CastingWords Turker Blog

Don't drop a stitch!

Casting Words is a bit like knitting. Plain one (easy to hear), purl one (a bit garbled) makes for the basic rib of the podcast. Then the fancy cable stitch (concentrate or you miss a crucial word and XX is a dropped meaning and too much time lost.) There’s the right-handed word caster (U.S English) and the left –handed word caster (U.K. English) and what a muddle when one edits the other! “Two nations (forever) divided by a common language,” George Bernard Shaw (nevtnorth.tec.ok.us/etiquette/eeurope.html)

At first, I found completing HITs for Casting Words to be as difficult as it was to learn to knit. But then I found Turker Nation, the most friendly and helpful forum around. (I don’t actually need to grovel, but just in case any of the regulars read this, it’s a really, really, really useful board!)

Incredibly, Casting Words HITs have managed to unite IT people, homemakers and odd-bods across the globe. Arise, “you have nothing to lose but your chains” Karl Marx (zompist.com/quotes2.html) And, somehow, the offspring of the American dream (Mechanical Turk ex Amazon) has crossed with 60s hippy ideal of love and sharing (peace man, Turker Nation rules) to produce a really efficient way for podcasts to be transcribed quickly, cheaply, and accurately. Best of all, I do the HITs because I find them fun, because I’m learning all kinds of new things and because I’m Welsh!

Pob lwc i pawb a chroeso i’r byd Casting Words!

Posted by Welsh Wannabe

Eye of the storm part II

Eye of the storm, part II, or how I learned to love the cheaters...

"In eye of the storm", I was giving you some tips on editing problematic transcripts that looked good and were in fact awful. It makes one wonder how some of those actually got passed the grading system. Alas, no system is perfect, and most graders proceed with at best a sampling of the audio track. Only when the word density is very low do we get a hint that there may be a problem. Others get passed because the grader scanned, but did not read the transcript. If you want to start grading transcripts, you should have a good eye for details, and being a quick reader sure helps. I don't mean to say you just read the whole text start to end everytime, but you should be able to sample the text in an accurate manner and spot errors and serious mistakes quickly.

I usually start by the end: I look at the numbers of [sp] and [xx] posted in the bottom notes. If the numbers are quite high, I look for a note from the transcribers explaining the reason for this. If there is no note, I will sample the audio at various point to see if the quality of the source was good or not. I have no qualms at flunking a bad transcript: If the audio is good, there is no reason to have a high number of [xx]. The editor is not there to redo a transcript - he should NOT, in fact, listen to the audio at all. The editor should edit the text transcribed, period. Compound that with serious structural problems like bad or no punctuation, serious deficiency in grammar, anything like that - and I will flunk you for certain. My position is that, with the number of excellent transcribers working for CW, those producing substandard work should not get paid: The hard, good workers should be getting that job. If you just did a hard transcript and it has many [xx], add a note. I have yet to disagree with such a note, and in those cases I will send it to CW for final verdict. Grading should be hard. This is not a place for compassion. Passing a bad transcript thinking "this poor soul just worked so hard, I'll give him or her a break" means that the editors will have to do triple the work for a quarter the pay, and that's utterly unfair. Either that or the end result will be of poor quality, CW will lose clients -- and then, all Turkers working for CW will be penalized by fewer HITs being listed. If you must feel compassion, please direct it at those dedicated transcribers who produce amazingly good jobs from definitely rough sources. Those, I applaud, because at times the results are nothing short of a miracle. I know my betters when I meet them.

MTEQC.COM

Using Express Scribe

By now I imagine most transcribers are using Express Scribe to help with their audio transcriptions. If not you should check it out. I find it an invaluable tool.

When I first started trying to transcribe I used the quicktime window that popped up. Given the talking speed of the average podcast this was near impossible even though I type very fast so I gave up. Later I came back after learning of this tool and was able to slow the audio down 50% allowing me to have a chance of typing fast enough. At first there is a learning curve of being able to understand the human voice at a much slower speed but you soon adapt.

