Musings Of a Transcriptionist

How Will You Look In The Interview

Decide what attire you are going to wear for the video interview. The safest bet is to wear a coat and a tie, or just shirt and a tie. The tie may not be necessary incase the shirt one is wearing is a formal one. Usually one can do without a tie if wearing dark colored shirts.

Females can wear a coat or a smart shirt. Make sure the dress does not seem too tight or too slack. Top Tip#: We highly suggest wearing a maroon colored shirt or top as most interviewers we come across don’t wear maroon. So one is likely to more stand out in the interview and hence be remembered by the HR manager.  Also, a category of business attire called 'Business Casuals' also goes well for video interviews. Infact we recommend using business casual over a full professional suite since it sends a subliminal message of your personality traits to the HR manager that you are professional friendly and approachable.

Try the dresses and suits a couple days before the interview. And finally go after your gut feeling on how you should present yourself to the company.

Here is an article by Tarleton State University on how to dress to impress! 

 Essentials On The Table

Keep the following list of things on your table for the interview:

Extra Pens

Watch

A Copy Of Your Resume

Tissue/Handkerchief (Can Go In Pocket)

Water Bottle

A Small Notebook

Practice/Mock Interview

if you are feeling nervous before the interview then why not practice first. Call your friend or family over Skype/Google Hangout. Give a mock interview. Send them a list of questions that you think the interviewer is likely to ask. Also send them your resume. Answer the questions as if you are giving a live interview. Towards the end of the session ask them for lots of feedback.

Another method is to record the skype interview and transcribe the video. After transcribing the video you will receive the video transcript. You can take a printout of this and review what you have said and how you said it. Note: Tell your transcriber to send you a verbatim transcript instead of a general transcript.

Intermittent feedback also can be very useful as you can correct yourself multiple times during the course of the interview.

Background

Backgrounds can be made to look interesting. An interesting example of an excellent background is books. So lots of books, memorabilia, trophies, etc shown in the background can look interesting to the HR manager. You never

Noise Free Room: If you are giving the interview from your room then there are certain things you should do. There should be no echoing when one is speaking. If there is one can open the windows slightly. The doors should be closed. The voices from the other rooms should not leak into the interview room. Outside traffic noise should not enter the room.

Check Your Internet Connection

If you present in the developed regions of the world such as Canada, Australia, USA and the United Kingdom then it's most likely that you will need not worry about the speed of your net connection. However in developing nations internet speed is still a concern as broadband is yet to penetrate into a lot of regions. So ask your provider if you can buy some high speed bandwidth on demand for a day or two. 

Interview Equipment

There are 2 peripherals that one would need to arrange.

Microphone: Laptops have inbuilt microphones in them. So one need not purchase a extra microphone. If for some reason the inbuilt microphone is not working then make use of the webcam microphone. The third option is you can buy one of the several microphones available on Wallmart, CVC, B&H Photo, Target stores etc.  

Webcam: Webcam is probably one of the most important devices that you will need for the interview. Invest in a excellent USB webcam. The webcam should have an inbuilt voice recorder, should be able to record 720p or higher video frames. There are several excellent webcam companies out there but our favorite is Logitech and Microsoft. If one is on a budget then we recommend you go through this article which lists out the best webcams available in the market for under $50.

 About the Author

Clients using Etranscriber.net to transcribe digital files have to transfer the wav,mp3 and audacity files to us first. This is because we the digital files are needed for transcription. So there are three possible ways in which customers of Etranscriber.net can send in the digital files:

1. Upload To A Dropbox Page

We have partnered with a cloud storage service called Sendspace. We provide the customers with the link to our file upload page. Here they can upload the file directly to our Dropbox account. Note: The maximum file size of one file should not be more than 2Gb. One can transfer unlimited Gb's of files to our account as long as each file size is under 2Gb.

2. Email the direct download link

If the digital audio/video file is already uploaded on the internet then it can be sent to us via email. And we will download the files from the downloadable link to our server. This is a popular option to send us the file. It is commonly used by podcasters, video bloggers. It is also now being used increasingly by authors looking for Ebook audio transcription service. Authors and book writers provide us with the links to the audio ebooks. This is so much easy and convenient for them rather than sending in the cassette tape for transcription.

