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Transcription Services Can Support Your Research and Publication Goals - Here's How

Balancing the research process with teaching presents many challenges. There are many logistical elements to keep track of, as well as people to serve and communicate with daily. Tools to help manage one’s schedule are invaluable.

Digital transcription services can help bring together the disparate parts of the research process, making it easier for you to pursue your goals of publication at greater speed. With fewer steps between each benchmark (and more ease managing things day to day), you’ll be able to achieve your research goal in far less time.

A library with people working at tables
Photo by Davide Cantelli

Review phone calls at a glance

This is a simple way to take advantage of transcription services on a regular basis. By recording your calls (with the speaker’s permission) and getting a transcript, you can have easy, searchable, written access to the full content of your past phone calls without needing to rely on in-the-moment notes, or hunt through audio recordings to parse out if the phone call is worth another listen.

Compile and store lecture material

A teaching assistant can easily record lectures and study sessions, and then upload the file to a transcription service.

Make sure the recorder is positioned where it can pick up your voice clearly, with minimal foreground or background noise. If the session includes student participation, assure that their comments are adequately mic’d as well. See our Audio Recording Tips post for further ideas.

Order a transcript from CastingWords, or check out WatchingWords for one-time setup and seamless digital transcription services of all your material.

With speedy turnaround, you’ll be able to post transcriptions of your lectures the day after class, providing an invaluable study aid to your students. They’ll be able to search out specific information from your lecture, for next-day clarifications, as well as more intensive study in the crunch of exam time. Allow your students to highlight or tab out key passages, and you’ll be setting them up for success.

A person studying at a desk
Photo by Green Chameleon

Dictate thoughts and ideas during the research process

Many professors get new ideas when they’re sitting around shooting the breeze with their graduate students. If you’re willing to record office hours or informal meetings, you’ll be able to reap the benefits of these ideas for years to come.

Digital transcription services can work with a variety of different file formats. Use a pocket recorder or a smartphone app to record your piecing-it-together sessions and send them off to be transcribed. Even recording your solo thoughts can prove profitable. You never know what ideas may stand out when put into print.

Protect your intellectual property

What’s worse than forgetting a great idea you’ve had in the past? Remembering a great idea only when you discover that someone else has come up with it in the meantime.

If you record and transcribe your lectures and day-to-day notes, you’ll have a dated copy of your ideas, and proof that you were the first to come up with an original concept, protecting yourself from plagiarism. Even if it’s a recording of a rant or journal entry, the dates and details will still be there, and you’ll have outside verification that you came up with it at a certain date.

Ready to get started?

Choose from CastingWords’ wallet-friendly Budget transcription services, or order the speedier 1-Week or 1-Day turnaround if you’re on a deadline.

If you have an ongoing transcription need, visit WatchingWords for one-time setup and the full-time convenience of having all your material transcribed automatically.