I’ve been advising a colleague on how to develop the transcription side of her business recently, and these tips and hints came out as being the most useful for her – so I’m sharing them with you, too. Do comment if you find these helpful or have more to share!
- Being able to touch type
- Being able to type quickly
- Having the requisite technology
You can have a look at this post to check you’re suited for the work, and this one about the technology to use. Transcription jobs often come in at short notice and have tight turnarounds, so it really pays to be prepared.
2. Make sure that your ergonomics are tip-top
Transcription is the most demanding of my tasks. Typically, you’re pounding a keyboard for several hours at a time, typing as fast as you can while straining to hear the tape. Here are some of the things I and my colleagues have learned:
- Use a proper keyboard with little legs, not a laptop keyboard, even if it’s propped up
- Make sure that your chair is adjusted so that you can sit straight, looking slightly down at the screen, with your forearms sloping slightly down to your hands and your hands arched over the keys
- Make sure that your feet are flat on the floor with comfortable bends to the knees; if not, put a box or footrest in front of your chair
- Make sure that the cable on your headphones is long enough to reach your computer without you having to bend at all sideways or twist your head
- Make sure that your headphones or earphones are comfortable
- Take regular breaks to stand up, stretch, give your ears a rest and refocus your eyes – once an hour at very least (I do some squats and calf raises every hour as I seem to store tension in my legs when I am transcribing)
3. Get software to manage your transcriptions
Professional transcription software allows you to control the tape using function keys or even a pedal (like in the old days of audio typing) and will make you much quicker at doing the work. More information on software here – make sure you get used to it first!
4. Make sure that you understand what the client wants
You wouldn’t believe how many choices are involved when it comes to providing transcriptions for clients. Here are just some of them:
- Do they want you to type out exactly what the speakers say, take out the ums and ers but retain the rest, polish up the sentences so they make grammatical sense, or make non-native English speakers sound like native English speakers?
- If you are transcribing an interview, do they want you to include the full questions or just notes?
- If the person who they are interviewing says that something is off the record, do they want you to stop typing, or take it down and mark it up as off the record?
- Do they want you to include and mark pauses, and how?
- How do they want you to mark unclear sections or words that you can’t understand but can type a phonetic version?
- Do they want you to timestamp the document (i.e insert 05:00, 10:00 etc. at the relevant points in the document), and how often, if at all?
- How do they want you to differentiate between the speakers? (this could range from first initial, surname, in bold, with a colon to putting the questions in italics with no names)
- Do they want US or UK spelling? Oxford -z- spellings or “British English” -s- spellings?
- Do they have a special font or line spacing they wish you to use?
- Do they have a template that they wish you to use?
I have experienced all of these variations in my own transcription work. You may be working in a team where it’s vital to have all transcriptions looking the same, or the client might just work with the transcriptions in a particular way.
I have a standard list of questions I send out to clients if they don’t specify, so that I can make sure that I’m doing what they want.
5. If it is anything but a general text, ask for a list of terminology
When I work with music journalists, I always ask for the band name so I can check the album and song titles and band members’ names – I feel more professional if I get that right for them.
If I’m working with a particular kind of client and there seem to be a lot of specific terms, I ask for a list of terms, or send my own list and ask them to check if they’re correct, especially if it’s a long-term project. Again, this makes you look professional and avoids the client having to do any extra work to correct your interpretation of terms.
Of course, it helps if you know a bit about the topic to start with. I always turn down medical and legal transcription jobs because they’re very specialised, and I like to think that I know about music, but I did have to ask a client if I’d heard “Bowel Bass” correctly (I had!).
6. Get to grips with Word’s auto complete function
Auto complete can save you keystrokes and time by allowing you to type a few letters or a word fragment and have it expand into a word or phrase. I’ve written an introduction to this topic with more detail on personalising it, if you want to read up on this. Being able to type “tyv” and have “thank you very much” appear in your document, or having your “beh” turn into “behaviourally” is key to cutting down the time taken to type out that tape.
7. Monitor how long it takes you to do an hour or whatever, on average
Once you’ve got into transcribing, monitor how long it takes you to transcribe an hour of tape, on average. This will help you to predict workflows and give your client an estimate of how long you will take to complete their work.
However, do note two things here:
- Time taken can vary considerably (see Point 8 below) so always under-promise and over-deliver. My average rates vary from 2 hours typing to 4 hours typing for one hour of tape, although my absolute average is around 3 hours typing for every hour of tape
- Don’t forget to build in breaks – if I’m sent 3 hours of tape at midday, it will not take me until 9pm!
