Transcribing Policy

One major factor which affects transcribing policy is the relative status which the particular institution gives to its recordings and transcripts. The Department on whose methods An Archive Approach to Oral History is based unequivocally takes the position that the sound recording is the primary oral history document. In application, the main consequence of this viewpoint is that the resultant transcripts contain the facts of the interviews but are not overly concerned with their 'flavour'. Many conversational characteristics are deliberately excluded from the transcript and those users who seek or need the verbal idiosyncrasies of oral history are directed to the sound recordings.

Each collecting centre must take its own decision on this general principle and, following from it, what scale of its resources tp allocate to the transcribing programme. The investment in this work -if it is undertaken at all -will, however, always be substantial because transcribing is by its nature time consuming, labour intensive and therefore costly. Thus the area for individual choice lies not in whether transcribing may be done cheaply or expensively, but in making the programme more or less expensive. What then are the relevant considerations? The most fundamental one is implicit in the previous paragraph, but there are many others. Should the first typescript be the final product? If corrections are made to it should they be made in manuscript or must they be in typescript? If in typescript, should the corrections be made on the original transcript or should this be retyped? Should you permit informants to amend their original statements and, if you do, should the entire text be retyped to accommodate them? If common subjects are discussed in different parts of the interview should these be brought together in the transcript? By answering all such questions collecting institutions will eventually find the balance between what they prefer and what they can afford.

When the collecting centre has formulated its policy it is important that the preferred practices are laid down in the form of detailed written directions to which the typists can refer. This provides a clear basis for their work: the most economic means of achieving consistency: and, above all, it ensures that extremely important decisions are taken by the historian and not by the typist. In this lies the best guarantee that the content and construction of the interview will be faithfully reproduced.