This service provides individuals, organizations, archives, museums, and others with the fast, accurate, and confidential transition of the spoken word into readable and searchable text.
Digital audio and video recordings are our main focus, and we can also transcribe your standard-size audio cassettes. Transcription from other analog media is possible--please contact us with a description of your materials.
While this business was established in 1987, you can rely on our over four decades of whole career experience with historical societies, governmental entities, museums, and archives; having served in law offices, medical offices, and university departments ranging from science to liberal arts. We offer worldwide service for English language transcription and word processing, having successfully worked with clients all over the USA, England, Japan, and the Middle East.
We have transcribed speakers ranging in age from the very young (elementary school children) to the very old (centenarians), with a variety of cultural, regional, and international accents. We have experience working with difficult recordings, and have been able to transcribe material where others have given up. We have been successful in rescuing and transcribing audiotapes that have been unreeled, saturated with apple juice, and dropped in the mud.
Our sterling reputation is based on the fact that we accomplish two forms of proofreading: (1) following the transcript while listening to the recording again to ensure no words were left out, added, or misheard, and (2) reading the transcript alone to catch typos that spell check did not, and to ensure the punctuation correctly reflects what was being said. We do both forms of proofreading because we know researchers will be basing their conclusions on the information contained in the transcripts, and high-quality findings rely on high-quality transcripts.
We charge $4.50 per page, comparable to $135 per hour of recording. A page is defined as double-spaced, one-inch margins all around, left justified, no indents or headers/footers, 10 characters per inch (Courier New 12 point), 27 lines per page. Your documents can be configured with whatever format you request regarding spacing, indents, type style, et cetera.
Please see the section on "Fees" for more information.
How to estimate the number of billable pages your recording is likely to produce:
Number of minutes of recording, divided by 2, equals approximate number of pages. For example: 60 minutes divided by 2 equals approximately 30 billable pages.
If a speaker is excited or extremely knowledgeable on his/her subject, the rate of spoken words per minute will be elevated, and more pages than average will be produced. Likewise, if a speaker is speaking at a slower than average rate, fewer pages will be produced.
You will be provided our Preference List, where you can indicate how you like your i's dotted and your t's crossed; whether you like emphasized words underlined, in bold, or in italics; whether you spell the vernacular for "yes" as "yeah," "yah," or another way; plus many other choices which may seem nitpicky, but will save you editing time later. We like to get things right on the first draft.
When your recordings arrive at Jardee Transcription, they will be previewed to determine their length and general recording quality. We will then contact you with an estimate of cost and completion date. Turnaround time depends on work already in progress.