8. Be aware of the variables
I’ve known people who are new to transcribing to get upset when a tape takes them a long time. It might be just that the job is difficult or has some factors that would make it take longer for ANYONE to complete.. It can really vary – here are some reasons why a tape could take longer to type than average:
- It’s a new client or project – I always speed up as I get used to the client’s voices and terminology and the way the conversations go
- The sound quality is poor, leaving you to have to rewind and go over much more than usual
- The job involves taking down every single word the speakers say and they have a lot of repeated words and / or talk very quickly
- The speakers have heavy accents
- There are more than two speakers and they are difficult to differentiate (that’s why I charge more for more than two speakers)
As I said in Point 7 – try to have a listen to the tape before you make any promises on timing, and always under-promise and over-deliver!
9. Be a perfectionist but not too much of a perfectionist
It’s brilliant if you take great care over your transcription and try to make it all as good as you can. It’s not brilliant if you spend hours labouring over every tiny section of tape, trying to make everything out or frantically Googling for obscure titles of album tracks:
- Sometimes the tape will be unclear and no one could hear it – mark it as unclear, pop the tape timing down and move on
- Sometimes people talk over each other and you can’t hear what one or both of them is saying – mark that and pop the tape timing down and move on
- Sometimes people use words or talk about people whose names you cannot make out – have a go at sticking down what you can hear, mark with a question mark and the tape timing and move on
I know that when I’ve read some of the stories that my journalist clients have written, I’ve thought – “Oh, THAT’s what they said!” and I’m very experienced at this work. The clients don’t mind, as long as you get most of it and tell them about what you can’t make out. Often they will be quality checked by someone else, or the journalist will know much more about the band than you do, or they might have a little giggle at a mis-hearing and move on from it. The world will not end, and I don’t believe that anyone can transcribe a whole long tape completely perfectly.
10. Ask for feedback
Each time that I complete the first job for a new client, I ask them if there is anything that I could do differently that would help them to work with the text I produce. And if I don’t get any feedback at all from a corporate client (some of them only feed back when there is an error, which I find a bit challenging!), I will ask them for it. If you really didn’t grasp a section of tape or fear you mis-heard an important term and it’s going to come up again, ask for feedback.
And if the feedback is good AND the client says it’s OK to use it, pop it on your references page!
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Thanks to Laura Ripper for helping me to put together this list. Was it helpful? Is there anything else that I haven’t mentioned that would have helped you when you were a new transcriber?
If you want to learn more about Transcription as a career, buy my book: A Quick Guide to Transcription as a Career – buy from Amazon UK or visit the book’s web page for worldwide links and news.
Related posts on this blog:
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LibroEditing proofreading, editing, transcription, localisation 
Lindsay
June 8, 2014 at 5:21 pm
Hi I am impressed with your helpful topic of transcribing. I have been transcribing for private investigators on an ad hoc basis since Nov 2012 but not enough work coming in. I don’t use Social Media, is there any other way to advertise myself on a genuine site? I charge £1.50 per typed page. I have a favourable job reference, to recommend me, from the PIs.
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Liz at Libro
June 13, 2014 at 9:39 am
Hi Lindsay, thanks for your comment, and I expect that’s interesting work. I don’t know of any genuine sites where you can advertise and make decent money – using social media and my website has worked for me – plus getting in with one kind of customer and having them recommend me on. Is it worth asking the PIs if they can recommend you to any colleagues in the business? Also put the word out among friends, as I have had jobs come in that way. I have plenty of resources on my page, or they are gathered together in my book on transcription as a career to make it easier. Good luck!
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Emma
November 17, 2014 at 11:08 pm
Hi Liz. I’m just starting up a home business providing audio transcription services for a local university. I’m a very competent typist, I’m averaging around 1:3. I was wondering, though, if I should be proofreading my work alongside the tape? Of course I run a spell check, and if I mistype (eg there instead of their) I pause the tape and correct as I go. But should I be doing more than this? Or is it something I would change more for?
Thank you for your blog. It has been invaluable to me and I’m so excited to continue my work. I’m already on my third client, all from recommendations!
Regards,
Emma.
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Liz Dexter
November 18, 2014 at 6:57 am
Thanks for your question, Emma. It depends how vital having every word exact is – if it is, and I have the time, I will go back over and proofread the whole thing with the tape playing again, if not, or I’m in a hurry, I will do a spell check. Some of the companies I work with have a quality check and I’ve never had anything significant come back from that, even when I’ve used the spell check method, which is a good backup.
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Emma
November 18, 2014 at 10:03 pm
Thanks so much for your reply! That’s exactly what I wanted to read – listening to everything all over again would really eat into my earnings, so I’ll only do this if I’m not feeling confident or if asked.
