Once you have captured the story by interviewing your family member, the job is only half done. Huh! That took so long, what do you mean only ½ done?
Transcribing your interviews is a word-for-word written documentation of a recorded oral interview. While audio needs to be played and replayed to get the exact information one is looking for, transcribed copies allow easy lookup for the desired information. A written transcript is also important to identify key topics discussed in an interview. When you transcribe your interviews, be aware and plan around conditions that ensure quality recording and transcribing.
Generally, it will take you approximately 3 to 5 hours of typing to transcribe 1 hour of audio. This estimate is based on the speed you can type. If you are a fast typist, then it will take you less time. However, on the other hand if you are really slow or do not type at all, you should probably find someone to transcribe the interviews for you.
Why Should I Transcribe my Interviews?
When you have your audio interviews transcribed you have a Microsoft Word or some other word processing electronic file that can be edited and turned into a narrative story. We never talk the way we write, but by having your interview in electronic form, you can cut, paste, rewrite, and rearrange your story.
I have included below a piece of audio, the transcription and the final narrative story generated from this interview. The transcription includes everything that was recorded, including the questions. Remember, when you interview a family member, always avoid yes/no answers. The whole purpose is to get them talking about their lives.
As you listen and read the following example, you will see the steps to get a finished life history.
Audio File (mp3 format)
Transcription:
CH: Tell me about some of your teachers — your better teachers that you remember.
JS: The one that inspired me the most was Mrs. Hardy, who taught geography and history. A little bit of where I got my love of geography and history is through her class. I took a couple classes with her and really enjoyed it. So that was probably what inspired me.
CH: To go on to what you did, okay.
JS: She, I remember well. My, I can’t remember the woman’s name, but a math teacher. I enjoyed math, and I can’t remember her name, but enjoyed learning math under her. I’d have to see a yearbook. Same with the chemistry teacher. I remember just a couple things out of chemistry, like getting sulfuric acid down my skirt, you know with the holes, scratch one skirt. And what we called the foot races, of learning to balance equations. He put the equation on the board, and divide the room in two, and you had to at least get up and touch the board even if you didn’t know how to do it, for the next person to get up and go. I remember that, which I found fun because I did enjoy balancing equations. Those are some of the things I remember well out of it.
CH: Did you find high school difficult in terms of academically?
JS: No. No, I did not find it difficult. I studied, but not overly. It came very easy to me. That was the one thing that I regret very much. A girlfriend took a writing course, said it was wonderful. So I thought, I signed up for it the next semester. Next semester she had an intern who had not a clue, and I learned nothing. Absolutely nothing, so I still do not feel comfortable writing. So that was one, I always regretted that. It was only after I got into teaching did I learn the real way you’re supposed to write. Not that I had to write, but I had to grade theirs, and understood the construction of the writing. I was behind the door or something, but no teacher ever really pushed that this is how compositions are created.
CH: Well that’s the case now. I mean –
JS: Well nowadays they do. They dropped grammar. They don’t teach grammar per se anymore. When I went to school 10th graders did nothing but grammar, and you hated it because it was boring and repetitive, but that was putting sentences together. You know, rather than stringing sentences together. Then 11th grade was literature and 12th grade was literature.
CH: So it wasn’t a lot of writing.
JS: Not really. I don’t remember writing much for these courses. We did have to do a term paper, and I again did not realize the construction. I did fine, the biggest thing was trying to type it before computers, and my typing skills are okay, but there’s enough errors and they were hard to correct. So it was this type of thing going back and forth. That’s the one thing that high school did not teach me. When I got to college, they thought I ought to know so they didn’t, and I was too stupid to ask “What’s wrong with this?” I never understood how I’d get a really good grade, then a mediocre grade or a bad one, and I never knew why. Too stupid to go in and say, “Hey, what am I doing wrong?”
CH: Well, not a lot of students would do that.
JS: I told my daughters when they went to college, or even in high school, “If you don’t do well in something, go in and talk to the professor. Find out why, and you could even go in and just say hi to the professor so he would know who you are.” Things I did not do that I wish I had done. But no one put those to me, and I’m not really a pushy person, so I did not realize that one ought to go in and see what the problem is.
