Castingwords Transcribers - Questions and Answers

Discussion in 'CastingWords' started by nobody, Jul 15, 2012.

  1. nobody

    nobody User

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    Thanks for the tip on Audacity. I downloaded 'Free Audio Editor' from CNET, and it's way too complicated. I'm going to try Audacity ASAP.

    I also learned to keep my paragraphs at about that length, and now my paragraphs don't get edited anymore. That seems to be ideal for CW.
     
  2. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    Stellar audio up right now if anyone's interested. I know I won't be able to do all 80+ hits before they start expiring in a few hours.
     
  3. nobody

    nobody User

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    Some great audio up for above 90 PPT. Linky. 92 HIT groups, some have multiple HITs in them. A few have background noise, but most of it is clear.
     
  4. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    Reward: $0.11 Score: 8.00
    Bonus: $0.17 Agree with graders on Transcription for TC 372709, 'Bulk Express Transcription: Easy Lincoln Frank #115756 (avg rwrd+bns: $0.22) [00:43 mmss]' AssignmentId: 2UIW618N46UXNZ8YGA3EXNDTBPQOQZ.

    You had an assignment approved! The reason given was 'One blank line missing TC 372709, 'Transcribe 'RW 7-3' (bonus)''
    ____________________________-
    FFS. Figures =/ I had a nice 9 streak.
     
  5. nobody

    nobody User

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    I got an 8 too! It was on a difficult audio and it was an auto approval. I guess all the xx's triggered it. I do know that CW spot checks your work because I've seen comments like that. They either have no grader name or they have CW: or Notes from CW:, so I assume that's them.

    Hopefully, it isn't a pattern for either of us.
     
  6. PhobicTurk

    PhobicTurk User

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    I'm taking a break from working now to run some errands, but if any of the 115804's are still up definitely grab them. I got some yesterday and just finished one this morning. Crystal clear speaking, and interesting too!
     
  7. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    I can't turk at the moment so there's no pattern for me. Once I finally get ahold of a live person at amazon it should be cleared up though. Hopefully next week.

    Here's to more auto-9s!
     
  8. Maggiemw

    Maggiemw User

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    My feeling is that there IS a pattern going on... I just got an eight after being on auto-approved 9s for ages. Apparently I didn't catch an 'Ok' that should have been an 'OK'. I don't contest it - it is an error according to the style guide...
     
  9. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    If I have to get an 8 now and then, just to remind me to take a once-over, I'm glad they did it for audio that's under a minute as opposed to a long audio clip. Know what I'm sayin? Hopefully it worked that way for you guys, too.
     
  10. Scott

    Scott User

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    I just did the "is audio difficult" and a lot were great quality - some 4-5 mins long if that.
     
  11. idragonborn

    idragonborn Member

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    Question for you veterans that had done this for awhile, How long did it take you to get 88 PPT?
     
  12. nobody

    nobody User

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    idragonborn,

    It took me over 100 transcriptions. For many people, it took a lot less. When I first started with them, I changed how I was transcribing based on feedback and edits that went against the style guide, so that set me back.

    When I started following the style guide no matter what, my PPT moved up rather quickly. It's now 95. Just be sure to keep your paragraphs under 500 characters (I keep mine as close to 350 as possible), and remove every filler word you can.
     
  13. idragonborn

    idragonborn Member

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    Thanks for the info, seems I have a rather long way to go but I'll be patient
     
  14. Athena

    Athena User

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    Is castingwords speechink now?
     
  15. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    Fewer than 20 transcriptions. Take your time and only take audio that you can understand clearly. Give yourself the best boost by doing that...seriously. Having to fight with the audio while learning the style guide sets you up for a bit of frustration. Sometimes there are long stretches without good audio, but be patient. When it comes up, do as many as you can.


    just checked..it was 9 transcriptions and then my qual was at least 90 because i was able to do the Improve a Transcript jobs. I did a lot of those next. Of those nine - two were graded 7, seven were graded at 8.
     
    #195 Whimsy, Aug 12, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 12, 2012
  16. Whimsy

    Whimsy User

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    no, don't think so...? why?
     
  17. Athena

    Athena User

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    I'm just not seeing any castingwords HITs any more.
     
  18. pwt

    pwt User

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    There are 37 regular audio and 253 difficult audio jobs right now, 6:31pm EST. Lots of work if you like difficult stuff. Otherwise... ugh.
     
  19. melissa71642

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    CastingWord stuff has been going pretty fast these days, but it should be picking it back up soon.
     
  20. ryanap

    ryanap New Member

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    So I have a question about my first HIT for CW, which I completed earlier today.

    I want to eventually do transcription freelance for decent money, so right now I'm using CW mainly to work on my chops and make sure I'm feeling comfortable with it all before I take on better-paying jobs.

    Now, I studied closely their CW style guide, their what-if guide, their grading rubric page, and their "examples of great transcriptions" page. I know what they're looking for in a quality transcription, and in worked a little longer than usual on this one just so I'd be sure to get off on a good start.

    And then the thing comes back with a grade of 6, and with feedback of only: "Lines are split."

    My question is, what is this referring to? I double-checked to make sure I had the word wrap thing right, and in notepad I had no lines that were broken by a linebreak. ie all my lines begin with something like "woman 1:".

    So I can't figure out what's up. Is there some weird formatting translation from notepad to CW that I'm missing? I copied from notepad mainly because I thought it'd be the safest, in terms of not having any funky formatting going on.

    On a couple occasions I used ellipsis to indicate that one speaker had cut another off, but if this were the problem, surely they would have said something about too much ellipsis, right? And that's such a minor stylistic thing that I simply can't see how it would ever deserve a 6.

    So basically, I can't figure out what happened. Is there some commonly overlooked word-wrap trap in the CW submission form? I'm afraid to go there again, as I was definitely not using line breaks to compensate for a lack of word wrap, and I checked this several times in notepad before submitting.

    Basically I know this is largely a quality transcription. Its main weaknesses in the form I sent it were possibly the ellipsis thing, and the fact that sometimes I found it hard to distinguish between the different women's voices. So there may have been a couple times where Woman 3 should have been Woman 1, but if that's the case, it would literally be on only a line or two.

    Or does "lines are split" refer to something else completely?

    I get that in this whole crowdsourced system that bad reviews and edits will occur, so if that's the case then I'm really fine with it. I'll just move on to the next job. I'm just trying to determine whether I'm missing some huge formatting thing, or what. I've read the different guides several times now, so if the answer is in there then I simply am too dumb to spot it. :cool:

    edit - besides, the SG says that non-word wrap submissions will simply be rejected, which makes me think that I'm simply missing something huge here.
     
    #200 ryanap, Aug 14, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 14, 2012

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