The industry standard for a clear recording’s turnover is 4:1. That means you need 4 hours to transcribe a 1-hour audio recording. In reality, it is more like 8:1 because you would be dealing with bad audio quality, factor in the accents, the ummm and the ahhss, different dialects, mumbles, jargons and you need proofread the transcript.
Now the pay is not that great either; some even call it abysmal. This is the blunt truth. If you browse on the net, many people would tell you that transcribing is a good way to make money, but is it really? Or are they trying to sell you their service or want you to work on their platform? They use the internet buzz words like ‘great income opportunity’, ‘easy job that you can do from your living room wearing your favourite pyjama’, and they promise you unicorn and shit. But it is not as easy as they implied.
I am a qualitative researcher and, in my field, we require high accuracy and fast turnaround time. In my industry, a 2-hours recording turnaround time is 2 days. I always thought that it is more than enough until I started transcribing myself. And now I have a new level of appreciation towards the transcriber community.
This post aims to make the transcribing process as painless as possible by sharing some tips/tricks on how you can transcribe your recordings more efficiently.
Introduction
What is the meaning of “transcribe”?
- Someone who changed their gender from Apache helicopter to a cribe
- The final boss that you need to clear in level 44 dungeon in Persona 5
- The process to convert audio to text
- All the above
If your answer is not number 3, oh boy, then we are in this for a long ride.
Transcribe means you take an audio/video recording of a conversation and converts it into text. In Qualitative research, most audio/video recording from our interviews usually would need to be converted into a transcript before we can start to do analysis.
The importance of transcript in qualitative research
- It would greatly increase the quality of your information because now you can easily analyse it in detail.
- Reduce the influence of observers (or moderators) when they are observing or conducting the group/interviews
- It can somewhat capture the essence of the interview – what is being said, who said it, how they say it etc.
- Capture and use the verbatim when you want to report your findings
Where can you get a transcribing job and how much would you get?
Transcription service is widely used in a lot of industries. The good thing is, it is always high in demand. Some people would argue that the industry will be replaced by AI soon, but there’s no way it would be able to replace human transcription.
There are a lot of places where you can get a transcription job.
- For market research industry; approach your local market research company. Big players like Kantar, Nielsen and Ipsos are a safe bet as they are always in need of transcriptionist service. Google “market research society + your country” and get their directory from there.
- How much they are paying: Average USD25 – 50 per hour, pay via direct transfer in 60days
- Specific industries; court, medical, accident report, academics etc.
- How much they are paying: Average USD20 – 50 per hour, also usually pay within 30 – 60 days.
- Online podcasters, YouTubers, social media influencers –TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.
- How much they are paying: Average USD10 – USD20 per hour, pay via PayPal or direct transfer.
- Online transcription sites (The most reputable & accept worldwide transcriber)
- GoTranscript (Ref Link)
- Rev.com
- There are so many. Google what is available in your location
- How much they are paying: Average USD8 – 30 per hour, usually pay by PayPal every week
- Online freelancing sites (Online platform that also provides transcription service)
- Fiver (Ref Link)
- Upwork.com
- Freelancer.com
- How much they are paying: Average USD10 – 30 per hour, pay via PayPal once the site released the payment, usually within a week
They would require you to take a test for online sites so be prepared for that (Maybe use your secondary email when taking the test?). The application process can be tough if you are new to transcription, on some days you would struggle to find any work, and it can take up months for you to get in once you pass your application. You will be relegated to the lower-tier (low paying job) until you have passed a certain level of experience (usually 1-3 years), then they would give you better jobs.
For freelancing sites; learn their mechanics as you can set your price and bid on their transcription projects with proposals. Price would vary as you would compete with other freelancers. But, if you do well and the client is happy with you, then there’s a potential for an ongoing relationship. Be wary as there are scammers on those sites. If they ask you to transcribe something for free as a “test” and would give you the “real transcript” afterwards, politely ask them to eat a rat poison sandwich.
There are a lot of sources on the internet to start your transcribing journey. Browse around to see where you can offer your service and pick one that would suit you the best.
Did I mention that the pay is not great? Most of the time, it is lower than the minimum wage salary, which is bad. Let’s evaluate. Assuming that you are like me, someone who can type 100 words per minute, you would need 5++ hours of your time to transcribe a 1-hour recording. Let’s take USD20 per hour as the baseline, so you would probably get USD100-200 per week. Ask yourself whether or not it’s worth your time and effort.
