Creating a transcript
The goal of creating a transcript is to create a text copy of everything that is heard in a video so that the
video can be captioned. A good clean transcript that is perfect will include formatting that follows the
DCMP standards for captioning. What we mean by this is that we should be able to import into
CaptionMaker and not have to edit the text or add/subtract any words/sound effects and can focus on
cell formatting and time coding. Try to use correct English grammar rules when typing transcripts. We
know that people don’t tend to speak with grammar in mind, but we follow these rules when we type,
as much as we can.
Programs:
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Microsoft Word
Express Scribe
If you cannot use the above mentioned programs, then you can use a word processing program and a
video player. The reason we use Express Scribe is because we can control the video with a foot pedal
allowing you to keep your fingers on the keyboard. Express Scribe will also allow you to slow down the
video so that you can hopefully keep up with most of the audio with minimal pauses and rewinds. Note
that you can only slow down the video so much before the audio is completely distorted. Express Scribe
can also be used to speed up the video playback so that when you review your transcript one last time
to make certain that you caught everything, you can actually review the transcript in less time than the
original video length.
Standards and tips:
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We use the DCMP as our captioning standard. This means that we caption all videos verbatim
and include sound effects. If someone says the wrong word, we caption what is said, not what is
intended. Please refer to the DCMP and AMS’s Math Captioning manuals.
o Speaker ID uses ()
o Sound effects use []
o For OCE videos, we do not need to denote the beginning and end music.
When possible, we also caption to reflect the way that someone speaks. For example, if
someone had a Canadian accent and said “aboot” instead of “about,” we would note that the
speaker had a Canadian accent when the speaker started talking, and all “abouts” would be
“aboots”.
For numbers, in general the rule is that if the number is between 0-10, we spell out the number,
if the number is less than zero, or above 10, use numerals. There are a few exceptions to this:
o Money: money should be written as $#.
 If they are talking about money, we generally keep using the $ even if they don’t
state it.
o For numbers above 999,999 we would write it as 1 million et cetera.
o For a STEM video, please refer to the Math Captioning manual to learn how to write
math in Microsoft word
o Superscripts are noted by carets ^.
o Subscripts are noted by underscores _.
o If someone is counting, then please use numerals and commas.
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Try to be consistent. If you decided to write out a phrase a certain way, or spell a name in a
particular manner, then always write it that way. If you are writing a transcript for a class and
there are other videos before yours (you’re transcribing video 2.8) then ask if you think there
might be a certain way we want to continue to write out a phrase. (A hint that a topic has been
discussed before, is the speaker saying “and we’ve talked about this before/earlier.”)
o Try to write the transcript using the same notation as what is written on the screen.
 Example: If on the screen they have written O[N] and they called that “order N”
then always write it as O[N]. Then if they talk about “N” we will want to use the
capitol N, not the lower case.
 Watch video for which type of brackets to use (), {}, [] and then be consistent.
o If you don’t know how to spell something, Google will become your best friend. Try not
to spend more than a couple of minutes looking up one term. It is okay to put
[unintelligible] or to spell something phonetically, it can be fixed later.
Know the difference between similarly sounding words:
o Were, we’re
o Whether, weather
o We’ll, will, well
o They’re, their, there
o It’s, its
o Wanna, gonna, hafta, oughta
Um’s ahs and stutters
o I wish that people spoke without these interruptions but that is not the case. We have a
general rule that we have surrounding commas around um, ah, eh. So one before and
one after.
 So, um, what we’re, ah, gonna talk about today, ah, is captioning.
o For stutters we don’t put spaces between hyphens.
 T-t-t-today
o We also use hyphens to indicate a stop/change in thought.
 So what we-so what we do here is remove the space.
o We don’t put a comma and follow it directly with a hyphen.
 NO: S-s-, um, so um, what we’re, ah, gonna talk about t-t-, ah, today is
captioning
 Yes: S-s- um, so um, what we’re, ah, gonna talk about t-t- ah, today is
captioning.
Punctuation
o Please watch how many commas you use.
o Please use commas to reflect slight pauses and English grammar rules.
o If someone asks a question, it should be followed by a question mark.
 Note that the word “right” or “okay” might be said a lot by a speaker. Please ask
how we are putting these into the transcript. For some speakers they use them
as a question, while others use them as their nervous speaking bad habit.
Pauses: When a speaker pauses there are two ways to denote a pause. We consider it a pause if
it is longer than a second. You might want to add more pauses the slower you have the video
playing, so pay attention to this rule.
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If the speaker finishes a sentence/thought then pauses, then we use hard returns.
[enter][enter]
 This creates a blank caption when we import the transcript into CaptionMaker.
o If the speaker pauses mid-sentence/thought, then we use an ellipse …
 There should be no space between the ellipse and the two surrounding words.
Remember to use commas to denote different items in a list.
Spell out et cetera and okay instead of et cet. and OK.
o If they say only “kay” or “bout” then write out “‘kay” and “‘bout”.
If someone is reading a quote and it is the only thing up on the screen, then you don’t need to
type it out, you can put in a blank “caption cell” by hitting return twice. [enter] [enter]
Punctuation here depends on how the speaker introduces the quote.
o If someone reads a single line off the screen, then we still need to type out what is said
because a deaf viewer would not know what is being read.