You signed up to create a transcript for one podcast episode. We will decide in class on October 3rd how we would like to format these, especially in light of best practices developed by podcasters and oral historians. We will discuss the benefits of including transcripts with your episodes, from enhanced access to SEO.
We’ll work on this on Otter.ai and then send your exported .docx to me via email.
Optional for this assignment, highly encouraged for your final episodes.
Oxford Comma
Yes, voted in.
A general rule of thumb is to add a line break every time a new person talks. You’ll write their name, a colon, and then what they said on the same line. Capitalize proper of nouns of places, institutes, etc.
We will identify previously unidentified voices with a name or other descriptor.
(When a new person or character comes into the podcast, they may not always be immediately named. Having some form of identification helps your audience keep tabs on who’s saying what. Similarly, if you’re narrating a story in a nonfiction podcast, you might reference and use a soundbite from a person before saying their name. In that case, you can use a descriptor like “worker” until you’ve introduced them. Again, use a line break between each name and unidentified voices.)
Readability comes first (maybe don’t include every um) but preserve the overall tone of a person’s speech and habits. If you decide to keep someone’s pauses, you can signify that for pauses over two seconds long with (pause).
Include any missing context that isn’t already represented in the transcript. eg (In a posh British English accent):
Include description of music or title of the song if relevant
When switching between narration and dialogue in field recordings/interviews, indent the latter