Using the F7 key you can skip the audio back at a predefined rate I have mine set to 1 second. F8 fast forwards, F4 stops playback and F9 resumes play. You can even use a foot pedal to control the dictation so you can keep your hands focused on typing. Personally I plan on buying a cheap steering wheel controller for PC just to use the foot pedals for control.

My favorite part of this program you may ask? Well the fact it's absolutely free! So grab it if you haven't already and make your transcribing life easier.

Posted by Ryan E.

Turk Horses Unite

Transcriptionists are the work horses – or more accurately, “turk horses,” of the HIT economy. Anyone can write down three things they’re afraid of in bed, and anyone who can read and pick up a phone can verify restaurant data. But it takes skill, a discerning eye, and a sense of humor to work on transcription HITS. It is with this in mind (and tongue firmly in cheek) that I’ve gathered the following Transcription-related quotes.

"What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it."
   -- Turk Twain

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent transcription.”
   -- Thomas Alva Typerson

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome; if we could always make out what was on the [xx] audio, clarity would not be such a relief.”
   -- Anne Broadstream

“The mystery of existence is the connection between our fingers and our keyboards”
   --Madame de NoMoreStalling

So let us be inspired as we down the last halves of our cold cups of coffee and warm up those fingers for another four dollar hit. Let us cling to our own turk horse mentality, toiling away, happily learning about joint ventures and open source software and spiritual purpose. For we come from a long line of proud workers, including Henry Wordsworth Longfingers who said:

“The heights by great men reached and kept / Were not attained by sudden flight, / But they, while their companions slept, / Were typing upward in the night.”

Posted by Virginia Lore

Eye of the storm

It happens to the best of us: You accept an editing job, thinking it looked fine and should be a quick one. It did look fine, at a glance. However, as soon as you start working, you realize that the transcript was done by a 300 pounds gorilla wearing boxing gloves. And then corrections we typed by a python using its tongue.

Following are three quick tips I found useful to finish the job within deadline and with my sanity mostly intact

1. MASS REPLACEMENT
Luckily, typos are usually consistent within one transcriber's work: He or she will keep on making the same mistakes, over and over again. Your friend here is "REPLACE ALL" - at least as long as the error is obvious. Someone writing "SCUZZY" for "SCSI" in a technical paper, for instance. So scan the transcript, and do a mass replace. Repeat and rinse.

2. IT'S'N'ITS
"its" instead of "it's" is probably one of the worse offenders, made worse because there is little to do but review all of them one by one. Impossible to mass replace! What I do to accelerate the process is copy a "it's" and keep that in "pasting memory" (whatever your operating system calls it). I then do some FIND, and FIND NEXT, using keyboard commands. If "its" is right, I do FIND NEXT and move on. When "ITS" should be "IT'S", I do a paste, again using key commands, and correct it instantly. Then, on to the next one.

3. THE ROCK
You've seen this one: One BIG block of text running on and on. With luck, at least some of the punctuation will be correct. To correct it, and do a quick reflow, I look for patterns in the speaker's dialect: Speakers have recognizable speech patterns, and often like to start introducing discreet ideas using their pet transitional expressions. Look for breaks in concepts or topics, and try to define the "starting block." If the speaker starts topical section by using some "And then,", or something like that, a REPLACE ALL using " And then," will produce instant results. Your big block of text will already be broken in more logical sections. You can then delete some of those "And then," to make the text easier to read. In most cases these expressions are just redundant speech patterns anyway. Just make sure to review the text - in some cases you will have to reverse the process. But from experience I'd say the result is valid 75% of the time.

Posted by MTEQC.COM

Neat thing about doing Transcripts

I've only started doing this several months ago. I started out doing some rating of edits, and then doing some edits. The people at CastingWords are great, because there was a learning curve and they were very helpful. Now I've started to do some transcripts. I have to tell you, they're much harder than doing edits, but much more rewarding - it gives a sense of accomplishment.

What I found is the neatest thing about doing these jobs for CastingWords is the learning opportunity. It has opened my world to some concepts I never knew, such as alternative medical techniques and ideas to business concepts and managerial philosophies. You cannot but help to absorb these new ideas. I have found that I have further pursued some of these ideas that I have been exposed to, and it has been very rewarding. So, as far as I'm concerned, making a little extra pocket money and learning new things, it's a great combination.

