These are my General Guidelines used when transcribing your audio/video material. This Style Guide will give you an idea of what your completed transcript will look like.
Clean Verbatim: Polished and cleaned-up version of your file. False starts, stutters, slang such as "gonna" and "wanna" are replaced with "going to" and "want to." False starts that include more than four words or provide additional information will still be included. No additional dialogue will be added that isn't in the original file to make the transcript grammatically correct except upon request. All responses such as uhh, mm-hmm, etc. is cut out unless it is a one-word response to another speaker or question. Uh-huh becomes Yes. Mm-hmm becomes Yes.
Strict Verbatim: File will be transcribed exactly as it sounds. All faults made by speakers will be included in your transcript.
Italics: Titles of movies, books, TV shows, etc. will be in italics. For example, Fox News Network is not in italics because it is a Proper Noun, the name of the network. However, The O'reilly Factor, Fox And Friends, Justice with Judge Jeanine, etc. will be in italics unless otherwise requested.
Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation: I'm on point and will not return you a garbage transcript. However, if there are a lot of long, run-on sentences in your file, then I can only do my best to (upon client preference) separate them into smaller sentences or use properly-placed commas to make them as grammatically correct as possible. All unfamiliar phrases and terms are thoroughly researched through sources such as Google, Bing, you name it. No worries here.
Semi-colons (;) vs more sentences and the difference: The best way to demonstrate this is to give examples. Semi-colons separate short but complete sentences. Instances such as, "Good luck; be safe; be careful; and do your best," are when I will use the semi-colon. Anything longer than four words will be separate sentences unless otherwise specified by the client.
Em Dash ( -- ), double-dash and long dash: This will be used to indicate a change of thought during speech or an interruption. The em dash does not usually appear frequently, but in some transcripts it can. A double-dash will indicate a change of thought mid-sentence. It will also indicate an inserted thought mid-sentence. Another thing, I do not use an ellipsis in any of my transcripts unless requested. Here's an example, "Did you want to go or...?" becomes "Did you want to go or--?" and in Word, this em dash would be formatted as a single long dash because there is no space before or after the two dashes. The long dash is also used for interruptions as well as the interrupted speaker's resuming of speech.
Strict Verbatim: File will be transcribed exactly as it sounds. All faults made by speakers will be included in your transcript.
Italics: Titles of movies, books, TV shows, etc. will be in italics. For example, Fox News Network is not in italics because it is a Proper Noun, the name of the network. However, The O'reilly Factor, Fox And Friends, Justice with Judge Jeanine, etc. will be in italics unless otherwise requested.
Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation: I'm on point and will not return you a garbage transcript. However, if there are a lot of long, run-on sentences in your file, then I can only do my best to (upon client preference) separate them into smaller sentences or use properly-placed commas to make them as grammatically correct as possible. All unfamiliar phrases and terms are thoroughly researched through sources such as Google, Bing, you name it. No worries here.
Semi-colons (;) vs more sentences and the difference: The best way to demonstrate this is to give examples. Semi-colons separate short but complete sentences. Instances such as, "Good luck; be safe; be careful; and do your best," are when I will use the semi-colon. Anything longer than four words will be separate sentences unless otherwise specified by the client.
Em Dash ( -- ), double-dash and long dash: This will be used to indicate a change of thought during speech or an interruption. The em dash does not usually appear frequently, but in some transcripts it can. A double-dash will indicate a change of thought mid-sentence. It will also indicate an inserted thought mid-sentence. Another thing, I do not use an ellipsis in any of my transcripts unless requested. Here's an example, "Did you want to go or...?" becomes "Did you want to go or--?" and in Word, this em dash would be formatted as a single long dash because there is no space before or after the two dashes. The long dash is also used for interruptions as well as the interrupted speaker's resuming of speech.