Is transcription a job for you?
Transcription is not for everyone. You need to be prepared to have god-like patience + the low pay/amount of time you would have to spend to complete each assignment.
Transcription is not for you if:
- You are looking for an easy job to earn money. This is not it, dude.
- If you are looking for a steady and stable income (unless you have an ongoing relationship with a client)
- Not willing to improve/try out new things. It would take a toll on you after some time.
If you think that this is not for you, then I wish you good luck and go find other opportunities.
Still interested? Oh, let’s talk about something pleasant. Transcription also has its good side:
- Suppose you want to occupy your free time, in between jobs or looking for an additional income to buy a new sofa or a powerful graphics card for your PC. It is a great potential for financial freedom.
- There’s so much to learn, and you would be able to listen and transcribe a lot of cool shit from all sorts of industry; market research interviews/focus groups, podcasts, YouTube vids, sermons. Some of it are highly confidential, some would give you a sneak peek of new product innovation, some are heart-wrenching or funny, but you definitely can learn something about it.
- If you want to set your own schedule, do a straight-forward work quietly and alone with zero colleague or superiors that breathe down your necks.
- If you have social anxiety and prefer to work on your own.
- Great potential for video captioning market. If you scroll on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter now, most of the videos are on mute by default. And all the content providers realised that they couldn’t rely on the video sound to engage with their audience and look for transcriber that would help them with subtitle. This is a strong trend for the future (it already is.)
- Horn your grammar and spelling skills. This will help you decide to take on jobs from a multitude of industries that rely on good communication skills like blogging, proofreading, copy-editing etc.
If you are still here and think this is for you, then yay! We have successfully weed out those weak-hearted people. Then, the remaining of this article is maybe just for you.
What do you need before you start transcribing?
My advice would be to spend a little money into your equipment and gears. I don’t mean to invest a lot of money upfront, but make sure you are set up for success. Depending on your preferred style and method to transcribe, you might need the following items to kick-start your transcribing career:
- Language proficiency – Most Asian/European are multilingual. If this is you, then bravo! The more language you can speak, understand and write in, the further you would go. Proficiency in dialects or slangs is equally important.
- Good grammar and spelling skills – Self-explanatory
- Comfortable chair and table – I can write a whole article about ergonomics because it is so important if you spend long hours trying to crack the recording. Make sure the chair has good lumbar support, a big enough table that you can rest both of your elbows on it and sit straight you crooked banana!
- Laptop / Computer / Mac– basic computer / laptop / Mac is sufficient. It doesn’t have to be top range with a graphic card that can run Cyberpunk, but not as old as Queen Elizabeth. As long as it is responsive, can run word processing, it is good enough.
- Microsoft Word – You’ll have to get a Microsoft Word at least. Most transcription places that pay quite decently would require you to write in Microsoft Word. You can also start to develop a list of shortcuts using their Autocorrect function (we’ll talk in detail later). PRO-TIP: if you cannot buy them now, go and sign up as their developer. You would get 90 days access to their full Microsoft365 service, including Microsoft Word, free of charge. Lit AF. Else, consider a side career as urm you know, a pirate.
- Headphones / Earphones – Go for the noise-cancelling type. This would help you tremendously going forward. Get a really good one because this is your business investment.
- Proofreading software – Install Grammarly (Ref Link) for your browser and Microsoft Word. The free version can do the job, but you’ll get more functions from premium. It will help you to identify mistakes as you go along. Worth every penny if you are in this for the long run.
- Rope and Duct tapes – Tie up your kids, cats, dogs, and partner in the basement because you need a quiet space with minimal distraction. I feel like I need to tell you that this is obviously a joke. Great, now you think I actually did that. Which I did.
- Optional: Transcription software – There is so many free and paid software on the internet. Some of the famous ones are Express Scribe and InqScribe. Learn how to use it as you can operate it using keyboard shortcuts or foot pedal.
- Optional: Audio cleaning software/plugins – You can install Audio extension for your browser (the one that I use is called Ears) or install this free software called Audacity because you will work on some low-quality audio with a lot of background noise. Play around with the extensions/software to mitigate the noise.
- Optional: Dual monitors – If you have additional money, invest on another monitor. I transcribe for qualitative market research, so I constantly need to look up the stimulus, concept, discussion guide, spelling for jargons etc. Keep your transcript file on your main screen and your second monitor for research purpose. You would soon realise how shaving off a few seconds would help you to complete the transcript faster.
