CastingWords Transcription Style Question

Discussion in 'CastingWords' started by ownedbytamater, Aug 18, 2012.

  1. ownedbytamater

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    Bah! I got an eight on the 13 minute one because I labeled the woman as female. I checked everything else in the style guide but I forgot to make sure the label was ok.

    I guess I remembered it mentioning female speaker in a serious manner and just drew from that.

    I was happy with the eight until I saw my mistake was that small. Oh well it won't happen again
     
  2. ayeembored

    ayeembored Active Member

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    I might be an anomaly, but if the expediteds are flowing (which isn't guaranteed, of course) I can pull in around $15 an hour. Or even more if things are marked as difficult but aren't. Being able to do the expediteds is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but you have to be consistently getting 9s to get there.

    I use hotkeys with express scribe, not a pedal, and usually get a turnaround of about 3 to 4 times the length of the audio, sometimes even faster if the stars are aligned correctly. The biggest piece of advice I can give is that if a piece of audio gives you trouble throw it back. There's always going to be more.
     
  3. angelface83

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    The express transcriptions do pay better. So getting to 88 and 90 is a must. But the pay isn't great for transcription.

    Also the grades do effect it unfortunately. So if you don't get 9's it really take a bite out of you.

    You can add up how much you make with how long it takes you on the audio you are doing- if a 5 minute audio that pays $1 with 50 bonus takes you an hour- That is your pay rate :/ And also depends on the bonus amount too. You can make decent money if you are dedicated to it and there are enough files.
     
    #43 angelface83, Aug 23, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 23, 2012
  4. ownedbytamater

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    Thanks anomaly, hopefully I can increase my speed bit by bit as I get more comfortable with the formatting. Right now I have to pause every few seconds to make sure I'm putting the commons in correctly and leaving out the filler words. I'm going to keep at it and hopefully build up my ppt quickly.

    Thanks angelface :) I'm sitting right at 88 and waiting to try out some of the new hits as they get posted. Also thanks for you great hits post, I haven't been able to find many worthwhile hits besides surveys and transcriptions. -only turking for about a week now, and 4 days of that was from my phone for surveys when I didn't have internet access
     
  5. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    Suggestion - work on formatting after you've run through the whole audio first.
    Listen/transcribe audio at your own pace. Finish.
    Relisten to audio to make sure you've "heard" sentences correctly and pausing to take out filler words.

    When someone first starts working for CW, it seems they don't always do a listen-through again at the end. I know this adds a ton of time on to the actual work time - but it eliminates so many mistakes and things missed. It helps me because...well most of what I type now is "train of thought", except for transcription work. My fingers seemingly work independently from my brain and my eyes are in on the joke - they deceive me, too.
    I will Hear word "a".
    I will Type word "b" instead.
    My eyes will tell my brain that "b" is what I heard and tell it to forget about word "a". not.even.joking.

    Anyways...
    Run through once. Type everything so your brain isn't trying to distinguish filler from substance. Relisten and edit along the way at the end.

    I believe doing this helped train my brain to the new tasks.

    oh and don't fuss for too long if you don't understand a word. if you've listened to the whole clip and still don't get it, put [xx] in place of the word or guess and put [?] at the end of the word. Sometimes I get lucky and catch the last two minutes of a presentation and idk wtf these people are talking about, but I can almost decipher the words and use google to pin it...and sometimes not. I could spend 15 minutes being a detective or stick in one [xx] and let the editor do their thing because they KNOW EXACTLY what the phrase/term/word is because they've heard it 30 times already. I don't use [xx] as a lazy way out, though. If I know I'll be doing a lot of clips that match, I do the research. It will make subsequent clips easier...sometimes.
     
  6. Maggiemw

    Maggiemw User

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    What Whimsy said. Repeated 800x

    If you have time, do your last listen-through after a nice pause for a break, so that you're coming back to it fresh, and your brain isn't "hearing" what you've already typed automatically.

    If you transcribe with Express Scribe at slower speed, put it back up to 100% - you'll be surprised some times what suddenly becomes sparkling clear at normal speed.

    Take the style guide and read it through again, thinking of anything it mentions that might be in the transcript you're doing. I've been fighting with quotation mark placement and punctuation for the last 2 or 3 transcripts I've done so a good, printed Guide to Correct Punctuation really helps.

