For my master’s thesis research on climate policy, I did a series of interviews, which I recorded and then transcribed. Transcribing the interviews took about 4-5 hours per hour of recording, which is about the average that I’ve seen written about. Transcribing a lot of interviews can be tough, as others have blogged about.
However, I came up with a streamlined process that made it a bit easier, and I thought might be useful to share. I had recorded my interviews with a digital recorder borrowed from my university library, so I did all my transcription work on my laptop. I set it up so that I could switch between controlling the audio and my word processor with keyboard shortcuts, and after a few hours I was switching back and forth pretty quickly.
1. I decided to use Audacity, an open source audio-editing program, to manage the audio. Audacity is free, and lets you label your audio track and rewind and fast forward precisely. Unlike audio playing programs like Windows Media Player or VLC, Audacity shows you the audio frequency pattern of the track, so you can more easily jump to where someone began talking. You can download it here.
2. The digital recorder I was using stored files in .WMA format, the proprietary Windows Media format. Since Audacity can’t read that format, I had to convert the files to MP3. I used the aptly titled Free WMA to MP3 Converter, which I downloaded from CNET’s Download.com here. It worked like a charm.
3. I arranged my word processor window to take up the top half of the screen, and the Audacity window to take up the bottom half.
4. Then, I figured out the needed keyboard shortcuts. Audacity, conveniently, has simple keyboard shortcuts to control the track. Space plays or stops the track, and P pauses or unpauses the track.
5. For my operating system, XP Professional, if two windows are open, with each taking up half the screen, pressing Alt-Tab switches between them.
6. Voila: To begin my transcribing session, I hit space to start the track playing. After a few sentences, I’d hit P to pause it, then Alt-Tab to switch to my word processor, type up the sentences, then hit Alt-Tab to switch back to Audacity, then hit P to unpause it. And so on. To move to a different place in the track, I’d hit space to stop it, then click at the desired location, and then hit space again to start it playing.