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In the ever-changing world of transcription mediums, Alphabet Secretarial Services has over 13 years of experience that ensures accurate and competently produced transcripts. Whether the recorded medium is produced on a Micro, Mini or Standard cassette, through to a sound file for digital transcription, you can be rest assured your documents will be produced to an extremely high standard.
Here at Alphabet, we do not promise what we cannot deliver. We will go through a 5 point checklist with our clients to ensure that timescales and document production are adhered to:
| | What is the quality of the recording like:
extremely good / good / poor / very poor? |
| | | | | Do you want the transcript verbatim? |
| | | | | How many people are speaking? |
| | | | | What type of formatting do you require? |
| | | | | What is the timescale for delivery? |
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This is not an exhaustive list of questions that we ask, as each client's requirements are different, but these 5 points are the fundamentals that help us to assess the main criteria for each project.
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A seasoned transcriber is not, I am afraid to say, a person who merely transcribes normal speech dictation of letters or memos in a typical office setting. Yes, all good transcribers should have entered the profession by that route, enabling a good basic training, but to transcribe verbatim interviews or focus groups is an entirely different entity. When we hold a conversation in normal everyday life or have a discussion about a subject, we often use the utterances of 'hmmm', 'err' and 'um, which takes skill and a lot of practice to be able to type as second nature. Alternatively, if a client wishes for an intelligent transcription to be produced, you do have to be able to cut these utterances out, with the same speed and accuracy that is provided here at Alphabet.
We obviously talk at a rate that is much faster than the average typist types, hence we always advise a client that it takes approximately 4 hours to transcribe 1 hour of recording, bearing in mind sound quality, background noise and number of speakers. We have seen all too often vast amounts of tapes landing at our offices of very poor recording quality, with no thought in the preparation of the surroundings and quality of recording produced. Obviously this causes problems in the transcription process, making constant replaying of words, sentences and even whole paragraphs a timely process, which is frustrating for a professional transcriber when they wish to produce an accurate transcript. To avoid such pitfalls in the first instance, we always advise a client to preferably use digital recording. The quality is far superior and hence, timescale delays are avoided. |
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