Hello, I'm a new transcriber for SpeechInk. I submitted several non-verbatim hits, but haven't had any feedback, approvals, disapprovals, or response of any kind. It has been quite a few days now. Is this normal? I actually messaged them a couple weeks ago asking for style guides for the non-verbatim hits - since the style guide for the verbatim hits doesn't totally explain how much "editing" one is to do on these non-verbatims to make them grammatically correct, etc. I haven't had any response to my inquiries; no response to any of my completed hits. Will my work be approved at all? I'm getting nervous about this. The work doesn't pay very much per hour, and so not getting paid in a timely manner is extra painful when I'm trying desperately to make ends meet financially - and, at the same time, trying to do a very good job for the requester. Help?
None of what you describe is unusual lately for SpeechInk, I'm sorry to say! But sure, they'll pay. Just not right away. If you search the forums to find other recent threads about SpeechInk, you'll see what I mean. ETA: Just noticed your username. Hope you get back to being one soon!
They used to approve and pay quickly but lately it takes them a while sometimes a couple of weeks to approve and pay any of their hits. The only ones that get approved quick are the home inspection ones. But so far I have never received a rejection for any of the verbatim or non verbatim hits they have.
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Your info helps. What seems to be the internal issue for them? Were they recently sold to a new owner, or something like that? Do any of you have guidelines about doing the non-verbatim work? For example, when the speaker changes thought mid-stream and doesn't seem to finish a sentence outright, am I the transcriber supposed to omit all the half sentences? (I have been leaving it all in - and dealing with it with commas, or ...) Many of the speakers start their new sentences with: And, But, Because, So, Well ... While that would be okay now and then, it is happening on every sentence for some of the non-verbatims I've done. I feel like I shouldn't correct each sentence, so I've left it in there - but do they want it in there? Thanks for any direction. I just want to do the job well.
Maybe someone that has been doing their hits longer can help you with all of those questions, I have only been doing them for a few months. The only style guide I have ever seen for the non verbatim ones is to use (?) for words you can't understand. I usually try and clean up the Grammar and only use, But, So, etc when it would change the meaning if they were left out. For breaks in thought I have always just used a coma. This has worked for me so far with no rejections, but someone else might have better info.
Claritrans doesn't pay as much but their work is usually pretty straightforward and easy to get through and Claritrans so far has been approving my work pretty quickly. I think all of the Claritrans work though is verbatum - they want every, um, ah, and verbal stumble included. But on the plus side their hits are usually less than a minute and don't take very long to do.
Need help ASAP with non-verbatim SpeechInk speaker attributes Hi Everyone, All the posts on SpeechInk have been very interesting and helpful. I need an answer to a question ASAP. I'm doing the non-verbatim, because I just can't focus on the details for the verbatim right now. I've done one job and received pay. Here's my question: What are the speaker attributions for the non-verbatim? Someone out there, please, please answer this question. I received at e-mail from SpeechInk referring me to a review of my job on their site. Could not find that review anywhere on the site. The e-mail said that I had to use speaker attributions in the future. Great. But, what are they? Couldn't find anything about non-verbatim format on their site. Nothing. When you go into a non-verbatim job, it says, "do not use Q and A, as for verbatim." But what do you use???? Very frustrating. I think I can make money on these, because I'm a fast typist with a lot of transcription experience. Need this answer fast!!! Please help.
If only one speaker then no speaker attribution is required not even Q and A. If more than one speaker then you could use, Interviewer, Interviewee, Man 1, Woman 1, Man 2, Woman 2 etc.
They mean to use speaker tokens if you have more than one speaker. Try and use the persons name if you know it, if not you can do things like Interviewer, Male 1, Host, Female etc
I haven't done any for Speechiink yet, I assume they're style guide is very similar to Casting Words - who has a very detailed style guide. Here's the link to Casting Words style guide and hopefully this helps you with Speech Ink as well. http://turkerdocs.castingwords.com/documentation/style/what_if.html
There are different guidelines for different transcription companies. Some prefer just Male and Female, if there are too many participants to be recognized or the speaker changes rapidly. Some common speaker attributes are: Interviewer Interviewee Man Woman Male Female Male Speaker 1 Female Speaker 1 Names if provided by the transcription company Sometime the names are clearly mentioned at the beginning of the interview Don't be scared of Speechink verbatim hits. Infact they are much more easier (and also pays more) than verbatim hits since the speakers pause often and sometimes more than 5 seconds. You just need to get used to the Transcription Guideline as provided by speechink.
Hi, bonnieblknp, Just seeing this, so I'm sure you've handed in the transcript. But I thought I'd chime in for future reference. Like Crowdsource, CastingWords, and I'm sure some other requesters, SI does have an official community manager who should answer these types of questions for you. (I say should, which doesn't mean they will...but since it's a style question, it ought to be higher priority. Then again, SI runs their shop in a lot of ways that seem puzzling lately!) I make a point of not posting anyone's email address in a forum, but they list it at the bottom of this Web page. They may take awhile (like, a week or a bit more) to get back to you---and it's true that in the case of style, that's of little immediate help for a specific job. So in the meantime, wcybercat answered you correctly. As far as the feedback, first check the email to see if they provided you a direct link. If yes, just click that. The tricky part of that is, when they provide you such direct links, sometimes the feedback is not otherwise available on their site. So save those emails. If they didn't give you a direct link to the feedback, then view the Ratings tab while logged into their site. That will give you links to all of your corrected jobs. If you cannot find that feedback in either of those locations, I hope you'll post back. I'm always interested in what SpeechInk is doing, even if it doesn't make any sense. They can't expect you to find it if they don't post it! Because you're an experienced transcriber, you probably already know that it's a really bad idea to try and use one company's style guide for another, as was also suggested here. If you didn't know what nonverbatim was, that might be the only reason to look over CW's style guide---but only to give yourself an idea, not to use as a guide for doing SpeechInk work. However, I'm guessing you already know pretty well the difference between nonverbatim and verbatim and in that case don't need to (and really shouldn't) reference CW's guide to do SI's work. Using one shop's guide for another's work is almost always a quick way to a poor score. Good luck!
I do recommend against SpeechInk in that specific sense, and agree that CastingWords is a night-and-day comparison on that factor. Careful, because all evidence is that you won't find Claritrans to be communicative if you ever really need them to be...since this is an SI thread, I shall leave it at that!