3. YouTube Transcription

For videos available on video network sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion and Vimeo, clients are required to mail in the URL of the video. We use an cloud based software to download the video to our harddrive and proceed to transcribing from there on. Note: Clients using Etranscriber's YouTube transcription service are recommend to send the downloadable link to the YouTube as it saves us a lot of time from downloading the file. This is especially required in the rush transcription orders where we are racing against time to deliver the transcribed files and documents back to our clients.

So there are basically three option for Etranscriber.net's clients for transferring digital files to us.

Security and confidentiality

Cyber Security is, amongst many, a key focus area. All our workstations are installed with the Award Winning Eset Nod 32 Cyber Security Suite.  Customers need not worry about the security of their files as our systems are running free from viruses, malwares and adwares.

4. An Alternative Option To Send In Cassette Tapes

We also accept cassette tapes for transcription. Customers need to mail in the audio cassette tapes. We recommend using FedEx, USPS and UPS as they are well known for their reliability factor. So there are these 4 options of sending in digital files to Etranscriber.net. Our most preferred method to receive files is via cloud storage services such as Dropbox.com, Google Drive or Sky Drive.

Tips for making files transfers an easy process

Set the voice recorder to output recorded files in mp3 format at 128kpbs of bitrate. MP3 files are much smaller compared to their WAV (audacity for MAC) counterparts. Hail to the classic MP3 format. It's everyone's favorite.

Managing large sizes video file. Since transcriptionists need to listen to the audio only hence it is best to extract the audio from the video using an extraction software. We recommend using Format Factory for this. It is free and easy intuitive to use. Here are step by step instructions for using Format Factory.

About the Author

Proofreading is the process of eliminating errors and improving grammatical composition of an transcribed text. At Etranscriber.net we maintain a policy of delivery highly accurate typed transcripts. Our transcripts are accurate to the tune of 99.50 percent. If the audio is excellent then our accuracy improves more. 

In our recent newsletter we announced the adoption of Multi-Stage proofreading. We received overwhelming response from our customers from UK, Canada and Australia. These regions are specifically mentioned since the accent of these regions is different to what we are used to hearing here in the United States. So we need to customize our services according the region from where we are receiving transcription requests.

The simple reason why we adopted the Multi-Stage proofreading concept was to achieve the holy grail accuracy level of 99.90 plus percentage. If you think about, let's say an transcribed meeting contains 10,000 words. So 0.10 percent in a 10,000 transcript will equal to 10 words! So an error of just 10 words out of 10,000 words is an excellent performance standard to set. 

First Stage of Proofreading In the first stage of proofreading  the transcriber will transcribe a video into text. In the typing industry this is what we call as the 'Draft version'. The transcriptionist will now go proofread the draft version. Proofreading is usually done by re-listening to the audio from the beginning till the end. The main goal is to eliminate typing errors such as spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, paragraph spacing and positioning etc.

After he or she thinks the document is transcribed to satisfactory levels of accuracy, the transcriptionist will forward to another transcriptionist in her team.

Second Stage of Proofreading The second transcriptionist will now listen to the speech and check for typing errors. The second stage of proofreading takes much less time viz-a-viz to the first stage of proofreading as most of the errors were removed earlier. Why the second stage of proofreading? Well there is a thing known as transcribers blindness. It takes so much effort to transcribe an audio. So if the same transcribe proofreads the audio it’s possible that because of tiredness and repetitive nature of the work the some errors would be outlooked. So the second transcriber will be more efficient in this. 

Multi-Stage Transcript Proofreading We normally don’t proofread for the third time as the first two proofreading sessions are enough. However, there are some super-critical transcription jobs. For example, we had to transcribe a press conference for Maryland University' management group. Critical transcription jobs like these we try to do a multi-stage proofreading. Similarly we follow Multi-Stage proofreading for the following critical transcription:

Conference Call Transcription

Sermon Transcription

Church Transcription

News Report Transcription

Interview Transcription

Typing Master Typing Tutor TypingMaster is a typing tutor software that we recommend to all our transcriptionist as a practice tool to improve their typing speed and accuracy. It does not matter at what typing skill you have. If you are new to typing and are keen on learning professional typing then this is software will teach you everything and making you adept at typing within 2 months of working at it. That's the beauty of the software. The one best thing we likes about the software is the user interface. The interface has interesting visuals which our transcribers just love. 

Double your typing speed with typing tutorial softwares.

Increase accuracy in typing.

Learn proper method of typing.