    Sometimes people new to CW think they have to take on an enormously long audio, like the 21 or 13 or 8 minute ones we've seen recently. Do so at your peril! Take nice short ones until you have a work flow method down pat and some confidence in your knowledge of what they want.

    Good luck and lots of success!
     
  7. nobody

    nobody User

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    I wish I had. I did so many transcripts that received undeserved bad grades, and I didn't email them. I could kick myself! I wasn't posting here, so I had no clue about how their grading system works. I still have a 7 and some 8s sitting on my feedback page that have NO changes in the final edit. :/ Many others have fewer changes than the 9s in the same edit.

    I would agree with others who said to email them. Since I started doing that, my PPT keeps moving up. I don't even have to email them anymore, because it seems they periodically check my work and raise my PPT. Now, I just have to keep it from going back down, lol.
     
  8. nobody

    nobody User

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    Yep. I did a few of the Difficult Expedited ones the other night, and the pay is awesome. They *were* difficult, but I saw the final edits, and there were very few changes. Phew.

    I found a group today, and returned all but one. It was beyond difficult. They should have a new classification, maybe "Gawd Awful." Foreign speaker with a very heavy accent, either over the telephone or Internet, with the microphone next to the interviewer's keyboard as he typed. LOUDLY. Seriously, I weep for that guy's keyboard.

    It was an 8 minute chunk, and I ended up having about 15 xx's. I think most of them were false starts or mumbling that I couldn't make out. I'm praying that they don't drop my PPT for this one, because I seriously question if anyone else could make those out. I listened to them a bunch of times. I'll be biting my nails until the edit comes out...and I've switched back to the Express HITs for the night, lol.

    ETA: Saw the final edit, and I wasn't the only one who couldn't hear the speaker. The whole thing looked like the 4th of July exploded on it, red and blue as far as the eye can see. I'm pretty sure the editor guessed some of those words, but if CW is OK with it, all is well. I guess it's better than having 500 "inaudible" notations.
     
    #48 nobody, Aug 23, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 24, 2012
  9. deb28

    deb28 Active Member

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    I just started a transcription where the person has said "like" about five times in 30 seconds. Should I transcribe every one or take them out?
     
  10. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    like is a common filler and can be taken out in most cases
     
  11. deb28

    deb28 Active Member

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    Thank you. I wasn't sure. It doesn't change the sentences to take them out, but I was worried that they'd all be put back in when it's edited.
     
  12. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    More than likely they will not be put back in. If they are...I will be very, very surprised.

    edited to add: when you first start working on these transcriptions it will be very uncomfortable (well, it was for me) in making the decision to take the filler words (and, so, but at the start of a sentence. like as a filler...there are others) - but reading through after you'll see that it reads well, and that should help with the decision-making
     
    #52 Whimsy, Aug 23, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 23, 2012
  13. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    I hadn't been working on CW at all today, but tonight I dove in. I believe I'm working on some from the same group you may have been working on. Taking "like" out is totally like, um, like, well, like fine. lol =)

    It happens a lot with kids on up to college kids. After that general category I don't hear it nearly as often.
     
  14. deb28

    deb28 Active Member

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    Yeah, it was probably the same group then. It seemed like every one of them had the same problem.

    That's exactly what it sounded like, a bunch of college age kids. I've been doing CastingWords transcriptions off and on for a little over a month, but tonight was the first time I had run into the "like" problem.
     
  15. ayeembored

    ayeembored Active Member

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    But the thing is, you have to make sure that those filler words are ACTUALLY filler. I've seen a grading/approval hit where someone has taken the "And, but, so, and like are filler" completely overboard and eliminated EVERY occurrence of them.

    Not the REAL example, to protect the guilty, but it was something in the neighborhood of "I liked him, and I liked him, and I liked him," transcribe as "I d him, d him, d him." The ands should have been cut out and the bit changed into "I liked him. I liked him. I liked him," but someone along the line must have just did an autoreplace of "like" and "And" with nothing. *facepalm*

    Read the sentence without the filler and see if it has the same meaning. If so, you're good. If it doesn't, and it's a conjunction you've taken out, it ALMOST always should be part of the previous sentence, not its own sentence.
     
  16. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    instead of auto-replace I do ctrl+f for "like" and "kind of", then check the use of it
     
  17. nobody

    nobody User

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    I've had several edits where the person did a search and "replace all" and I can definitely tell when someone does it. I do a search, replace and "find next" to check each one as well.
     

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