Posted by scoots53

Two Traits of an Ideal Transcriber

Transcribing podcasts on CastingWords HITs are for you if: - you can type quickly and accurately (more than 60 wpm, at the same rate as someone speaking at a regular pace) - you have a good sound system that can filter out background noises and mumbled speech. What is most important, I think, is that you are interested in the content. While I am not a fast typist, I did enjoy listening to a HIT that I transcribed because the content (tips and tricks on InDesign software) was relevant to my day job as a graphic artist. There are many CastingWords HITS to choose from, so you can churn out as many HITs as possible (which is probably an efficient thing to do if you are a good transcriber), or you can choose topics that you'd want to listen regardless.

Posted by MTurkseethesky

It makes you listen!

I wish I had more time to do more podcast transcripts. Not only because I get paid for it, but also because by doing it I have learnt very unusual stuff and have had a special contact with people I don't and will never know. I did a transcript once of an interview with a guy who refused to serve the Army in Israel and was therefore compelled to go to jail by periods of six months. I did another one in which a Palestinian girl was asked to formulate questions to the american soldiers occupying Iraq. I don't think I could possibly know and question myself about how people in other parts of the world think about the global situation had I not done these transcripts. It makes you wonder. It makes you pay attention to what others have to say. It makes you listen.

Podcast transcripts are generally the highest paying hits you can find, and thus are the most time-consuming. If you are not a native english speaker, transcribing a 10-minute podcast can take you as long as three hours, depending on your listening skills (BTW, this is great for improving your understanding at listening). Go for the shortest ones first, so you can get an idea of your own speed. If you decide to do the longer ones, prepare for a whole afternoon of quality listening. But this would be good spent time, as you are literally pulled out of your ordinary life and dragged into something that you would never experience otherwise ;)

Posted by Julie

Multitasking redux

To say that the life of an MTurk worker is an easy one would be a lie. The Art of it - at least, what specialized skills you may acquire after making twenty-five cents a day for a few weeks, with luck - lays in finding out where you excel. That's the Art. The Mastery is all about skills any serious gamer will possess: Being the first to click on the right button. For, not only must one decide on what kind of job to accept, one must also be fast and/or lucky enough to be the one grabbing it! In that, I guess I was lucky - for a while there, I think I was editing about 60-70 percent of all Casting Words transcripts, or top of grading both edits and transcripts. Business was quiet - I run a tech support company, and I'm good at that so my clients don't need to call me that often - and I would sit in front of my screen 12 hours a day, waiting either for the phone to ring or for a CW hit to show up.

Why not do penny HITs in the meantime? One good reason - I missed too many good edit jobs because I was doing something else. At the top of my game, a $3 edit would take me less than 20 minutes. At 0.01 each, that's 300 cheap jobs. At best THAT would take me about the same time, for a boring and repetitious task. So I focused on edits. And made a substantial amount of Amazon Bucks in the process - enough to replace my whole camping kit, the original purpose. Of course I could not maintain that production level forever. I started pushing it too much, started making mistakes, and even though my guardian angel at CW was kind and considerate in mentioning it, I though it was better to scale down a bit. My father, bless his soul, told me that a job worth doing is worth doing well. So I took pride both in the production volume and the quality of it. When either started failing, it was time for a break.

Some impact that I may have had? I think I was one of the first to give really detailed gradings. I also started annotating my edits, so that those grading it could, at a glance, see what work had been done. I am not saying that I started the patterns - but there were very few back then doing it. I am happy to see that these are now SOP. Once the camping gear purchased, I had little motivation to keep the pace, anyway. Then I found out I had to move, and didn't go camping after all. Sob... But that's another story. Never deal with Lacombe Transport, that's my only advice on THAT topic.

But now... Mmmm, i have my eye on a nice electric assisted bicycle on Amazon. I may just have to unretire ;) -

Posted by MTEQC.COM