Transcription
(Audio & Video)

Editing*

• Audio Cassette Tape
• Digital Audio Files
• Video DVD & VHS
• Film Shoots
• Interviews
• Meetings
• Oral Histories
• Dictation
• Panel Discussions
• Presentations
• Focus Groups
• Conferences
• Workshops
• Post-juror Interviews
• Witness Statements
• Depositions
• Police Dispatch Recordings

• Concept
• Style
• Copy
• Formatting
• Proofreading
• Text Editing

 
*Expert in compliance with the style requirements of most professional journals, including APA (a specialty), Turabian, and the Chicago Manual of Style.

Read more about our expertise in APA Style.

Transcription(Audio & Video)

Audio transcription entails transcribing from oral conversations, presentations, dictation, interviews, panel discussions, lectures, etc., to an electronic and/or hard copy document.  Such documents can be used to cut and paste materials into another document, say, a Ph.D. dissertation or a book or group of articles. 

Transcription is performed either verbatim (i.e., the transcripts includes everything—um’s, uh’s, stutters, stammers, and other idiosyncratic speech) or smooth (without um’s, uh’s, etc.).  How transcription is done depends on the needs of the client and the use to which the client will apply the transcription.

Video transcription is similar, but much more labor intensive.  Often film producers request that videos and films be transcribed using time codes, so that the transcription can be used as the basis for a script.  The transcriptionist inserts time codes displayed on the screen, and the producer can use the codes as a kind of map, making it possible to excerpt pieces of the film without having to review it in its entirety.

Document Preparation and Editing

What is Editing?

Editing is not just correcting punctuation and grammar.  It’s editing for style, for flow, to make sure that the author’s voice is articulated, and not the editor’s.  The editor is in the background, making the writer look better on paper, enhancing the author’s ideas rather than detracting from them.

Editing is making documents internally consistent—making sure names are spelled the same way throughout a document that is sometimes 400 pp. in length; that authors are cited consistently, and, in the case of APA Style, correctly from citation to citation, since APA has rules mandating that the first citation be different than subsequent citations for the same work or the same author or group of authors; that publication dates that coincide with various works are correct - there can be author(s) who have published more than journal article/book, and these must be cited in compliance with various rules.

Compliance with Various Style Manuals

Publishing houses and academic institutions require that authors and students use particular style formats, for example, Turabian (often used by business schools), Chicago Manual of Style (a classic guide for publishers), MLA format (Modern Language Association style, most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities, and APA Style (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association). 

All of these styles and manuals are updated from time to time.  Writers Rescue keeps abreast of changes in every new edition released and guarantees that all transcriptions, edited documents, and documents prepared from scratch are prepared using whatever style formats clients are required to use.

Read more about our expertise in APA Style.