I have more questions, if you don’t mind? How formal should I be with my new clients? I haven’t received a Purchase Order. This doesn’t bother me because I’ve been paid by them (a University) before and I know that they will pay up this time (and surely emails from the client are enough). However, I want to send them a form clarifying the agreement. This includes simple things like font size, detail required etc. I’ve also asked for the PO number and the details of where to send invoices to. Is this OTT or sensible? My background is in Project Management so I tend to be a little cautious.
Do you have a list of questions that you ask clients which you would be willing to share? I will understand if not!
Thanks again for your blog (and replies). You’ve really inspired me. I never thought that a skill I possessed would be worth so much.
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Liz Dexter
November 19, 2014 at 6:36 am
I’m glad I can help! With regard to formality, I’m led by what my clients do – I work with a lot of freelance journalists who wouldn’t be raising POs for me. I do ask the questions in Point 4 in this article right at the beginning and note down the answers in my record for that client, and I always check at the end of the first transcription that they’re happy with how I did things. If they’re going to provide a template, they usually tell you in advance. I hope that helps!
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Emma
September 27, 2016 at 12:25 pm
Hi again Liz. Looking back at these comments, I can’t believe I left them almost 2 years ago! Since we last spoke, I’ve been running a successful transcription business despite never advertising my service. It’s snowballed on word-of-mouth within the Research community. I’m seriously considering leaving my part time job and filing in those 2 days a week with my business – I earn twice as much per hour! (Now averaging 1:2.7 turnaround). Do you think it would be sustainable for me to find 3 hours of tape each and every week? Or is transcription a small part of the services you provide? For the last 2 months I’ve had more than that, but I’ve only been doing this for a couple of years so I don’t feel that I truly know the nature of this business yet. Any thoughts and advice would be so helpful. Thank you in advance.
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Liz Dexter
September 27, 2016 at 2:23 pm
How lovely to hear from you again, Emma, and to hear that you’re doing so well, too. I calculated when I could leave my part-time job by making a note of when I was replacing each day of income from that job with my freelance work. If it means taking on more transcription while still working for a while, then that’s what you might have to do. I do do editing, transcription and localisation, though, so not all of my work is in one area.
If your work has been increasing over the years and you are still getting more enquiries, I’d say go for it. Maybe tighten the belt for a bit and save up a few months’ worth of living money if you can, though. Good luck – let me know how you get on!
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Lindiwe Mohaswa
December 22, 2014 at 5:16 am
Thank you for all the tips and information. I am a Human Resources Officer at a transport industry in South Africa and have been doing transcripts for disciplinary cases, I have opted for an early retirement and want to do transcripts services for companies to earn extra money so the information has helped even on the marketing strategy.
Thank you I will buy the suggested books and will appreciate to receive more information of any new development on the field of transcript services.
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Liz Dexter
December 22, 2014 at 9:31 am
Thank you for your comment and best wishes for your future career. I will certainly write about any new developments in the field on this blog, so it’s worth signing up to follow the blog – I also post Word tips and business information, both of which should be helpful.
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Susan
March 16, 2015 at 6:05 am
Hi Liz
I’ve been reading your information here. I wanted to get into transcribing because it’s something I can do from home. But I haven’t done this before. I used to be an answering service secretary and I had to take messages quickly. I took two short courses years ago in college but they really didn’t have the education they have today for this kind of work. I tried transcribing for a podiatrist a long time ago and I just couldn’t understand what he was saying because he mumbled and rambled thru the whole tape. I had to give up. I wanted to ask is how does a person get started if no one will give you a chance? I’ve checked some of the companies that hire transcribers but everyone wants experienced people. You can’t get experience of someone doesn’t give you a chance. I guess what I’m wondering is if it’s possible to start this with no experience? I have to say some of what you’ve written is a little intimidating. You’ve given a lot of great pointers that I never would have thought of but its kinda of scared me off the idea a little bit. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks
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Liz Dexter
March 23, 2015 at 10:48 am
Thanks for your comment and sorry for the delay in replying. Have you had a look at my post on transcription as a career https://libroediting.com/2013/03/20/career-in-transcription/ which has some pointers on this? I also suggest the more general post on getting work as a freelancer https://libroediting.com/2013/12/16/how-do-i-get-freelance-work/ . I would really suggest doing the practice that I talk about in the first post on careers first, check it’s something you’re comfortable doing, then try the ideas I give in those posts. Good luck, and let me know how you get on!
