Custom formatting options for academic research clients

One of the considerations you will make about having your recordings professionally transcribed is your formatting requirements. Different clients have different needs. This blog article will focus on the needs of academic research clients.

The considerations for academic clients differ depending on the reason why they are undertaking the qualitative data gathering. In some cases they want a transcript of the recording so that they can fully engage in the interview, without appearing distracted by taking extensive notes, particularly where the interview is being conducted online or by telephone. Sometimes it is to allow them to be able to analyse themes of interest across multiple participant interviews, and to be able to extract direct quotes for future publications. On other occasions they specifically require every nuanced interaction between themselves and the participant, meaning that a verbatim transcript capturing every utterance is required.

A clear and easy to read layout is the most important consideration of all.  A well-defined font such as Arial 12, with single line spacing and suitable paragraph breaks, ensures a document that is easily accessible to all.  Identifiers with hanging indents also clearly attributed the text to the speaker.  It shows who the current speaker is, and when the speaker changes.  Where additional space is required for post transcription note-taking, a wider margin, or additional line spacing can help. 

How speakers are identified can vary within academic transcription. Some clients require personal identifiers, initials or first names, particularly in a group interview. Some prefer to anonymise this by using generic identifiers such as R for researcher of I for interviewer. And this anonymisation can go a step further within the transcription itself; there may be a requirement to anonymise all identifying information such as names, organisation, job titles, to ensure client confidentiality. With data that will be stored as part of the consent, and made available to other researchers looking at similar themes, the identification and anonymisation of participant information becomes more of a consideration. In some cases, the lead researcher may need this information to compile their own data, but then need for that data to be fully anonymised before it is archived and made available to others.

Some formatting requirements are dictated by how the data will be analysed. When importing data into qualitative analysis software such as NVivo, the layout must meet the software’s specification. In this case, the speakers may be identified by different font types: bold for the interviewer, italics for the interviewee. This negates the need for hanging indents and tabs within the document, formatting options that might not be compatible with the analysis software.

Consistency is very important. Planning your requirements in advance and making these clear to the transcription company allows them to create a custom template just for you. This ensures that the formatting across all the transcripts is the same, meaning that no additional time is required post transcription bringing all the formatting in line.

If you would like to speak to us about your formatting requirements for your academic transcriptions, then please get in touch here. We will ascertain your layout needs prior to commencing the transcription to ensure that you do not need to spend any time reformatting post completion.