How To Transcribe An Interview

Outsourcing To A Transcription Agency

If the recording is in a language you dont understand, or if you dont have time to do the transcription yourself, then outsourcing to a transcription agency is a good idea.

All you have to do is send them your recording with detailed instructions and they will return a neatly formatted and time-coded transcript to you in a fairly short period of time.

Why Do I Believe An Ai

It is because you can listen and read simultaneously when you are editing the text so this improves your familiarity with the subject. At least that is how I feel. It must have something to do with how my brain functions.

Besides, you can highlight or take notes of those important points only to listen to them later. While saying this, I acknowledge that other individuals might still prefer transcribing manually, partly due to their habits.

If your recording has a good audio quality, transcribing it with an automated transcription software will be the fastest way to get the job done because you can start working on the transcript in just a few minutes. More importantly, the accuracy of the transcription will be quite high so you can be done with editing the text so much faster compared to doing it yourself.

You can save up to 4 hours per a 60-minute video so you can use that time for other important things in your life.

To give you a real-life example, this is how 100 researchers part of the SolPan+ Project coordinated by the University of Vienna, managed to transcribe 500+ hours of interviews across 15 countries in South America by utilising Scrintal.

Assuming approx. 2 hours were saved per interview, using such an automated transcription tool as Scrintal pushed their research project forward by +1000 hours – almost 1.5 months.

To Transcribe A Digital Audio Interview

If youre recording interviews for oral history or qualitative research, you probably need to transcribe. Students should discuss with their faculty supervisor if they need to transcribe an entire interview, or only selected portions that are highly relevant to their research question. Budget time for transcribing. Im relatively fast, but one hour of interview still takes me at least four hours to transcribe , and beginning students sometimes require more time .

To date, I have not found any digital tools that automatically transcribe BOTH sides of an interview with a sufficiently high accuracy level. If I find an affordable tool that works, Ill update this post.

To transcribe interviews, set up a system where you can efficiently start/stop/replay a digital audio using computer keyboard commands. I recommend that you download a free version of InqScribe , and drag your audio recording into the window. The free version allows users to control the playback and type a transcript, BUT NOT to save files in InqScribe format. However, users may Edit > Select All to paste and save their work in a word processor . To unlock InqScribe features, request a 14-day trial license or purchase a permanent license . Tips to efficiently transcribe a recording with InqScribe playback controls :

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Use Reliable Recording Equipment

While every smartphone has a voice notes feature, it isnt always the best at capturing an interview. Audio transcription software or digital recorders are a better bet. Be sure to place the recorder strategically for in-person interviews, at an intermediate length between the interviewer and interviewee. Also, using an external microphone, choosing a quiet place to conduct the interview, and doing your best to make sure that only one person is talking at a time will make the final recording far clearer.

Improve Your Language And Accent Comprehension

If your interview participants are from around the world with different accents, and youre having trouble understanding any of them, itd be a good idea to do a quick search on YouTube.

There are lots of accent and dialect coaches who will make it very easy for you to understand difficult accents or fast speakers.

One such example is:

If youre looking at interview transcription as a career, and youre not a native English speaker, do not be discouraged.

Simply by watching movies and series from different parts of the world with subtitles, like for ex. on Netflix, can help you to get used to different accents in a short period of time.

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The Best Way To Transcribe An Interview Without Having To Do Shit Or Pay

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Már tries to juggle his editorial duties with writing the occasional weird article. He also loves talking about himself in the third person. Már tries to juggle his editorial duties with writing the occasional weird article. He also loves talking about himself in the third person.

Welcome toTNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff.

Transcribing interviews is a pain, theres no doubt about it. Listening back to the conversation, it becomes painfully obvious how often people sniff, how incoherent their sentences are, and how awful your own voice sounds. Add on top of that hours of manually transcribing each word and youve got yourself a hellish day. Luckily, were here to help.

First up, what do we want from a transcribing experience? Accuracy is important, it has to be easy to use, and it doesnt hurt if its free.

Being a writer, Im always on the prowl for an easy solution to transcribe interviews. Ive tried dozens of free apps and trials, but the one that really stands out for English is Otter.ai. Dont worry though, Ill also delve into a non-English solution further down.

Ensure Youve Got The Right Tools In Place For The Transcription Job

Transcribing an interview is a lot easier if youve got the right equipment. For instance, a decent set of headphones, a solid keyboard, and a clear, easy-to-understand audio. The audio quality might not be something you can directly affect. However, if you have the opportunity to influence the audio speakers beforehand, try urging them to use a reputable voice recorder, to record in a quiet room, and to ensure everyone speaks as clearly as possible .

