Hi everyone, I am new to this forum, but not really new to turking or transcription. I enjoy the CastingWords hits, I have been doing them for about a month and a half. My auto-approval score is 8, and my scores from editors are consistently 8s or 9s. I have gotten a few 7s, but not many and I have only had one rejection. That was because when I copied and pasted, I only copied the first half of the transcript from Word, so it was totally my fault. Anyway, my question involves my PPT score. I got to 85 within a two or three days. I then rose to 91 within about two or three weeks. Since then, my score has gone from 89 to 90 to 91 to 90 to 89 over and over again, sometimes twice a week. I am completely unsure of what I am doing wrong. I have sent emails and never gotten a response, though I have noticed that my scores usually change after sending an email. That could be pure coincidence though since my score seems to change by a point or two every several days. I do a lot of their hits and I enjoy them. Does anyone have any idea if this is normal or have any suggestions? Thanks for reading!
It is normal, especially since you are on auto-approve. I have been doing them just as long as you, but I got mostly 7's and still kind of do. I was never put on auto-approve though. My score has stayed at 82 pretty much all the time. It did drop to 81 the other day and I was scared because 80 is the drop-out rate. But the recent ones I got all 8's and 9's and my score is an 82 again. In order for your score to jump, you need to get off auto-approve and only turn in 9's. There are ways to do this, just search the forums. I wasn't on auto-approve yet so I don't need to worry about that. Someone should help you out though here. In my experience, I have gotten 7's because I am new at transcription and I get like 5 8's and 9's for every 9 or so 7's I get. So it's been like that for 2 months. Being on auto-approve would stink I would think since you can't move up if your getting 9's from people. So try and get off that if you can first. What I might also suggest is to do short audio ones before you do the longer ones. Pick the shortest one and do your best on it. This gives you a better chance of not messing up. This is what I have been doing. If your not doing it already, Express Scribe is an excellent tool you can use. It saves all the information in a box if your computer crashes and you can rewind/stop in it very easily. I highly recommend it and other people will as well. Let me know if you got any more questions I can help. I've been researching a lot. Maybe you can help me as well.
Thank you for your reply. My score is back up to 91 this morning, and I did get an email response from the company alerting me that it was raised. I have been doing as you suggested and searching the forums. Even though I'm on auto approve, my transcriptions do get spot checked by a real person pretty regularly. I do use Express Scribe as well. I have been transcribing for quite a long time. If you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to help you as well. I generally pick a series of audio that I don't have difficulty understanding and then just accept a batch of them and knock them out one at a time. There have been days I have done really well with Difficult Audio batches because I have for some reason had no problem understanding the speaker. Others are just way to difficult to touch. I try not to take on any audio that takes me more than twice the time of the audio to transcribe. Other then that, I don't have too much of a method, I'm still figuring things out. Thanks for your reply, and please let me know if there is anything I can help you with.
Heh, my main problem is finishing them to make them worth it in time. For a one minute easy audio, it usually takes me anywhere from 10-20 minutes depending on how many times I rewind. So it's about 10-14x the length of the audio it takes me. It may not be 20 minutes anymore, but it was like that at the start. The reason being is because I go over it many times trying to make it the best I can. If I could do them even 4x the length of the audio I'd be happy. Do you think a foot pedal would help me do that?
Honestly, I have tried the foot pedal and I am just not coordinated enough. I get confused. It reminds me of the time my husband tried to teach me to drive a stick shift. I'm sure with enough practice I could get used to it. What I did to get faster may not work for everyone. I chose only hits where the English was excellent. Podcasts or lectures worked really well for me. Then on Express Scribe I would turn the speed down to 43%. If the English is perfect and you type relatively quickly, you should be able to do it with minimal rewinding. Afterwards, I would listen to it one more time at full speed to proofread because sometimes at 43% you get words a little bit wrong such as confusing "with" with "what" or little things like that. If you keep at it that way, you should be able to not only raise your score, but get your time down to 3 times the length of the transcription. I hope that made sense. If not, just tell me and I'll try to explain it better.
Well I am good at stick shift, so I think it would help. I know it would increase my time but I don't know by how much. I tried doing that, but I find keeping it at normal speed is best. Even when it's easy to understand. I tried letting it loop as well and just typing as much as I could, but that took even longer. If you buy Marie's book, she will tell you exactly how she does it. I think once you get good at it, her method is pretty quick. It just takes practice. Just like anything else in life you want to get good at. You need to practice.
I don't think a foot pedal would be any benefit to me. The global hotkeys in ExpressScribe are great. I use F9 to rewind, F10 to fast forward, and that's all I need. In easy reach of my right hand, and you know you'll never use those keys during a transcript. I find once through at about 60-70% (depending on the speed of the speaker), then once again at full speed (maybe higher, again depending on the quality/speed of the audio) to review is sufficient. Some words get a bit muddled at low speed.
Do you use the free version of ExpressScribe? I was afraid to since it says for personal use only. I wouldn't mind buying it if I'm supposed to. I used to do a lot of transcribing but I only used a foot pedal and I'm not used to using hotkeys. I took the CastingWords test and have a rating of 91 but I haven't done any transcribing since then. I was also wondering if I should buy a foot pedal. I'm sorry, I'm rambling here but this discussion is timely because I was just wondering, today, if I should go ahead and try the transcribing.
I bought it. I don't know how quickly it paid for itself, but considering before that I was using xmplay with keyboard shortcuts (so I was doing alt+tab every ~10 seconds), it probably wasn't very long. I've never tried a foot pedal personally. I just can't see how it would be beneficial, considering you have to pause your typing while you're cueing the recording up to the right place anyway, and with the hotkeys you're not taking your hands off the keyboard.
Bobbie, I have been using the free version for over a year and have never had any problems. I don't even know how much it is to buy it, I've never been prompted or asked to buy or anything else. I would say definitely give it a try. You can listen to the audio before you accept, and you can always return it if you have difficulty. The majority of my turking money is made through CW bonuses. In my stats, my bonuses are higher than my regular pay. It's definitely worked out well for me. If you have any questions I'd be happy to give you any advice I can
For the free version of Express Scribe, you have to make sure you click the link that is hidden in the opening paragraph. It will say Download free version of Express scribe here. If you click the pro demo version, it won't work after 14 days. The free version will automatically convert to full free on 14 days. So make sure you click that one. As for a foot pedal, I would highly recommend it if your getting into transcription. The keyboard thing sounds nice in theory, but having to rewind with your foot only makes it so much faster. It saves you time searching for the keys to rewind, etc. Don't get me wrong the hotkeys are great in Express Scribe. I want to invest in a foot pedal once I get enough money to do so. Right now I am just trying to raise my PPT score to do the express ones.