General Transcription - Getting Started

[lillie]

Great! Let me know how it goes! Good luck.

Liz

[NikAssist]

I'll be giving this a shot...if nothing else, it's good practice! Thanks so much for this info!!

[todaysvirtualparalegal]

That is the right attitude to have, Nikia, and if I do not land myself a 9-5 job I will go for it also. Thanks

[NikAssist]

Can you tell me how to get the MP3 to open using Escribe? I can not figure this out, and it feels like such a simple thing to do...

Thanks!
Nikia

[Office Support Online]

Hi Melissa,

I fell into transcription as a backup for my other VA work and find now that most of my income is from this area, which is fine since I enjoy it. On a couple of other forums I participate on this topic has been raised on numerous occasions. The trick is to practice, as you have already learnt. Unfortunately some people think if you can type you can transcribe, which is very wrong. You need to have a good grasp of language, grammar, punctuation and be able to follow instructions.

Every client is different and will want their work done to their specs. For example I have one lady who doesn't want me to type anything she says on the interviews, just what the interveiwee says, and she doesn't care about spelling of foreign places and words. Another client just wants it to sound natural and they are only using it for reference, so again, not too fussy. Of course, then you have medical and legal and you have to put every um and ah and 'you know like' in there, which can be tedious. Not to mention focus groups where you will have more than 4 people speaking at the same time! It's all fun and games.

Try and network with other VAs who do transcription and you may be able to subcontract to them to get experience. Jobs that don't have a tight deadline are a good opportunity as the client doesn't need to know how long a job takes (unless they are paying by the hour). Mostly payment is by the audio minute, so if you take a long time the client pays the same as if you were super speedy. If you can get general transcription rather than a specialised field it will be a big help. I was lucky to get some uni lectures from a student and some interviews by a lady doing family history, so there wasn't much to worry about terminology etc.

Good luck with it. When you get the hang of it and start getting regular work it can be quite enjoyable. Make sure you have good equipment -proper closed headphones (not just cheap ear buds) a foot pedal (even though Express Scribe can use hot keys, which I used to start with, it really does make it easier and faster to use a pedal) and a room that doesn't have a lot of background noise so you can concentrate. I would also recommend having the NCH programs Switch to convert audio file format and Wavepad, which is handy if you are sending audio files and need to split files or merge.

Okay - I'll stop waffling on now!

Cheers,
Marie

[Office Support Online]

Nikia - have you checked the settings in EScribe to make sure that it will accept MP3 as a file type? I've come across this situation before and it was a case of finding where the file settings are and making sure that all your common file types are accepted by the program. You would think in this day and age that MP3 would be a default but they don't seem to do it!

Cheers,
Marie

[lillie]

Hi Nikia,

Just another idea for you in case you still have trouble after taking Marie's good advice: I needed to download the MP3 file to my computer (by right-clicking on the link that they give you on the HIT page) and then go to Escribe and "open" the MP3 file from there.

Good luck!

Liz

p.s. Marie, thank you for such an excellent introduction to the field. You've given me a much better understanding of it and a starting point for how to determine whether this is something to add to my business!

[NikAssist]

My problem was that I had to download it using right click like you had suggested Liz...I got it going..the files really are pretty bad, but I'm going to keep looking there for chances to practice..I know I certainly can not start with heavy accents and more than 2 speakers...I really need to practice a lot before I take on a transcription job...it is fun...but it's not something just anyone can do, and I see that now.

I love this forum!!! So so so much info!!!

[todaysvirtualparalegal]

This is great information for me as I too am a good transcriptionist and have legal background so want to try it while getting my VA business up and going. Can anyone recommend a foot pedal and where to get one and how much I should plan on spending for a decent one please? I have downloaded Express Scribe and want to test it out ; can anyone advise how to go about doing that without using it on your first customer. Thank you!

[Office Support Online]

Hi Deana,

I bought my foot pedal through the NCH site where Express Scribe is available. Because I'm in Aus it was here in a few days, so it was very exciting. It's called a VEC Pedal I think and has the two skinny pedals on the sides for FF and Rew and then the big part in the middle is for Play. It's just a USB connection, so it's plug and play really. When I got it, I had to go into ES and there is a setting under Controls for the Foot Pedal Set up Wizard. It just asks you to press REW, FF and Play and then you are off. It makes life sooooo much easier! Check with any business equipment stores in the area or check out eBay etc. Never know what bargains you will find in this economic climate!

Cheers,
Marie

[karlaamaya]

Hi Guys,

This is a great forum!! we can get all the help for our business. Thank you Moragb I will check it out!

[VirtualRachel]

This is very informative. I have thought about doing transcription and have found that they all require experience. I am going to check out this site. It would be great to have more than one service to offer.
Thanks
VirtualRachel

[frsvirtual]

This is all awesome information - thank you!!!

[ValentineVA]

This is great information to have! I would like to do medical transcription and add that to my list of services. Express Scribe and Casting Words will be great to get my feet wet.

Great thread, thanks!

Stephanie

[The Associate, LLC]

Thank you MoragB for the great suggestion. I will give this a shot over the weekend!

Kim