Typewrite Transcription and Typing Services
Beneficial Information
Purchase my new ebook "Working from Home as a Transcriptionist in South Africa" - great value for money at only R90! It is packed full of information you need to start out in the South African transcription field. How does transcription work? How do you get into the field, how do you quote and invoice? What does working from home as a transcriptionist involve? All these questions about transcription and more answered. Contact me for further information about "Working From Home as a Transcriptionist in South Africa" at gpaynter@telkomsa.net and download the contents page from the bottom of this page.
NEWS FLASH!!! We are pleased to announce the birth of Transcriptionists and Virtual Assistants of South Africa (TAVASA) - the first group or forum of its kind in South Africa http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/tavasa/
I advise everybody who is planning to do some recording to send to us to read this page in detail, print it out and distribute it to those doing your recording. Giving us a good, clean recording will help ensure you get a quality product back. In extreme cases, I may reject a job based on dreadful audio. This is not because I don't want the work. It's because I pride myself on my quality and good quality cannot be achieved when we can't hear the audio. It's as simple as that. Here are some general tips to help ensure that the audio you want transcribed is of optimal quality.
This is what the difference is between a good recording and a bad one: Say it takes half an hour to download an hour's audio, if it's good audio it takes you two to three hours to type and another hour to hour and a half to proofread, if it's bad audio it takes six hours to type and another 2.5 hours to proofread.
A well recorded hour can take about 4 hours to transcribe and will have no [unclears].
A badly recorded hour can take up to 9 hours to transcribe and there will still be sections we can't hear.
So here is some information about how to avoid this.
General Recording Tips
- Ask participants not to speak simultaneously. If possible ensure that each person has a microphone to speak into. One recorder placed in the middle of the table is not sufficient.
- Mikes should be placed close to the speaker and pointed at him or her. If there is only one mike and one respondent, point the microphone towards the interviewee as it will be of less consequence to lose what the interviewer is saying than the interviewee. Spell out difficult names or references.
- Ask each speaker to introduce him or herself clearly at the beginning and spell out their name.
- Send a list of commonly used jargon or names to us. Agendas and notes help greatly with transcribing conferences. If the interviewer has used a list of standard questions, please send that along too. If you're concerned about the quality of the recording, ask the interviewer to repeat what the respondent has said.
- Try to minimize background noise. Some common sources of background noise include: Traffic, construction and other street noise Noise from other rooms or hallways through open doors. Machinery running in the background TV sets and radios. People making noise in the background. Pets or other animals. Clocks that chime. Doors shutting or slamming. Coughs, sneezes, etc.
- Try to minimize people leaving or entering during the event, but if they must ask them to do so quietly and to not bang the door.
- Conduct a thorough sound check before the event.
- If possible, encourage speakers to make some verbal reference to things they may be indicating visually.
- Although we accept recordings in most formats, we prefer mp3 as this format is standard, works on most digital playback software, and does not usually require conversion.
Benefits of Outsourcing
There are very many benefits to businesses and entrepreneurs of using a service like mine. These include:
- You don't have to employ a full time staff member, or deal with a person with an employee mindset - working for myself, I know how important quality is to a business.
- You don't have to know how to type fast in order to get a professional presentation / document, either for school, college, varsity or business.
- No overhead costs like water, electricity, tea, coffee, etc. You don't have to supply or maintain equipment for me. You will get 100% commitment to your work.
- As soon as it's sent to me, it's my responsibility - leaving you to get on with your core business, or freeing up your time so that you can put it to more satisfying use.
- Work returned to you will be grammatically correct and I won't make the errors that are encountered by users of Voice Recognition Software.
- With some of the free time using our services will afford you, you can now grab a cup of coffee and browse through the site.
Contact Alison Fourie (amftyping@mweb.co.za) for details of her book about working as a Virtual Assistant in South Africa