CH: What about some really bad teachers?
JS: My Latin I teacher was a very bad teacher.
CH: The fact you even took Latin was …
JS: Well, you had to take two years of a foreign language, and Latin seemed like a good choice because it was the basis of –
CH: My wife took Latin too, and I just go “Why?”
JS: You learned a lot of English by taking Latin, but she was not a good teacher. She put on hand cream and then wiped the excess with the tissue on her desk. The boys behind me would have their Latin books like this taking the test, and she never did anything about it. She I considered a bad teacher.
Edited Narrative:
Teachers
The teacher that inspired me the most was Mrs. Hardy, who taught geography and history. A little bit of where I got my love of geography and history is through her class. I took a couple classes with her and really enjoyed them. She probably inspired me to become a teacher.
I remember a math teacher, and I can’t remember her name, but I really enjoyed learning math from her. I’d have to see a yearbook to remember her name, and it’s the same with my chemistry teacher. I remember just a couple things from that chemistry class, like when I had sulfuric acid running down my skirt. The acid burned holes in my skirt—scratch one skirt.
And then there was what we called the foot races, of learning to balance equations. The teacher put the equation on the board, and divided the room in two, and we had to at least get up and touch the board even if we didn’t know how to do it, for the next person to get up and go. I remember that, which I found fun, because I did enjoy balancing equations. Those are some of the things I remember.
I studied in high school, but not overly. Schoolwork came very easy to me, but I never really learned to write. No teacher ever really pushed that — this is how compositions are created. One of my girlfriends took a writing course, and said it was wonderful. I signed up for it the next semester. Unfortunately, the next semester she had an intern teach the class. He didn’t have a clue and I learned nothing, absolutely nothing, so I still do not feel comfortable writing, and I always regretted that. It was only after I got into teaching did I learn the real way you’re supposed to write, not that I had to write, but I had to grade student’s papers, and understand the construction of the writing.
Nowadays they teach how to write, but they don’t teach grammar anymore. When I went to school, 10th graders did nothing but grammar, and we hated it because it was boring and repetitive, but that was putting sentences together, rather than stringing sentences together. Then 11th grade was literature and 12th grade was more literature. I don’t remember writing much for these courses. We did have to do a term paper, but I knew nothing about how to construct sentences. I did fine, but the biggest thing was trying to type it before computers, and my typing skills were okay, but the errors were hard to correct.
Writing is the one thing that high school did not teach me. When I got to college, they thought I ought to know, so they didn’t teach it then either. I was too stupid to ask “What’s wrong with this?” I never understood how I could get a really good grade, then a mediocre grade or a bad one—I never knew why.
I told my daughters when they went to college, or even in high school, “If you don’t do well in something, go in and talk to the professor. Find out why, and you could even go in and just say ‘hi’ to the professor so he would know who you are.” These are things I did not do that I wish I had done, but no one told me to do that. I’m not really a pushy person, so I did not realize that I should go in and see what the problem is.
My Latin I teacher was a very bad teacher. I had to take two years of a foreign language, and Latin seemed like a good choice because it was the basis of English. You learned a lot of English by taking Latin, but she was not a good teacher. She put on hand cream and then wiped the excess with the tissue on her desk.
In 1962 not a lot of girls went to college. I think about 60-75% of my graduating class went to at least junior college or college. Most of the girls I knew went to college, but there’s a lot that I’ve never seen again, so I don’t know if they finished or not. Since we had a junior college in town, a lot of kids that were in the lower economic level that could not go to a four-year school could go to junior college. They could work a little bit, save and then go to a university.
Some went into the military. I think we had only one or two people killed in Vietnam. We’ve had more die, of course, since, but I think we had one or two that actually died in combat.
Resources
In order to do the transcription yourself you will need a number of things:
- A computer you can type into
- A foot pedal that allows you to stop and start the audio so you can type it into your computer
- Software that enables the foot pedal to control the audio playback
I recommend Express Scribe Pro which can be purchased at Amazon.com, if you use this link I will receive a small payment.
Espress scribe software and foot-peddle
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