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Transcript Guidelines

Guidelines on how to incorporate various aspects of audio and video into a transcript.

Guidelines, Checklists, and Samples

This section contains the guidelines, checklists and examples for each of the factors, transcripts, captions, audio description and keyboard accessibility.

WebAIM: Caption vs transcript vs audio description

Transcript Guidelines (how to)

Guidelines on how to incorporate various aspects of audio and video into a transcript.

Multiple speakers

It's best to use the speakers' full name the first time, and then only their first names. Every time there is a change in speaker, the speaker’s name needs to be added to the transcript.

Important sounds, actions, description

Use brackets [ ] for:

Joe [shouted]: I hate this mug!

[Music]

[Mug shattering on the floor]

Text on screen

For text that is shown in the video, it needs to be included in the transcript.

Exception: if the speaker speaks all that is written in the video then we do not need to add what was written a second time to the transcript. Adding the redundant text would add extra words, interrupt the flow of the content, and make it confusing to the user.

Headings

Use headings to make the transcript clearer and more usable. If you create your transcript in a Word document, then keep the headings logical. The person who codes the headings will apply the correct headings based on the layout of the document and the structure of the web page.

Screenshot of the Styles panel in Word with Headings 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 highlighted.

If a link is mentioned in the video or is in the text, then it needs to be a usable link in the transcript. The link should not display the actual URL, but the link should display a more descriptive text.

References

If there is a reference (citation) we need to add a leading word “source:” to provide context.

Dashes vs to

When writing text, the concept of “to something” should be written as “to” and not with a dash (–).

Correct:
April 5 to April 10
Incorrect:
April 5 – April 10
Date modified: