Have you been meaning to get into the transcription industry?
Is transcribing scripts something that you wish to learn and start doing professionally?
Do you love typing and you would love to put your skills to work and earn some dollars?
If your answer to these questions is yes, you clicked on the right article. We will look at some things you can do while at home to teach yourself transcription and perfect your skills in the long run.
What is transcription?
Transcription is a process that involves creating transcripts from audiovisuals. This might be video or audio files. Be sure to note that these steps will enable you to be a general transcription and if you want to be a specialized kind of transcriptionist working in a certain professional field, you need to first have knowledge in that field and then the steps here will help. The vice versa is also applicable.
Actions To Take To Gain Incredible Transcription Skills
How would transcription skills be beneficial to me? There are very many audios and video files with content that needs to be transcribed for easy referencing, archiving, and search engine optimization. After working on these files you will make a few dollars here and there and if that is not a significant benefit to you then I don’t know what would be.
How does transcription benefit the client? Clients are in search of transcribers who will help convert their audio/ video files into scripts so they can easily use then for referencing and archiving. Transcription is a service that a lot of business owners really seek.
As mentioned before we will look at steps you can follow to gain incredible transcription skills that will be of significant benefit to you, just from the comfort of your home.
Using these steps, you will learn how to,
- Become a general transcriptionist?
- Prepare yourself for general transcription work
- How do you get the skills and training you need to become a general transcriptionist
We will get straight into it.
1. Increase your typing speed
The very first thing you should do is to work on your typing speed. As much as having general knowledge on how to type is an exceptional skill to horn, for transcription you really need to have great typing speed. The only way you can increase your typing speed is by practice and more practice. Great typing speed enables you to work on more projects which mean you make more money from your projects. Professional transcription companies always work with transcribers who have a minimum typing speed of 40 to 50 words per minute. This means you are able to transcribe 3000 words in an hour. 3000 words can also be 30 to 40 minutes of an audio/video file. There are different software that can help you work on your typing speed. The typing tutor speed software is the best one in the market and it will help you greatly if you practice on it constantly. You can also increase your typing speed and improve your productivity by using word or text expanders and keyword shortcuts. To work with professional transcription companies, you need to also get your skills to a professional level, and increasing your typing speed is step one.
2. Take a grammar course
As much as transcription involves, listening and typing out what you hear, you also need to work on your grammar. This is a very important step that many people ignore and then they get a project and they cannot offer accurate and grammatically correct transcripts. Being proficient in grammar, punctuation, and spelling is a skill that a transcriptionist should have. You can take up a course from a college close to your home so you can improve your grammar skills or you can take some online courses from the comfort of your home. Whichever route you go with, being grammar proficient really comes in handy for any transcriber. You want to avoid instances where you deliver transcripts with a lot of grammar and spelling errors to your client. This is the fastest and easiest way to make a client never work with you again.
3. Improve your MS Word skills
We are in the year 2020 and all transcription files are exclusively done on Ms word. This means that the documents are usually word documents and you should be able to work with the software and be proficient in it. Imagine having to work with Ms word and you do not understand where to start or where to end. It is very important to at least have some knowledge on how Ms word works and if you don’t, you can get tutorials on YouTube which will help you grow your knowledge on the same. Being proficient in Ms Word means that you’ll spend less time formatting transcripts. You can quickly increase your typing and transcription speed by using MS Word’s autocorrect, shortcut keys, and other functions. Ms word is one of the easiest software to learn and it used in a lot of many professions. This means that it will be a skill that you can use across the board if you change professions.
4. Expand your vocabulary and general knowledge
When it comes to transcription, there are very many categories of transcription. There are legal transcriptions, medical transcriptions, Academic transcriptions and so and so forth. This only means that if you want to work in any of these categories, you must have incredible knowledge of the same. You might have prior knowledge in either but if you don’t, do your research in order for you to garner more knowledge. When you hear people say that as a transcriptionist you need to expand your vocabulary and general knowledge, it means that you should be widely read. Read as many books as you can, collect your vocabularies because chances are you will need it one day when you are working on files that are inaudible or the kinds that have heavy accents. Research more on the category you would love to work in and learn the different jargon used in that category. For example, to become familiar with financial terms, read financial books, or business magazines like Business Week. Listen to financial TV channels like MSBNBC and Bloomberg. To learn insurance terms, visit insurance websites. Research terms you’re not familiar with. You can also take business courses related to the industry you want to learn more about.
5. Practice transcription with practice audio files
The only way you can grow your skills and be good at anything is if you practice constantly on that thing. In this case, you want to grow your transcription skills and be good at it. You can get short audio files and work on them. Try to create transcripts out of them and see how you fair. You can go a step further and get someone who will look at your transcripts and giving you feedback on how they think you did. The more you practice transcription, the better you’ll get at it. The best audio files to do practice on are podcasts, tele-seminars and interviews . You can also transcribe TV programs and phone messages. Be sure to challenge yourself by getting audio/video files that are inaudible and try to transcribe them. Transcription practice files will help you develop your listening and transcription skills. They will help you become familiar with various voices, accents, inflections, and speech paces. With time you will be an experienced transcriber who can take on professional projects which pay and you will make a Couple of dollars for yourself. It is important to note that these audio files you use to practice will enable you to decide whether transcription is a career you want to get into or not.
6. Take a specialized general transcription course
At the beginning of this article, we mentioned that we will be looking at ways you can learn how to be a great and highly sort after transcriptionist at the comfort of your home. In this case, we have been looking at how to be a general transcriptionist. If you have that thing in you telling you to learn more than just the general aspect of transcription, this point is for you. If you’re new to transcription, taking a specialized general transcription course is by far the best way to learn general transcription. The better your transcription skills, typing speed, grammar, and transcription accuracy are, the more money you can make as a transcriptionist. You can either find these courses online which makes it convenient for a homebody and you can get it in colleges too. Specialized general transcription courses will help you to generally get more knowledge in all the steps that I have mentioned in this article. You won’t have to go looking for and researching how you can be a better transcriptionist because everything will be taught in these courses.
