragraph markers. I’ve been wondering if this translates when published or if I am creating more work for the editors. If it works better to set the spacing to single space with the extra return, I will be happy to change the formatting in Word.
Anam Cara said:
Some people use Express Scribe. I use the free program Audacity. It allows you to speed up or slow down the recording and gives fine control of the playback simply by zooming in on the recording.
edgitarra
Jedi Council Member
I will soon would like to participate at transcribing Sott talks. Until then I can recommend for a faster work, if it is possible to download the radio show, put it as an audio format in an audio editing software and slow down the tempo. As the voices go along slowly(but not too slow), one can type in the same time without problems. So it transforms in a 3-4 hours job without the necesity of pausing constantly the sound and typing. I did it recently when I had to transcribe an interview and it works smoothly!
