A Quick Guide to Transcription Styles

Using a transcription service to transcribe your audio or video files can save hours of time, but what is the best style of transcription to suit your needs? Here’s our quick guide to transcription styles.

Edited Transcription.

This is where we take the dialogue from your audio or video file and add some of our magic! Grammatical errors are amended, repetition and false starts are omitted. In fact, depending on your needs, we can even edit your dictations to create copy that can be turned into books, articles, blog posts and more.

Intelligent Verbatim.

This is probably the most popular transcription style. Intelligent verbatim is essentially verbatim (word for word) without the ‘erms’, ‘ums’ and ‘you knows’ these kind of utterances are often used to fill a conversation, without adding anything to the dialogue. Depending on your needs, we will also leave out false starts (e.g. “I was… I’m not going to the shop.” Would become, “I’m not going to the shop.”) and repetitions (e.g. “Yeah… yeah… yeah” would become “Yeah”). This helps to give you transcript more flow and make it easier to read.

Verbatim.

This style of transcript will include every utterance, including repetitions, false starts and fillers.

Discourse Analysis.

This type of transcription includes every utterance (the same as verbatim) but will also include nuances such as short pauses, long pauses, laughter and crying. If required discourse analysis can also include the tone of voice someone has used and even indications of changes in the speed in which someone has spoken.

Time coded Transcription.

This type of transcript includes a detailed record of the times that words are spoken, so that you can see exactly where in you audio or video file that certain words or actions occurred – right down to the second! This type of transcript is useful for research purposes and can also be formatted for subtitles and captions.

Transcription with Visual Descriptions.

This type of transcript is available for video files and includes not only the spoken word, but also visual cues. This is often combined with time coded transcription. We are also able to provide transcripts that contain only visual cues, if required.
So, that’s our quick guide to some of the most popular types of transcription. If you have any questions or would like to obtain a quote for transcription, virtual assistance or typing services, please get in touch. We are always happy to hear from you!