Kristin,
I have transcribed a lot of tapes and tried voice recognition, listening on
headphones to the tape whilst 'transcribing' into the microphone. Although
my brain coped well with the task, I found that there are too many
intricacies in the mechanics of transcription that made this problematic for
me. Not only do you have to keep a very close eye for 'mistakes' in the
voice recognition (or not have a clue what the text is about when you go
back to it some time later) but also I often wanted to add notes, or
explanations in brackets, or use initials, etc that made the use of the
voice recognition software alomost pointless. Others may have better
experiences.
I ended up going back to typing, even though I only type at a moderate speed
and although this is a painfully long process I find that it allows me time
to reflect on and consider what I am typing, re-visiting the data again if
you like, and was also much more accurate as I could easily correct typos as
I went along.
I use a transcriber which I think is fine: A Sanyo TRC 8080. It has alll the
things you asked for and seems very reliable and is not too expensive ( I
have forgotten the price!).
Best wishes,
Alan Simpson
Brighton, UK.
>From: Kristin Luker <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: qual-software <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: transcribers
>Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 22:06:39 -0800
>
>I know I have seen this addressed in previous posts, but I'm still not
>clear, and would love the benefit of the collective wisdom of the List. Is
>there any way around spending a lot of time and money transcribing tapes to
>make them ready for qualitative analysis on the computer? I know C-TANKS
>has been mentioned, but I can't quite figure out how it works (I ordered
>the demo.) How about voice recognition software? I suspect it can't work
>off a tape, but how about a person who has "trained" the software repeating
>a tape into the voice recognition mike? How about digital recorders that
>have voice recognition built in? (I read in the New York Times about an
>Olympus digital tape recorder that has this.) And finally, if I have to go
>the old-fashioned way (again!) can anyone recommend a good tape
>transcription machine, i.e. a tape recorder that you can slow down, speed
>up, and use with a foot pedal, etc. I know this is a pain for all of us,
>and I'd love to hear thoughts as well as name-brand recommendations.
>
>Kristin Luker
>UC Berkeley
>Kristin Luker
>Professor of Sociology and Professor in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy
>Program,
>Boalt Hall School of Law
>
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> University of California, Berkeley
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