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Molly
April 18, 2015 at 7:37 am
Hey, Liz Dexter, I don’t know how I stumbled on this very helpful blog but I am forever grateful to how I got here. Now, can your recommend any corporates or direct clients or individuals or transcription companies that I can join to enhance my skills. I have been transcribing for well over three years now but each day I find that I learn a new thing. Keep up this good work.
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Liz Dexter
April 20, 2015 at 11:54 am
Hi Molly, I don’t have any particular companies I can refer you to, most of my work is with agencies or individuals. But you should find plenty of ideas on this blog in the more general sections on freelancing. Best of luck with your transcribing career!
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Lauren
October 24, 2015 at 2:06 am
One of the main issues that I have doing transcription is the audio quality. I transcribe for an online company called Rev where they post all kinds of audio for people like me to transcribe. Some audio are good, some are not. If I have to transcribe an audio that has so-so quality, what is the best way to transcribe accurately?
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Naomi Bonareri
November 26, 2015 at 1:52 pm
Hi Liz,I just did my first job on transcription a week ago on Speechpad but later on learned that my job was rejected. What can cause a job that I have worked on to be rejected and how can I avoid that to actually be able to earn some cash? Its Naomi
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Liz Dexter
November 26, 2015 at 3:58 pm
Hello Naomi, it’s difficult to know why they rejected it – I think you will have to ask them for feedback. I can only assume it was for not being accurate enough, in which case it’s practise makes perfect, unfortunately.
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Naomi
November 26, 2015 at 7:47 pm
Ok, will do follow up. Thank you.
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Alice Jones
April 14, 2017 at 6:55 pm
I agree with your 3rd tip that software can be helpful when transcribing. Transcription is a long process, so any type of help like a software can be useful in the transcription process. I will recommend these tips to my transcriptionist friends.
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Liz Dexter
April 14, 2017 at 7:39 pm
Thanks, I couldn’t do it without the software to allow me to stop and start the tapes, although some people think that software does it for you! I’ll recommend clients in the States who need legal transcription to you, by the way, as that’s a service I don’t offer.
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E K
May 31, 2017 at 3:34 pm
Hi
Thank you so much for your very concise and informative website.
I wondered if you could advise me: I have decided to try and get some transcription work from home. I am new to this field.
I have just heard back from a company who claim to provide transcripts for many production companies. Their basic rate is 40p per audio minute.
Would you agree that this incredibly low? I really want to get experience but feel a bit like I’m being scammed and would make minimum wage at best… and probably even less, especially when starting out. I feel like I would be an idiot to go for it, particularly as they also take money off your wages for a foot pedal and software! What do you think?
Thank you and hope to hear from you soon.
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Liz Dexter
June 1, 2017 at 11:05 am
Thank you for your comment. I’d say that is quite a low rate, especially if you’re supposed to buy their foot pedal and software. How about if you have your own? Do you get anything out of it like a testimonial?
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E K
June 1, 2017 at 12:47 pm
I am speaking to the recruiter this coming week. In the application I committed to at least 20 hours per week; it’s not a one-off job (although, unsurprisingly, you will be self-employed). For certain scripts I would receive 60–80 pence per audio minute. I think I will give it a go in order to get some experience: it would look good to say I’d worked for them considering the TV companies they provide transcripts for. I’m not really in the position to be picky at the moment, but, of course, I don’t want to essentially encourage people to charge very low rates by agreeing to it. If it was any less I would consider it a scam. I’m a fast typer and have practised transcribing some audio. Anyway, I’m blathering now! Thanks 🙂
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Liz Dexter
June 1, 2017 at 5:14 pm
If you will get useful experience and you’re allowed to use it on your CV, and you don’t have a lot of work on at the moment, then it’s worth doing as that’s a good line of work to be able to do. If it involves closed captioning etc, then drop me a line in a few months if you get good feedback as I have that kind of work enquiry sometimes and don’t do it myself. Good luck!
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Bobby Saint
December 19, 2017 at 11:33 pm
I like that you provided some tips on how to become a good transcriber such as making sure you understand what the client wants. It is important that you are fully aware of the client’s requests to ensure that you are able to satisfy their needs. Some clients would request a verbatim type of transcription, so it’s essential that you are able to focus and concentrate on what is being reported. If I were to become a professional transcriber, I would make sure to keep this in mind. Thanks.
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Liz Dexter
December 20, 2017 at 6:29 am
Thank you for your comment and what interesting work you must do. I talk about verbatim transcription and other kinds in other articles on the blog, and agree, it’s very important to get things right up front and then listen carefully.
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benaiahjuma4
February 13, 2018 at 6:21 pm
Thanks, this information has been pretty useful to me.
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