What Does A Transcriptionist Do?
Do you want to be a transcriptionist? Maybe you want to try transcription? One aspect of this job that may attract you is the fact that you could work from home, and typing away on a computer. This article is to inform you on what transcriptionist do, the skills that you will need to be successful and the future of transcription with AI , and you can confidently apply for transcription jobs or start a plan to work on skills you feel needs improvement.
A transcriptionist is a person who transcribes handwritten notes and/or audio into digital texts. You will be doing a lot of good for the community.
You will help others to understand the messages that you are communicating. You will be helping those who are hard of hearing or deaf to understand or view a video, or TV show. You will be helping others to learn the language and develop their own vocabulary as they see the text flashed on the screen.
There are different types of transcriptionists:
Legal transcriptionist — transcribe audio tapes from court hearings and depositions.
Medical Transcriptionist — transcribe audio or handwritten notes from doctors’ offices
General Transcriptionist — transcribe content such as podcasts and lectures
Captioner — Captioners transcribe audio and videos into texts that will be revealed, usually at the bottom of the video. This is what you will see during a TV show, podcast or live broadcasting.
Braille Transcriptionist — converts written text into Braille.
Stenographer — records spoken words using a stereograph machine
What skills would you need for this job?
Listening Skills
You need to have amazing listening skills. You will hear background sounds that may make listening to words very hard. Yes, you will be hearing a person talking over the sound of a construction site or a dog barking. You will be hearing people talking in an accent and other dialects. You will be listening to clients’ and employers’ preferences on how you transcribe a file. For example, some companies would allow you to transcribe profane words, and some will not.
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Grammar Skills
You will definitely need to have some grammar ability. Like any word-heavy industry, you need to have your sentences and paragraphs grammatically correct. Your words need to be spelled properly. With spelling, though, it may depend on the company you are hired by or who their clients are. For instance, if a company is based in a country where certain words are spelled differently, you would need to adapt to their spelling.
Your vocabulary skills must be good to recognize certain words via audio. You would also be good if you know certain jargon (words used for certain professions and cultures). For example, if you were to transcribe audio from a doctor’s office.
Technical Skills
You would need to be comfortable with a computer and technology in general. You will find yourself spending a lot of time using the computer to type the text from the video and/or audio. You would also learn how to download videos and audios to your computer, and you would have to learn how to send emails to clients, employers and/or colleagues. You would have to learn how to set up headphones and use certain software in your organization.
Keyboarding
You would need to have good keyboarding skills. You will be typing the text into a document file. You would need to type fast in order to earn more money, as you will be typing a lot of text. If you work for a company, you will be evaluated by how many of the audios and/or videos that you have completed.
Do You need to go to college?
No. Some transcriptionists get their start during or after graduating from high school. You can go to college to learn transcription. You can also take courses online, such as Udemy , to learn what you would need to learn about becoming a transcriptionist. Some job boards do require you to have a formal education to do certain jobs.
You can work as a transcriptionist full-time or part-time. You can be an independent contractor working for yourself and set your own hours. This job is a great side hustle, but you can make this your main source of income as you establish yourself as a transcriptionist.
Now concerning artificial intelligence, AI is a very helpful tool for transcription. It can not fully eliminate the need for human transcriptionists. AI can produce a rough draft or transcript. Humans would have to edit the transcript. AI may not be accurate with certain important information, such as medical jargon and legal terms. This can cause confusion to the readers.
AI may also have difficulty understanding accents and thus have trouble transcribing the speaker’s words. This is also the case for background noise, and for recording with more than one speaker. Privacy is also one problem with using AI. AI providers can store data for a long time , which can be a problem in industries such as medicine where privacy is an absolute must. AI may have struggled to apply proper grammar and punctuation in the transcript.
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Disclaimer : Content is for informational purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.
