Transcription style guides are an essential tool in the transcription industry. Transcription companies, freelance transcriptionists, and clients each rely on style guides as guiding documents that provide a variety of benefits. If you’re not offering your clients and freelancers a style guide, you need to create one now! Keep reading to learn how easy it is to make a transcription style guide and download my Free Transcription Style Guide Template to get started right away.
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What is a Style Guide
A transcription style guide is a document that provides a set of transcription rules and guidelines to ensure consistency, clarity, and accuracy in transcribing spoken content into written form. A style guide typically includes standards for grammar, punctuation, formatting, and specific transcription conventions. They can be quite basic (just a page or two) or very detailed (an entire book or manual). However, the main components of a good style guide include general guidelines, transcription conventions, spelling and grammar standards, and document formatting.
Why you need a Style Guide
Best practice in the transcription industry is to provide both your clients and your freelance transcriptionists with a style guide. Offering a style guide to clients demonstrates your professionalism and lets your clients know what to expect in their transcripts. Providing your transcriptionist and editors with a style guide ensures accuracy and consistency of the transcription services provided.
Benefits to Clients
- User-friendly Transcripts – Clients receive transcripts that look and read the same, making them easier to navigate and use, regardless of who transcribed them.
- Quality Assurance – Knowing you have a standardized process, clients are assured that their transcripts will meet certain criteria.
- Good Communication – Clients will know in advance what will be included in and omitted from their transcripts, as well as how the transcripts will look and read.
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Benefits to Transcriptionists and Editors
- A Standardized Process – The transcription process is easier when clear directions are provided and transcripts are produced the same way every time.
- Efficiency – With a defined set of rules, transcriptionists know how to handle unique situations and avoid the need to seek clarification repeatedly.
- Reduced Revisions – Clear guidelines minimize errors, as the initial transcription is more likely to meet expectations.
Benefits to You
- Client Satisfaction – Clients place more trust in companies with standardized practices, as style guides demonstrate the company’s commitment to professionalism and high standards.
- Quality Control – A style guide serves as a valuable training resource for new transcriptionists, helping them quickly learn and adhere to the company’s standards. Style Guides also facilitate consistent quality control checks, as transcriptions can be reviewed against a clear set of criteria.
- Risk Management – Style guides reduce the risk of errors that could lead to legal issues or client dissatisfaction and can ensure that transcripts meet industry-specific regulatory requirements.
How to create a Style Guide
When creating a style guide for your transcription company, you need to consider a few things. First, consider your niche. Think about the industry you’re serving and how your transcripts can cater to their unique needs. If you’re transcribing city council meetings for example, your style guide should ensure your transcripts adhere to state laws that dictate what must be included in the final document. Legal transcription usually requires verbatim transcription. Qualitative research and oral history transcription usually include speaker identifications.
Second, consider your client’s audience. Who will be reading your transcripts and how will your transcripts be used? Consider requiring timestamps in transcripts of videos. If your client is located in London, your style guide should require British grammar and punctuation rules. These considerations will give you a general idea of what should be included in your style guide.
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Now, you could create your own transcription style guide from scratch using other companies’ style guides as a reference. A simple web search for “transcription style guide” will populate a list of guides provided by the top online transcription companies. Most of these style guides are in PDF format, so you can download several and copy/paste the excerpts you want into your document.
However, if starting from scratch seems daunting, download my Free Transcription Style Guide Template. My template includes the most critical components of a style guide as well as space for you to add more. It’s easy to customize. All you have to do is fill in the template with your requirements.
By offering a style guide to your clients and freelancers, you’ll significantly improve the quality and reliability of your transcription services, foster better client relationships, and enhance overall operational efficiency.