Types and output of transcription
The most important thing is to ALWAYS ASK YOUR CLIENT; what is their language prefered/format/type that they are looking for. The same client may have different preference depending on the job/project.
3 types of transcription:
- True verbatim – some called it word-for-word or full verbatim. Simply put, you need to transcribe the whole conversation including urm, ahhss, verbal ticks like you know, what do you call that etc., profanity, pauses, repetition and all that.
- Clean verbatim – This is the cleaned-up version of true verbatim. That means you take out all those unnecessary urm and ahss, verbal ticks etc. as long as the essence of the conversation is maintained, and this is much easier to read.
- Note-taking – This is more like you are trying to jot down the conversation’s essence in a live setting, more like a basic summary while attempting to capture important verbatim for quick and easy analysis.
Now that you know what type they are, you need to understand the output expected for your transcript.
- Direct transcription – Also called a vernacular transcript. You transcribe it as it is. English to English, Spanish to Spanish, Malay to Malay, that spoken language converted to the same written language
- Translated transcription – Client might want to translate it to a specific language; i.e., Mandarin to English, or Malay to Mandarin. You need to translate what you hear into the preferred language, not word-by-word, but to ensure that you translate and transcribe it into the preferred language without losing the essence of its meaning.
The most common in qualitative research is clean verbatim + translated transcription. Now, it might be different for other projects or other clients, so make sure you check with them first.
Format of transcription
Now I can provide the common template for market research transcription because that’s what I do mostly. Again, ask your client if they have a specific format for you to follow. Read your client/transcription company’s guidelines thoroughly.
- Type of files; is it a Microsoft word document, google doc, Microsoft Excel etc.
- Font size, font type and alignment
- How do you label the speaker name?
- Do they need timestamp?
- Would they provide a template?
Some client might request that you deliver the transcript in Excel format. PRO-TIP; do it in Microsoft Word then copy+paste it because Excel is a bitch for spell check, formatting etc.
This is the template that I normally use; Calibri size 10, in .docx format, justify alignment, general speaker label in bold, no timestamp, only include a specific timestamp in the event of inaudible conversation.
Spend some time to get used to the format and understand it before you start transcribing because it would take a lot of time for you to do the formatting once you have transcribed a huge chuck of texts. So, get it right the first time and spare you the headache later on.
You can download the word document template here.
How do you practice before you start transcribing?
Sadly, there are no paying sites for noobs where mistakes aren’t that serious, love is all around, and everyone lives happily ever after. But there are few places that you can warm up into transcription.
- TedTalk – Here’s an assignment; transcribe this video, record the time when you start, when you finished the first draft, proofread and when it’s ready. Then check their transcript and see how well you are doing. You are doing great! ☺️
- YouTube – Any videos with transcription or CC.
Get some practice before you start bidding for transcript job because mistakes can cause you problem with a client or a bad rating.
Method to transcribe (Transcribing-hack)
There are generally 5 methods that you can use depending on the job, the quality of the audio, the purpose etc. But in general, high effort equals high accuracy. And vice-versa. Let’s go to each method one-by-one:
Manual transcription
Effort: High
Accuracy: High
Additional Investment: None
When can you use this method: All the time
This is the most fundamental method for transcribing. Generally, you need to do the following:
- When you receive the transcript, quickly go through the audio recordings at various intervals. Check if the quality is consistent throughout.
- If the quality is not good, inform your client, ask them for a better version, or revise your turnaround-time/price.
- If the background noise is too much, use Audacity. Click “Effects”, “Noise removal”, “Select Noise Profile” to select a few seconds where it is quiet, and nobody’s talking, then apply the noise reduction to the entire recording.
- If you are forced to work with the recording that sounded like an old man who forgot to put on his dentures, found a microphone from the old Nokia handphone and plugged it into a potato, then may God be with you.
- Do your first draft.
- Listen to the speech speed. If it is too slow, speed it up to 1.25x speed. If it is too fast, slows it down, so you don’t have to pause and rewind frequently.
- If you recognise that you’ve made a mistake, ignore it and continue writing. Go back at the end of transcription.
- If you are stuck somewhere, mark the timing of the recording. Please stop trying to figure it out after 3 attempts. It would be easier for you to figure it out later as you would have the context of the finished transcript.
