Oh...It's Actually Work

What I lacked in skill

I made up for with enthusiasm...

              I was very excited to start my transcription work this week (did you catch the past tense?) I had grand schemes it finish it faster than expected and then apply to transcription jobs online… However, I quickly realized I lacked certain apparatuses and experience. Nevertheless, I had a plan of attack.

                My plan started with research. I read about formatting, deciding on the Chicago’s Manual of Style (which made the most sense for an internship in history). I looked up tools and programs, realizing that I didn't have access to any of them (which I thought was okay since they all seemed to be superfluous aids).  Finally I queued up the audio-recording, opened a new word document, sipped my cup of coffee and began.

It did not take me very long to realize several things:

•           The audio recording devise used by celery soup is out of date and not compatible with computers which makes it difficult to adjust the speed of the audio file (so that it is easier to keep up with).
•          My lack of a foot pedal (to pause and restart the recording at will) forces me to pause the audio with my hands. This sounds incredible lazy of me. I am too lazy to reach over and press a button, but the time added to my transcription process because of this (moving my hands away from the keyboard, replacing my fingers on the keys, etc…) is significant. Perhaps as much as 25-30% of my transcription time is wasted on this simple task.
•           Transcribing takes a lot more attention and time than I originally assumed. In my head it was a much simpler task. The more time I spend transcribing, the quicker I become. When I started and was still developing my process it took an hour to complete 3 minutes of recorded audio. Now I can finish 12 minutes of recording in the same amount of time, yet I am still very slow for professional transcribers who are expected to process 15-20 minutes.
•           Transcribing an interview where I was not present will be much more complicated and difficult.

At this point I have transferred 40 minutes of the interview into a 14 page, single space script and I have 80 minutes left.

           I am still enjoying my task and excited for learning new skill set, but this undertaking has lost the first fine flush of delusional expectations.

            The picture above is taken from the back yard of the couple we interviewed, and was planted by General Sanford. I will go into more details on that in another blog entry.