The Art of Transcription

"During the interview session, the interviewer should keep a running list of names, dates, words or phrases that may be hard to hear, old-fashioned, technical or otherwise difficult for the transcriber."

"On the interviewer's return from the interview and before returning the tape recorder, the most efficient next step is to listen to the entire tape, make a rough table of contents, and jot down personal notes as to whether to interview this narrator further and what questions to ask. It is also important to evaluate one's own interview technique."

"If you do decide to transcribe, you are committing the project to a number of costly and time-consuming steps... The question comes down essentially to costs vs. usability."

"Why Transcribe?
1. Transcripts are easier to use than tapes, especially if suitably indexed. In fact, few researchers will spend the time to listen to tapes if they are not transcribed. Therefore, if you have put in the great time and expense necessary to recording a well done oral history project, it is a shame not to put it in a form researchers will use.

2. The narrator can correct and amplify what she said in the interview if there is a transcript. Despite the danger of the narrator's deleting important information, most interviews are substantially improved in detail and accuracy by the narrator's review.

3. Your project will have something to show for your efforts, as will your narrators. A shelf of neatly bound transcripts will be a source of pride to the project and the community. It is hard to work up much enthusiasm or funds on the basis of a stack of tapes (although a multi-media tape-slide show can be an effective product)."

"Transcribing is a work of art, a little akin to translating from one language to another, but with less latitude allowable. The spoken word has many dimensions with which to convey fact and feeling: pitch, loudness, strength, speed, pronunciation, sounds that are not words. In putting a spoken performance down on paper, the transcriber has only words and punctuation to work with. With these, he must try to be accurate as to the information that was related, to use the words that the narrator used, and to catch as closely as possible the flavor and feeling of the speaker."

By Willa K. Baum in Transcribing and Editing Oral History (1991)