To Transcribe Professionally, A Transcriptionist Has to Know The Correct Ways to Complete A Project.
However, A Transcription Project Has Difficulties That Pose Challenges, Especially for Beginners.
Worry Not, There Are Transcription Tips to Solve Them.
Transcription tips are highly useful especially for beginners.
This is due to the difficulties that exist within a transcription project.
Surprisingly, in contrast to what people believe, transcription does not simply require efforts and time to change audio or audiovisual text to a written form.
It requires competencies, such as project management, and certain skills, such as listening, to get the job done.
Accordingly, those skills and competencies are essential to bear with transcription challenges
The common challenges are usually regarding project management, technical difficulties, and background knowledge.
For beginner transcriptionists, these common challenges may hinder project progression to a significant degree.
That being said, there are solutions to every problem, including these transcription challenges. But what are those solutions?
Transcription Tips and Tricks: Solutions to Its Common Problems
For beginner transcriptionists, the most common challenges are usually about (1) project management, (2) technical difficulties, and (3) background knowledge.
To get past those problems, here are tips that help.
1. Project Management
Project management is arguably the most problematic challenge while working on a transcription project.
This is because it affects the whole project flow, from start to finish.
The challenges cover management, communication, workload adjustments, rework, and revision.
Regarding challenges about project management, the key is to understand what the project is and how to execute it.
For that reason, it is of importance for a project manager to know the concept, plans, and process of a certain project.
To do so, a project manager can create a daily schedule and target to ensure that the whole team can keep up with deadlines.
Furthermore, it is also critical to establish rules and guidelines.
They should give clarity to how to complete tasks, rework, revision, project timeline, and collaboration between team members.
Consequently, each transcriptionist in a team should work based on the guidelines in order to ace this project.
More importantly, while setting up the guidelines, a project manager should also understand the diverse competencies of each member.
This will help workload adjustments within a team.
Also, in a project, there also exists communication problems, internally and externally.
To solve the internal problem, it is grave for each transcriptionist to discuss project updates, progression, and difficulties on a daily basis.
While working for clients, it is suggested to frequently update them about the progress.
That way, clients will know what to expect about the project quality and when it will finish.
2. Technical Difficulties
The second problem is pertinent to technical difficulties.
This relates to the files and devices/equipment.
Some problems, such as poor device quality, are controllable and others, such as inaudible files, are uncontrollable.
There are also natural difficulties that may exist, for example lengthy files.
Naturally, a team can avoid controllable problems.
For example, preparing proper devices such as highly sensitive headphones will get rid of the problems.
Next, upon encountering inaudible files, there are several tips that will help reduce the problems.
For instance, adjusting audio volume via volume control and using audio-editing software to enhance voice and reduce noise are the easiest ways for beginners.
However, if those solutions don’t work, you can always let your clients know that these problems exist.
That way, should your clients have backup files, it probably can help lessen your challenges.
Despite everything, this is the very last resort.
Also, to mitigate the risk of boredom and focus lost due to constantly listening to lengthy files, segmenting the files into several parts can help.
A transcriptionist, then, can take a small break in between those segments.
3. Background knowledge
Upon transcribing a file, it is necessary to understand what the file is about.
That’s why, having a proper background knowledge about the topic will help a transcriptionist understand the context.
Unfortunately, this sometimes also becomes a problem for beginners.
Luckily, unlike the previous two categories, this one is easier to deal with.
One way to handle the problem is to conduct a quick research about the topic.
You can find reading resources available on the Internet, like the ones on online articles.
Another way is to listen to the file at least once before transcribing it.
This will, at the very least, give a rough sketch on what it talks about.
The Bottom Line: Transcription Tips to Every Common Problem
Transcription tips for beginners vary.
Depending on the problem, there is always a solution a beginner transcriptionist can easily conduct.
In addition, the general tips implementable to all transcription challenges are establishing guidelines, preparing devices and knowledge, as well as communicating frequently.
