Do you transcribe verbatim?

Our standard transcription product is non-verbatim, meaning that while we never summarize, paraphrase, or include words that were not spoken, we do clean up the language somewhat for a smoother read. We omit ums and uhs, as well as filler words and phrases (such as habitual use of like or you know). We also omit stutters, false starts, and redundancies, unless spoken with that intent. Direct quotes are an exception; they are transcribed verbatim.

If you apply the Verbatim upgrade, then your transcript will include every utterance, including ums and uhs, filler, false starts, stutters, etc. We also tag any audible non-verbals such as background noise.

You may request a certain level of verbatim, by leaving special instruction in the Notes field. For instance, "Frank stutters a bit. Please remove stutters, but keep all the filler words, and make sure you catch Frank's use of 'gonna' instead of 'going to,' and his frequent use of 'like,' as we want to retain the speaker's character/jargon."

Our Verbatim or Not Verbatim, That is the Question blog post provides more in-depth info on the difference between verbatim and non-verbatim.

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