---
# System prepended metadata

title: Guidelines for short audio transcriptions

---

# Guidelines for short audio transcriptions

Welcome and thank you for your willingness to help with the task of transcribing short audio files!

Please, read these guidelines carefully before starting the work. If you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to ask me.

The following examples are for English. But the rules apply to any language you work with. 

## About the Google sheets file

You're provided with a link to the Google sheets where you can find the following columns: `file`, `text`, and `score`. 
- `file` contains the audio file name; 
- `text` contains the text that was recognized automatically by speech recognition software (which can be pretty inaccurate);
- `score` empty column for scoring. More info about the scoring you'll find above.


## About transcription

Your task is to correct the text in the `text` column by the following rules:

1. Write down ONLY what you hear. For example, if the speaker says *'I go went to the hospital'* and the related cell in the `text` column contains *'I went to the hospital'*, you need to correct the text and add this extra *'go'*. The main idea is to write down what we hear, even if it's mispronounced or incorrect from the linguistic point of view.
Another example: if you hear that the speaker says *"I'm gonna"*, you do not need to change this to a formal version *"I'm going"*. You need to write it down as it is -- *"I'm gonna"*.

2. Please, write down ANY numbers that the speaker says as words, not numbers (even if it’s a part of brand name). For instance, ‘8’ should be written down as ‘eight’, ‘Iphone 11’ as ‘Iphone eleven’, ‘store45’ as ‘store forty-five’ and so on.
Large numbers, eg. 2023, should be written down the same way as the speaker pronounces them. If the speaker says ‘twenty twenty-three’, then you should transcribe in this way. If the speaker says ‘two thousand and twenty-three’, then in this way.

3. The punctuation signs are limited to four ones: `comma (,)`, `dot (.)`, `exclamation mark (!)`, and `question mark (?)`. If the speaker makes a long pause, please put a comma or a dot, even if this comma/dot contradicts the punctuation rule. Please, do **not** use any other punctuation signs, such as semicolons, three dots, dash, and others. 

4. Each piece of transcribed text (=one audio) should end with one of three punctuation signs: `dot (.)`, `exclamation mark (!)`, or `question mark (?)`. Even if you feel like the sentence is intonationally not completed, please put a punctuation sign at the end of the text. 
For example, the recognized text is *'I was going to'* 
You need to the dot (.) at the end of the text: *'I was going to.'* (of course, if the text is recognized correctly. If not, you need to make other changes too).

5. Sometimes the audio files may end in mid-sentence. In this case, you need to write down only what you heat. 
For example, the speaker says: *'I liked these cookies. Honestly, I like the swee'*
Logically, we understand that the speaker probably says *'sweets'*. However, in this case, we have to write down what we hear only: *'I liked these cookies. Honestly, I like the swee.'*

6. If you cannot understand some sentences/words at all, please do not guess. Instead, just write down ***`inaudible`*** in the relevant `'text'` cell and give the score of **1** to the audio.

7. If the automatically transcribed text contains an abbreviation, for example, *'USA'* and the speaker says as words *'United States of America'*, please correct the text to the full version – *'United States of America'*. If the speaker pronounces as separate letters *'U' S' 'A'*, then correct them to separate letters by adding spaces: *'u s a'*.

8. If the speaker makes some sounds like 'um', 'hm', 'ohh', 'aaaa', 'mmm', etc. that are not meaningful words, please make sure that they are presented in the transcribed text. If not, please add them. 

9. If the speaker says something in a different language (not the one that was stated in the job description you applied for) and even if you know this language, please write down in `'text'` column ***'different language'*** and score this audio as **1**. 


If it's more convenient for you to write down the text from scratch rather than make changes to the recognized one, you may empty the cells and write down the text from scratch. It's up to you. 


## About scoring

For each audio file, you have to input the score from 1-5.

The score reflects the quality of the speech on audio. For instance, if the speaker speaks clearly and you can easily understand what they say, you may rate this as 5. If the speaker mumbles/whispers/speaks too fast/the background is louder than the speaker, and you can barely understand what they say, you may rate this as 2. 

Here's the cheat sheet about the grading system: 

![](https://i.imgur.com/kc8S5yU.png)


## Examples

Here are a few examples: 

 
<audio controls="controls" src="https://robotvera.ru/media/en_mrbeast_c8VcUnz3nVc_5299229.0_5311149.0.b765c7f9-7cf.short.mp3">
</audio>

- Automatically recognized text: *"but at the same time, you're limited by personality"*
- Corrected text: *"but at the same time, you're limited by personality like."*

<br>

<audio controls="controls" src="https://robotvera.ru/media/en_mrbeast_c8VcUnz3nVc_1324270.0_1335870.0.e1df3f00-05d.short.mp3">
</audio>

- Automatically recognized text: *'made an entire year and she was like raising me and my brother and sister and stuff like that'*
- Corrected text: *'made an entire year and she was like raising me and my, brother and sister and stuff like that.'*

<br>

<audio controls="controls" src="https://robotvera.ru/media/en_mrbeast_c8VcUnz3nVc_1199230.0_1211070.0.77ac9f27-a87.short.mp3">
</audio>

- Automatically recognized text: *'you have to work on multiple videos at a time, because most of our videos take months to produce.'*
- Corrected text: *'you have to be, you have to work on multiple videos at a time, because most of our videos take months to produce.'*




 