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How To Transcribe An Interview For Dissertation Part 1

t is a truism to note that all transcription is in some sense interpretation

In summary, here is how you transcribe your research interviews.

In this first post of a 2 part series on how to transcribe an interview for dissertation, Ill start with a brief overview of the thesis transcription process. Then discuss 3 ways to transcribe your research interviews. And finally make a few remarks on accuracy of the transcripts and audio quality.

Think About The Level Of Detail That Will Best Serve Your Transcription Needs

If you purchase a professional transcription, the first question you will have to answer is about the level of detail you require. Naming conventions within the industry are not standard. However, transcription broadly fall into three categories full-verbatim, verbatim and other.

Full verbatim: These transcripts capture every sound. That includes false starts, repetitions, ums, ahs, interruptions and more. They might even include annotations on pauses, tone and laughter. This kind of detail is a lot harder and more time-consuming to capture. Under most circumstances, it is overkill, but if it is necessary, make sure you capture that information from the start.

Verbatim: Often called intelligent verbatim or clean verbatim, these transcripts are edited for readability. The false starts and ums captured in a full-verbatim transcript are omitted. This is often considered the industry standard, and is most likely the kind of transcript you will get from a transcription service firm if you dont otherwise specify. Likely, it is this level of detail you will want to emulate when producing your own transcript.

Knowing these different options provided within the industry can give you a number of goal posts to aim for. If you intimately know the recording, and the reason for which you will be using your transcript, you can adopt your level of detail depending on the subject matter. Think about these things beforehand so that you can direct your efforts more efficiently.

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Note Critical Points In The Conversation

During the conversation, get in the habit of time stamping, or noting where in the recording critical points are being made. Unless you are writing a full transcript of the conversation, or a Q& A piece, often you only need a few points. Noting where in the interview these moments occurred will allow you to quickly access that information.

Most transcription software will do this automatically. However, if you are transcribing an interview manually, you might jot down the time during the recording that important information appears.

Now Youre Ready To Start Transcribing

We hope this guide helped you start on the path to doing your own transcription! Although the process can be tedious and time-consuming, it is possible for you to create an interview transcript.

Remember, when transcribing, try not to do it all at once. Give yourself regular breaks or it will take longer as youll be struggling to concentrate. Dont feel disheartened if you think its taking longer than you anticipated its all about patience.

However, many people do underestimate the giant task of transcription so if you feel that the transcription process is too tricky and takes too long, there are alternatives. You can hire professional transcription services to create your transcripts accurately and quickly. Many even have turnaround times of 24 hours! Leaving it to the professionals will help you save time and energy, and you can feel secure in the knowledge that youll get a high-quality and accurate transcript.

To find out more about the transcription services you can use to save yourself the hassle of transcribing hours of audio yourself, read our Ultimate Guide to Transcription Services which will tell you everything you need to know.

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How To Transcribe Interviews

Transcribing an interview can be tedious, especially if you were to do it the old-fashioned way, by listening and typing it all into a word document of sorts.

Luckily things have come a long way, and now there are online transcription companies like Crowdscriber.

Crowdscriber is one of the best transcription software resources because it gives you two options to transcribe an interview.

Choose A Transcription Method

Transcriptionists who prefer not to manually convert the audio interview to text can use an automated transcription service such as Sonix.

You can also outsource the job to an experienced freelancer .

The method for transcribing an interview depends on the complexity of the audio file, the required level of transcription accuracy, project deadline, and confidentiality standards. Those who need a quick turnaround should use an online service or freelancer who can competently expedite the job.

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How To Record Interviews For Best Results

With social distancing rules in place , the above picture is probably a true representation of how you will be recording interviews in 2020.

Lets be honest, if youve recorded your interview with tons of background noise or other disturbances, it will make interview transcription that much more difficult.

Below are a couple of reasons why:

• You will spend more time and effort transcribing bad quality audio.
• If you hire a freelance transcriber, they may make mistakes which youll have to correct later.
• A transcription services company may charge you extra for difficult audio.
• Difficult audio can lead to inaccuracies in data, which will affect your outcome.
• You may have to waste time recording the interview again if its really bad.

To avoid the above from happening, weve created a couple of helpful, in-depth guides like:

If you cant be bothered to read all of those guides, below are some brief steps:

How To Transcribe An Interview With Voice Record Pro

To get started, simply open the Voice Record Pro app and hit record. If youre only interested in recording an interview or conversation for notes, thats all youll need. If this is a podcast or radio production project, you may want to connect a more professional microphone to your iPhone or Android smartphone. If the project is video based, you can simultaneously record the interview on your smartphone, playback the interview afterward to record on your phone in real time or Voice Record Pro offers an array of import options.