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What is TypingMaster?  TypingMaster is a typing tutor software which teaches you accurate keyboard typing. Many of our professional transcriptionists have used TypingMaster have been using it for past several years now. And our team continues to make use of it till date. TypingMaster has an easy to use interface which makes learning typing fun. The software has a virtual keyboard which shows the movement of the hands for specific keys. This significantly helps to fine tune your typing style.  

Pricing: TypingMaster offers licenses for Education and business purposes. It also offer a one free software license for personal use. The business licenses for the TypingMaster Pro version will cost you $199 for 5 workstations. The company also has a cloud based (web based) typing tutorial in which the end user can access the tutorial as a web application on cloud. 

Dictionaries What use does a dictionary having in a professional typing service company like Etranscriber.net? Well, our company transcribed a lot of digital material with recording containing topics from all fields. For example, our clients range from market researchers on financial services, to  private detectives to legal court case discussions including depositions. We also transcribe medical records. All these fields have technical jargons of their own. These jargons are easy for person who works in that particular field. However for from a layman's perspective the technical jargons could be difficult to understand. 

Our transcribers have to be aware of such technical jargons for as many fields as possible. This is where dictionary helps us in our work. 

How to use a dictionary to expand vocabulary? One way is to randomly read 2 pages of a dictionary every day. This will increase the vocabulary database of the transcriptionist over a period of time. 

Other sources of learning for difficult jargons can be journals, magazines, white papers and infographics. Here is an excellent article by The Guardian which discusses methods to increase one's vocabulary. 

Merriam-Webster offers an online word playing game which professional transcribers can make use of to enhance their vocabulary knowledgebase. The word game can be accessed here.

Journals, Magazine and White Papers Journals and magazines are a great source of keeping oneself update on latest evens and happenings. For example Patient.co.uk offers a variety of textbooks and journals on drugs and diseases on its website. The Royal College of Physicians also offers its medical journal which can be accessed at their website. 

A white paper is an assertive report on a particular issue. White paper also provides readers with valuable knowledge and insights into an industry specific related problems. One can also make use of whitepapers to enhance niche related knowledge. 

Reading whitepapers, research papers and magazines can boost a person's knowing of that particular niche. Our transcribers who specialize in medical transcription services are recommended to glance at online free journals atleast once every 15 days. The list of medical journals can be found at this Wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medical_journals

Make Shorter Videos Initially:  For fist time video blogging, shorter videos are your best bet. The Video should be kept under 7 minutes. 10 minutes is long even though it sounds not much. An ideal length would be between 4-5 minutes for first timers. We have seen that several popular videos that have gone viral range in the 4-7 minute bracket.

The single most benefit of recording short videos is the amount of preparation needed to decide the content of the presentation would be halved.  

Blogging Tip: Vlogs or video logs is a sort of a video blogging which is gaining popularity. Vlogs are usually recorded for a brief period of time and is done on a frequent basis. Here is a tip to record Vlog:

Give An Excellent Intro to the Video:  Did you know average attention span of internet surfers is coming down to a mere 5 seconds before they start looking for a new page. If the intro on the video is boring and does not captivate your audience  within the first 1 minute then the viewer will close your Video.  There are several techniques to make an excellent intro. For example, some blogger always start their video on a humor note. Some blogger do with an interesting fact and some with a shocking fact.

There are some more techniques which gives some excellent introduction ideas.  Note that introducing yourself in person to a stranger is not much different that introducing a video. All it requires is a captivating first few sentences that will make your audience want to watch the whole video.

Generate Interesting Content: Well, this is a no-brainer. So we are not going to discuss this further. But what we will highlight are some tips to generate interesting video content ideas. First is decide a theme of the video beforehand. For example what will be your mode of the day? Will you present the video as a critic, or as someone who is giving out information, or someone who is presenting good reviews on a product or a service or just presenting some news. Remember the Dot Com Adage: "Content is King".

Transcribe Videos but Don’t spend too much on it:  Put up a video transcript of the video below each of your Vlogs. Video Transcripts make content more searchable. So we highly recommend adding a text transcript. If you are low on budget then one can type out the video by themselves, or, hire an economical and budget service which transcribes the video for you. 