- Record your time
- Proofread
- Now use Grammarly to check for spelling error, punctuations etc.
- Check and fix your format.
- Submit your transcript
- Record your time to monitor your progress.
- ???
- Profit
Tips: Use Word Expander / Optimise your Autocorrect
Use expander from day one. I mean that. If you transcribe in Word, you can set up the text expanders using your autocorrect function.
To give you a perspective, my base typing speed is around 100 words per minute. But it would go up to 150 – 170 words per minute when I transcribe. Using word expander / autocorrect would increase your speed drastically.
If you use WhatsApp, Yahoo Messenger (RIP), Mirc (RIP), you won’t have any problem with this method. When you type LOL, we want Microsoft Word to change it to “Laugh Out Loud”. Channel your inner teenager self and go wild.
The idea is to create automation as much as possible, and you would need to learn and come up with your own as you are transcribing. Just try and do it for one word and see if you are comfortable with it. If you are not, change it. You would get mixed up and confused, but you’ll get used to it.
This process would take time to optimise, but once you build up an arsenal of these abbreviations and automation (also known as shorthand), get used to using them that eventually, you have to speed up the audio because you would feel that it is too slow.
Come up with a set of rules/pattern as it would be impossible for you to memorise all the abbreviations. Just like how you learn a new language, set some rules and pattern so it would make sense.
- Rule: Autocorrect your usual typo
- Liek – Like
- Tehse – These
- DO – Do
- Find out the words that you always got it wrong. Create an autocorrect to fix it for you.
- Rule: Abbreviate common phases
- Ins – I’m not sure
- Idk – I don’t know
- Idc – I don’t care
- Ook – Oh, okay
- Np – No problem
- Gonna – Going to
- Wanna – Want to
- Aa – alright
- Ty – Thank you
- Yk – You know
- Oc – Of course
- Wctym – What comes to your mind
- Rule: Remove all apostrophes
- Dont – Don’t
- Arent – Aren’t
- Ddnt – Didn’t
- Rule: Shorten the word
- Qltv – Qualitative
- Cncp – Concept
- Rule: Shorten the ending
- Prbx – Probably
- Etx – Exactly
Optional Tips: Use Keyboard Buttons in InqScribe
You can also set keyboard buttons in Inq Scribe to label speakers, timestamp, pause, rewind, slow down audio etc.
Optional Tips: Use oTranscribe
If by some chance you still don’t have Microsoft Word, you can use oTranscribe. It is a tool for typing up transcription and allow you to type and control the audio/video recording on the same page.
Estimate time saved:
8:1 (8 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)to 6:1 (6 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)
Manual transcription with foot pedal
Effort: High
Accuracy: High
Additional Investment: Yes
When can you use this method: All the time
It is similar to manual transcription, but it is highly recommended that you purchase a foot pedal to maximise your performance. Any time you control your audio with your mouse, you are losing time that you can use it to work on the transcript. I personally use Infinity Foot Pedal (Ref Link) and happy with it.
The foot pedal is not a very complicated piece of equipment, so there is no reason for you to go and look for “the best foot pedal” and all that. Find one that can fit your budget and buy one.
Estimate time saved:
8:1 (8 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)to 4:1 (4 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)
Assisted Transcription Using YouTube Auto-Generated CC
Effort: Medium
Accuracy: Medium – High
Additional Investment: None
When can you use this method:
- Only when the audio/video is clear
- Only when your speaker talks without a heavy accent
- You are transcribing in the following languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
- Works even better if your client wants true verbatim as it would capture urmss and ahhss.
This is my favourite, but sadly most of my transcription job would require translation + transcription. There are a couple of steps involved, or you can refer to the official YouTube channel.
- Upload the video to YouTube (Unlisted)
- If it is an audio recording, create a video using Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation with the audio sound and save as a .mp4 file.
- Set the video language as English / your recording spoken language
- Wait
- Wait
- Wait some more
- The usual turnaround is your video duration in minutes times 3. So, a 60 minutes video would take 180 minutes for YouTube to process. It can be varied though.
- Download the subtitle
- See those 3 dots? Click on it and hit the download button. And don’t forget to like our video and subscribe. Yuck. Just joking.
- Now, the default file would be in. sbv. Use TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (Windows) to open the file.
- If you need the timestamp, then great. But if you don’t, go to Anatolt to remove the timestamp.
- Copy the whole transcript from your .sbv, paste it on the left text field and hit “Do the job” button.