Next, go to the list of all your recordings and select the file you would like to transcribe. Along with the option to playback the audio, youll see options to send the audio file by email, sms or even via FTP upload. You can also upload the file to various cloud storage services or get right to editing the audio within the app. About halfway down the list you will find the option for Transcription.

After the audio to text transcription for your interview is complete, you can copy/paste into another app or email yourself the transcription. To save the transcription within the app, you press Append to Notes. That saves the transcription along with the audio so you can come back to review it later.

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Give Yourself Plenty Of Time

Most skilled transcribers report being able to type up 10 to 15 minutes of recorded material in about an hour or three to five minutes of typing per minute of recorded conversation. For novice transcribers, this could take far longer. Therefore, understanding the real time commitment of interview transcription is critical. Allot at least four times the length of the interview time for transcription. In other words, if your interview lasted an hour, set aside at least four hours for the interview transcription process.

Use Reducts Video Analysis Tools To Conduct Your Qualitative Data Analysis

Reduct is far more than just a transcription tool, though: We store all of your video files in our platform and give you the tools to help with data analysis. After you have your transcript back, you can use our video analysis tools to:

• Search through multiple transcripts at once
• Highlight and Tag important findings
• Have real-time discussions with your team
• Pull important video clips by selecting transcript text
• Use “research snacks” when presenting your research with peers and stakeholders your presentations
• Create compelling video reels to bring your insights to life

Lets talk more about how you can do your qualitative research in Reduct.

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Add A Transcript To The Document

Unlike Dictate, Transcribe doesn’t automatically add the audio to the document. Instead, from the Transcribe pane, you can add the entire transcript, or specific sections of it, to the document.

• To add a specific transcript section, hover over the section and select the Add section to document icon.

• To add the entire transcript to the document, select Add all to document.

• To delete the transcript or create a new one, select New transcription. You can only store one transcript per document if you create a new transcript for the document, the current transcript will be deleted. However, any transcript sections you’ve added to the document remain in the document, but not in the Transcribe pane.

Use Software Shortcuts To Save Time

You dont have to go overboard. Just by using a couple of simple keyboard shortcuts, you can save yourself a TON of time and speed up the process of interview transcription.

Complete list of keyboard shortcuts for MS Word:

Another useful feature is to add highlighted time stamps or time codes in your transcripts.

If you keep getting stuck on difficult words, and have to constantly rewind the interview, time stamps can be a godsend.

Because you copy the exact time for the difficult word from the audio/video interview and paste it in the transcript.

This way once youre done transcribing, you can jump to and review only the time stamps instead of the entire transcript.

This is especially useful if you still got stuck on some words even after proofreading the entire transcript.

This can be done easily using a transcription playback software like Express Scribe.

Weve done a guide on it, link below:

How to add Time Stamps using Express Scribe

and scroll to the section titled How to Use Express Scribe to Add Time Stamps?

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Estimate How Much Time Youll Need

Once you decide to transcribe the interview yourself, assess your typing speed and the length of the recording to calculate how long the transcription process will take. If you are a beginner, it may take anywhere from 7-to-10 hours. You should also include the time it will take you to format and time-code the transcription.

What If You Dont Have The Time Or Inclination

You can:

• Interview transcripts are a great tool for data analysis and management.
• They serve as easily readable, searchable documents.
• Accurate interview transcripts can save a lot of time.
• Time saved = money and effort saved.
• Saved time and money can greatly affect the outcome of a market research study.
• Enables researchers to track the topic.
• Interview transcripts offer a range of framework that affects the way an interviewer sees the data.
• Having a script of data helps in paying much more attention to a set of answers.

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Make Audio Conversion As Simple As Possible

Whether youre sitting in a lecture, interviewing someone for a news article, or conducting research, recording the conversation is the best way to ensure you are getting every bit of information you need. Once you have the information in audio format, you are probably wondering how to transcribe an interview quickly.

If you are going to do the transcription manually, these are the steps youll need to follow include:

• Step 1: Listen to Your Recording
• Step 2: Create a Rough Draft
• Step 3: Make Edits
• Step 4: Format Your Transcription

Of course, manual transcription isnt the only option you have when it comes to converting audio files into text files. You can also download software or apps or send your file to a professional to have them transcribe the information for you.