Transcription Techniques for the Spoken Word

This practical handbook tackles what you need to know before, during, and after transcription. Appropriate for varying levels of expertise-and written for transcriptionists, ethnographers, oral historians, participant observers, and individuals who plan to write their family history-this helpful guide by ethnographer Willow Roberts Powers covers a wide range of topics: why transcription methodology is essential; factors to be considered before transcribing (including reasons not to create a transcript); stages of transcription and recommended guidelines; methodology, editing, and incorporation of contextual information; transcribing performances; and, finally, the interactions between transcriptionists, participants in the recorded events, researchers, and other future users of the transcripts. Appendixes contain sample forms, lists and discussions of punctuations symbols typically used for notation systems, and sample excerpts from real transcripts. Book jacket.

Willow Roberts Powers is an anthropologist who lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico