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A transcript is the written reproduction of dialogue and extraneous sounds captured in a recorded interview and should accurately reflect the words, grammar and speech patterns of the interviewee, providing as authentic an account as possible.
Interview transcripts normally fall into one of two categories:
Verbatim - a literal rendition, with every utterance transcribed.
Intelligent Verbatim - allows a degree of latitude and judgement.
I provide an Intelligent Verbatim transcript within a consistent style and format as standard, unless otherwise instructed.
Page Layout
The standard layout will be one inch margins all round, single spaced, 12 point Arial font.
Speaker Identification
Unless you wish the respondents to be personally identified, the following will apply:
· Where there are two speakers, an interviewer and interviewee, the interviewer’s questions/comments will be in bold and the interviewee’s responses will be in normal text.
· Where there is more than one interviewee, the interviewer’s questions/comments will be in bold and the interviewees’ responses will be in normal text prefixed with ‘Interviewee 1,’ ‘Interviewee 2,’ etc.
· For group discussions, where multiple speakers are present, the interviewer/moderator’s questions/comments will be in bold and the participants’ responses will be in normal text prefixed with ‘Speaker 1,’ ‘Speaker 2,’ etc.
Style Guide
· Interruptions to the flow of responses with feedback from the interviewer (yeah, uh-huh, sure) will be omitted unless it is a definite response to a point being made by the interviewee.
· Words or phrases of interjection (yeah? see? you know?) will be kept to a minimum.
· Words or syllables used to interrupt, foreshorten or end responses will only be included if they convey meaning (Agreement: uh-huh; Disagreement: uh-uh).
· False starts will be retained if repetition is used for emphasis or is reflective of individual speech patterns. Stuttering and stammering will not be included unless it is intentional.
· Dashes (-) will be used to indicate a parenthetic statement.
· Ellipses (…) will be used to indicate an interruption by another speaker, a resumption after an interruption, a change of course midstream or where a speaker trails off resulting in an incomplete sentence.
· Contractions such as it’s (it is; it has), words commonly pronounced together in spoken English such as gonna (going to), wanna (want to), kinda (kind of) and words of informal language such as yeah (yes) are in the dictionary and will be transcribed as heard in the recording to more accurately reflect the dialogue.
· Grammatical errors that occur as a result of the speaker changing course midstream will be retained, although accidental singular/plural subject/verb disagreements will be rectified.
· Nonverbal sounds and interruptions that occur in the recording, especially if they intrude significantly and provoke a response from those present, will be noted and enclosed in square brackets, such as [laughter], [telephone rings].
· New paragraphs will be used wherever topics change, where other dialogue is introduced and to make for easier reading.
· In general, numbers from zero to ten will be written as words and 11 onwards in figures - except when a sentence begins with a number, the numbers need to stand out for quick comprehension (statistics, money, time, measurements, ages, etc.) or a paragraph lists several numbers relating to the same topic such as (10 to 100 not ten to 100).
Indecipherable Sections
While I endeavour to transcribe everything and research terminology, spellings and names with which I may not be familiar, there are times when dialogue is indecipherable.
In such instances I indicate these as [inaudible] and time code the transcript in order for you to easily navigate to the point in the recording and verify what was said.
Should it transpire that your recording is of lesser quality than expected, I will contact you at the earliest opportunity to discuss the matter.
If your recording contains technical terms or unique names, providing me with a list of these beforehand can prove very beneficial.
Proofreading
All transcripts are proofread upon completion. |
