ime taken in this example of 20 hours. Twenty hours of work is probably a minimum of three days work for one person, and there’s a very good chance it will take longer.

Now if you start ringing round transcription companies once you have the recording ready to send, and you’re hoping to

This article aims to provide advice to conference organisers in obtaining transcription that is accurate, timely and complete. It suggests ways in which the conference organiser can help the transcriptionist to ensure that the transcription is good quality and free of errors.

The most important piece of advice I would give as a transcriptionist is that if you’re going to have your conference transcribed you should arrange for completion of the transcription even before the conference even takes place! Of course you are going to want to send the transcript (or your interpretation of it) out to your speakers and delegates as soon as possible after the conference takes place, but a conference is a significant chunk of work to transcribe.

Let’s take an example of a conference where the talks (and possible workshops etc.) total 5 hours. Even if you have excellent audio recording equipment and supremely clear speakers, with minimal question and answer sessions or workshops (the point of which I will explain in a moment) the time taken to transcribe is going to be four times as long as the recording – so you’re looking at an absolute minimum length of time taken in this example of 20 hours. Twenty hours of work is probably a minimum of three days work for one person, and there’s a very good chance it will take longer.

Now if you start ringing round transcription companies once you have the recording ready to send, and you’re hoping to

portant piece of advice I would give as a transcriptionist is that if you’re going to have your conference transcribed you should arrange for completion of the transcription even before the conference even takes place! Of course you are going to want to send the transcript (or your interpretation of it) out to your speakers and delegates as soon as possible after the conference takes place, but a conference is a significant chunk of work to transcribe.

Let’s take an example of a conference where the talks (and possible workshops etc.) total 5 hours. Even if you have excellent audio recording equipment and supremely clear speakers, with minimal question and answer sessions or workshops (the point of which I will explain in a moment) the time taken to transcribe is going to be four times as long as the recording – so you’re looking at an absolute minimum length of time taken in this example of 20 hours. Twenty hours of work is probably a minimum of three days work for one person, and there’s a very good chance it will take longer.

Now if you start ringing round transcription companies once you have the recording ready to send, and you’re hoping to

ion of it) out to your speakers and delegates as soon as possible after the conference takes place, but a conference is a significant chunk of work to transcribe.

Let’s take an example of a conference where the talks (and possible workshops etc.) total 5 hours. Even if you have excellent audio recording equipment and supremely clear speakers, with minimal question and answer sessions or workshops (the point of which I will explain in a moment) the time taken to transcribe is going to be four times as long as the recording – so you’re looking at an absolute minimum length of time taken in this example of 20 hours. Twenty hours of work is probably a minimum of three days work for one person, and there’s a very good chance it will take longer.

Now if you start ringing round transcription companies once you have the recording ready to send, and you’re hoping to

audio recording equipment and supremely clear speakers, with minimal question and answer sessions or workshops (the point of which I will explain in a moment) the time taken to transcribe is going to be four times as long as the recording – so you’re looking at an absolute minimum length of time taken in this example of 20 hours. Twenty hours of work is probably a minimum of three days work for one person, and there’s a very good chance it will take longer.

Now if you start ringing round transcription companies once you have the recording ready to send, and you’re hoping to

ime taken in this example of 20 hours. Twenty hours of work is probably a minimum of three days work for one person, and there’s a very good chance it will take longer.

Now if you start ringing round transcription companies once you have the recording ready to send, and you’re hoping to have the transcript returned to you in two or three days, you’re probably going to be out of luck. A good, established transcription company, employing fully trained and competent transcriptionists who are able not just to type but also to proof-read and edit, recognise the correct homophones (words that sound the same but are spelt differently), and punctuate English correctly, is probably not going to be sitting there waiting for your call. Although you might strike lucky they will probably be booked up for at least a few days!

So if you book in your recording before the conference and agree to send it on a certain date, they will be able to turn it around for you much faster.

Now, why might it take longer than four times the length of the recording? There are wide variety of reasons. Four times is the industry standard for a good, clear one-to-one interview with no background noise, good recording quality and no strong accents. It also does not take into account the possibility of specialist or technical terms, with which the transcriptionist will need to become familiar. So if you have any of those issues there will be extra time involved.