Do Not Forget to Monetize Videos: It doesn’t matter if you have only a limited number of YouTube subscribers. But you should definitely allow Google to display ads on your YouTube video. If you are blogging on a different platform such as DailyMotion, Vimeo or directly then the next best option is to allow advertisement from ad networks such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and Adroll to display embedded advertisements. Advertisements can generate a handsome monthly income payouts over a period of time. Though it is directly proportional to the popularity. If you are video goes viral and you don’t have any display ads then as a blogger you would be losing a lot of money. How much? You could lose $1000 or $2,500 in a month, potentially. Sometimes more. And this is just from one viral video with millions of views. So we highly recommend displaying ads such as one by Google Ads or Bing.  

Make Use of Google's Video Analytics: YouTube analytics and Google Analytics is an indispensible tool which gives you valuable insights on how viewers are reacting to your video. For example, video analytics tells gives you the bounce rates i.e. how many people exited the page without actually viewing it in full. Very high bounce rates may give you an indication which content to produce for your next series of video posts.

Similarly, analytics give other valuable details such as number of people who click on the ads, revenue generated, demographics of viewers such as age distribution, country of viewership, probably profession, gender etc.

Reach out on Social Media: Facebook viewership is dominated by females so as first time video bloggers should definitely share their videos on Facebook. If your products is gender specific then it makes it even more sense to use Facebook. Besides Facebook, Twitter is the next best place to share your videos. One can embed YouTube/Vimeo videos into Twitter. So users who use the Twitter search feature can find your video.  

How much do typing services charge? Typing services charge on a length of the audio and video that is to be worked on. Rates start at US $0.85/minute of audio or video. Medical transcription services charge as per line or a per word. Charge for difficult audio i.e. recording with background noise, accented participants, multiple participants as in a research group etc. tend to be higher as it takes double the time to correctly identify individual speakers. It's increases the work load of the transcriptionist.

What can typing service transcribe? Literally any audio or video file that has is of transcribable quality. For example, transcriptionist can transcribe seminars, presentations, audio books, lectures and telephonic calls. Video transcribers can transcribe webinars, presentations, Skype calls into text.

Are there any extra charges that I should be aware of? Yes, depending on the service provider you hire. For example, there could be extra charges for difficult audio, multiple speakers and speakers with difficult accents. However Etranscriber.net does not charge anything extra for it.

What is university transcription? Also know an academic transcription, it is a service means for lecturers, PhD research students, Asst. Professors and undergrads. The typing service rates are generally lower so as to make it cheaper and affordable for university people to avail such service.

I am from Singapore and I want to hire an US based transcriptionist. Will this work out? Absolutely. Most transcription companies are able to offer transcriber service in countries such as New Zealand, Dubai and Singapore. Also, transcribers are well versed in regional languages. So if the recording has Asian accent then also it should not be much of a problem.

How to send files and cassette tapes to a transcription company? Digital files can be uploaded to the company's website Dropbox. Or the file can be sent as hard copy in the form of CDs, DVDs, cassette tapes etc directly to the company. For cassette tape transcription one will be required to send in the audio tapes to the transcriptionist.  

Can I take a free trial first? It depends on the service provider. Some virtual typing services may provide a 5, 10 or a maximum 15 minute trial service. Trial service could be paid or free.

What is the most common form of payment you accept? Paypal, bank wire transfer (International and local) and ACH Payment options are most common options. Most companies accept major Credit and Debit cards such as Master Card, Amex, Visa etc.

Can typing services transcribe scanned documents? Yes. Typing services can transcribe scanned documents, newspapers, letters, legal documents, reports and books into digital text. The transcribed text after transcription is saved into a MS Word document and sent back to client.

I need several hours of audio transcription. Can I get a discount? Usually one can negotiate depending on the volume of the services required. University lecturers and students can get bulk discounts to transcribe large audio files.

What is TAT in transcription? TAT is the acronym for Turnaround Time. It's the time period in which the transcribed material will be sent back to the client after placing an order. At Etranscriber.net offers 3 TAT periods. These are rush service of 12 or 24 hours, second day service of 48 hours and economic transcription service with a 72 hour TAT.

Do companies offer live transcription? Yes.  Live transcription happens at the same time the live event is going. The typing happens in real time. Example of live transcription are: Court transcribers (present inside court rooms), conference call transcription, meetings transcription, press conference transcription etc.

I want to receive a transcript in fastest possible time. What is the fastest that you do? Live transcription is the fastest possible and the transcripts are prepared in real time as the event is taking place live. Next best TAT options are 12 hours.

I am about to record research interviews for my university project. Can you give me some tips so that your transcribers don’t have any problems in working on the files later on? Here is a tip to record