Hi everyone, I've recently started transcribing for CW (I've transcribed just a few for them a year ago), and I ran into what I think is a strange comment from a grader which I guess dictated that I got an 8 instead of a 9, since it's the only comment I received. Well, the comment says, "should label the paragraph after a tag." Somewhere in the transcript, I tagged a word with [?], and that was the response from the grader. After searching through the style guide for half an hour, I cannot for the life of me figure out what that means. I've never had that comment from a grader before after tagging a word. I should note that the audio had only one speaker. I've transcribed a HIT from CW that had only one speaker before, and have had to use the [?], but never had to "should label the paragraph after a tag." I've sent them an e-mail to clarify the matter, but I'm wondering if anyone has any knowledge/experience of this instance.
Hi Owl, Did you use any [applause] or [laughter] tags? If applause or laughter or something interrupts the speaker, you need to put his name down again on the following line, even if it's the same speaker. I think there's an example in the sample transcript. If you didn't use any tags like that, I'd definitely question it. Good luck!
Hi Salvia, Thanks for replying. What you said makes sense to me now, although I'm looking through the guide, and it doesn't say anything about speaker relabeling the next paragraph for single speaker audios if interrupted by sound events like [applause] or [laughter]. But you're right, the sample transcript does show it on the first page. I think it's just not really clear on what to do when it happens during a single speaker audio, as it's not explicitly stated in the style guide. I realized I ended up using the tag [laughter] instead of just [laughs] (since it was only the speaker that laughed and not the audience), followed by a line break before and after the [laughter] tag. That's why the grader ended up grading it that way, per the guideline you mentioned. What I actually did was use the incorrect tag. That's why I was confused, because I've used the tag [laughs] when the single speaker laughed, and didn't need to follow it up with any speaker relabeling on the next paragraph. Hope I didn't make this sound confusing. So yeah, thanks for helping me understand what happened Salvia.
From the Style Guide: But don't worry, they caught me once for that too, when it was a single speaker and the requester didn't want the questions transcribed. Btw, how do you guys approach such a situation? When there are instructions not to transcribe the questions, for example. Do you just act as if the speaker never stopped speaking? Do you put new questions on a new paragraph? Do you tag in any way the thing that was said not to be transcribed?
The first thing I would do is email support, because requester instructions are not vetted by CW before the transcript is posted. I once did an expedited where the speaker was dictating punctuation, and it was awful. By that I mean if I'd used punctuation the way they dictated, it would have resulted in an unreadable transcript. Email support, explain the situation, and see what they want you to do. Then mention the exchange in your comments when you submit the transcript, and you shouldn't get burned by graders/approvers. I usually just say something like "Did not transcribe speaker's dictated punctuation, per Mike@CW support."