- Copy the whole output on the right field and paste it on Microsoft Word
- If you are transcribing for a clean verbatim, then quickly read the entire transcript, identify the verbal ticks and the urmmss and ahhss. Jot it down.
- Use the Replace function in your Word processor. Find “Umm” and “You know” and replace it with nothing (leave it empty).
- Record your time
- Listen back and edit
- Manually edit the entire transcription into your format. But YouTube should have at least done 80% of the work. Play the recording and check word-by-word. Edit and clean up any mistakes and type whatever the automated transcript didn’t catch or got it wrong.
- Record your time
- Proofing – use Grammarly to check for spelling error, punctuations etc.
- Check and fix your format.
- Submit your transcript
- Record your time to monitor your progress.
Estimate time saved:
8:1 (8 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)to 6:1 (6 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)
Assisted Transcription Using Google Voice / Microsoft 365
Effort: Medium
Accuracy: Medium – High
Additional Investment: None – Or maybe a good microphone
When can you use this method:
- If you have a good and clear pronunciation
- If you have your own quiet space
- If your kids/pets are well-behaved
- Work well if you need to translate and transcribe
The trick to this method is to speak clearly with very deliberate tone and speed. There are two ways/applications that you can use this method.
Use Google Voice
- Start a new Google doc.
- Go to “Tools”
- Click “Voice Typing”
- Click on the microphone icon on the left.
- You can either play the recording and let the microphone transcribe, or you can choose to listen and speak directly into the microphone. The latter is more accurate, and that’s what I would recommend.
- If you are translating and transcribing simultaneously, listen to the entire sentence, use context to interpret, and then only start dictating.
Use Microsoft365 Online
- Open office365 and choose a new Word document.
- Click dictate
- Choose “dictate” and you can either play the recording and let the microphone transcribe, or you can choose to listen and speak directly into the microphone. Similarly, the latter is more accurate.
- Or choose “Transcribe”. It will allow you to transcribe the recording for 300 minutes a month, which is aplenty.
- Check and fix your format, edit and clean up any mistakes
- Use Grammarly to check for spelling error, punctuations etc.
- Submit your transcript
- Record your time to monitor your progress.
Estimate time saved:
8:1 (8 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)to 5:1 (6 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)
Assisted Transcription Using Transcribing Apps
Effort: Low – Medium
Accuracy before proofing: Low – Medium
Additional Investment: Maybe, if you go for a premium account
When can you use this method:
- If you have a good and clear pronunciation
- Especially when you are on the go – transcribing the conversation directly from your phone
- If the venue that you conduct the interview / transcribing is quiet
- Very useful for Note-taking
Weird advice, but try to sound like Siri. Or Jarvis. Most of the voice-to-text app seems to respond well when I use a robot voice. Not robotic, but a very level tone.
I have installed and deleted a lot of apps but Otter is the most advanced thing that I’ve tested and use.
- Otter.ai – Use this Ref Link, and we’ll both get 1-month Pro-Lite. If you don’t want to use the link, then it’s okay. 😔
- LiveTranscribe for Android – I have never used it but heard good things about the app. Go and explore.
- If you have a Pixel phone by Google, they also have a live transcription application. Again, not sure about the output and quality, so please let me know if you have any feedback.
Estimate time saved:
8:1 (8 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)to 6:1 (6 hours to transcribe a 1-hour transcript)
Final word
Now that you are here, I hereby grant you this magic portion that would give you +3 knowledge, +2 courage, +4 confidence and now you have levelled up from a Noob to a knight. You have completed your first tutorial. Congratulations.
I saved a lot of time using foot pedal + manual transcription with text expander method. Find your own preferred style. Keep practising, and you’ll get there. The best way to get better is to keep trying to go faster and more accurate. Keep track of your timing, and beat your own record.
If you find this useful, bookmark it. If you think someone might think that this is useful, share it with them. You don’t have to give us credit, you can tell them verbally but spread the word.
COVID won’t just go away so soon and the damage done to the world’s economy and the way we go about life won’t just reverse overnight. But that doesn’t mean it’s just going to be bad for everyone, there is more to life than those things. You might land your first transcript job, buy a new TV, finally win a round of Warzone, get your dream job, who knows.
Now, go forth my child. May transcription God watch over you. Happy New Year! Cheers.
1 thought on “Ultimate Noob Guide: How to transcribe faster?”