Among all the resources that you may use to trigger your transcription career, a style guide is considered most important.
Each transcription business and the client has their favoured style and format to assure consistency, to support the brand, and to meet the industry standards.
While many gladly accept your recommendations and best judgment, others may have explicit preferences that need to be complied with.
What is a Style Guide?
A style guide could be defined as a document delineating specific format options. These options usually apply to varied kinds of transcriptions , starting from podcasts to legal proceedings, and are either for multiple clients or just for one particular organisation.
The experts keeping transcription rates per hour Australia as reasonable as possible said at the highest stage, the guide mentions the grammar method (AP or CMOS), the dictionary (Merriam Webster or Oxford), the language (British English or US English), and standard vs strict verbatim.
It is necessary to remember that a style guide is a sort of living document, which will expand and evolve when you familiarise with the emerging trends as well as the client’s content. In addition, you may have to rely on different style guides for different clients or customize one style guide as per different requirements.
Examples
The following are the examples of items that you will most probably wish to incorporate in your style guide – three are already stated in the above section. The list is not inclusive, and you may discover other preferences to add, especially when you branch out to other industries.
· File Format
· Font Size and Type
· Page Number/Header/Footer
· Spacing
· Cover Page
· Line Breaks
· Superscripts
· Titles in Italics or Quotes
How to Create a Style Guide?
A style guide does not need to be complicated, and creating one is not challenging. It can be a spreadsheet or a document, both of which aims at arranging preferences into definite categories for easy usage.
Create a style guide that you can send to your new clients at the beginning of a project. You can ask the client if he/she wants any changes. Such an approach has the following benefits:
· You have scanned your favoured formats beforehand and already gathered them in a single file.
· You establish trust in the heart of your client by depicting your profound knowledge about the vast transcription industry.
· You manage to avoid the complete amalgamation of guidelines for each client. The reality is most clients hardly care about formats, so, having a style guide keeps the formatting constant throughout.
The professionals offering quality yet affordable academic interview transcription services said creating a style guide – even a basic one – will allow you to achieve uniformity across the jobs and enhance the efficiency quotient.
It also shows the clients that you are cent percent prepared to handle assignments of multiple dimensions, and generate optimal outcomes under all circumstances. You have, after all, paved the way for a framework for your company and can now make adjustments without any hassle.
