VideoText workflow guide
GoTranscript clean vs full verbatim rules, slang expansion, filler removal, and qualification test format — plus QA thresholds and the most common formatting mistakes that cause rejections.
Choose Rev, GoTranscript, TranscribeMe, Scribie, or a custom client specification. Each guideline has distinct rules for verbatim level, speaker label format, timestamp intervals, inaudible notation, and maximum paragraph length.
Clean verbatim removes fillers, false starts, and repetitions for readability. Full verbatim preserves all spoken content. Applying the wrong level is the most common single reason transcripts fail marketplace QA — it cannot be fixed without re-reading the source audio.
A single speaker must have exactly one label format from the first occurrence to the last. Mixed formats (JOHN SMITH / John / J. Smith) require a find-and-replace pass across the full document before any other formatting work.
Rev-style: timestamps every 2 minutes or at each speaker change. GoTranscript: job-dependent — bold [00:00:00] either every 2 minutes or at every speaker change, with no timestamping on the qualification test. TranscribeMe: per-speaker-turn timestamps. Paragraph limits range from 8 lines (Rev) to roughly 500 symbols (GoTranscript).
Verify inaudible notation consistency (all [inaudible] or all [INAUDIBLE], never mixed), check bracket format for crosstalk sections, confirm verbatim level is consistent throughout, and validate that paragraph length does not exceed the client's maximum.
Remove speech errors, stutters, repetitions and false starts that add no information, but keep a repetition used for emphasis. Expand slang into standard English. Keep "Oh". Filler words come out according to context rather than by blanket search-and-delete.
Speech errors, false starts, fillers, slang, stutters and repetitions are all kept as spoken, with the listed exceptions covering mm-hmm and uh-huh.
A bold label, a colon and one single space. Names or descriptive roles where they are known, ?Name: where the attribution is uncertain, and a label even on a file with a single speaker.
[inaudible 00:00:00] for speech that cannot be heard, [unintelligible 00:00:00] for speech heard but not understood, [crosstalk] where people talk over one another. Time-stamped tags are bold and carry full hours, minutes and seconds. Never guess a word and never invent a tag.
Zero through nine spelled out and 10 upwards in numerals, with money, years and percentages always numeric. No exclamation marks and no [sic]. Double dash for a false start, single dash for an interruption. Paragraphs under roughly 500 symbols.
Reduce revision risk before submitting marketplace jobs. A pre-delivery formatting check catches the label inconsistency, timestamp format error, or verbatim level mismatch that triggers a QA rejection and unpaid revision.
Create a consistent formatting baseline across a team of transcriptionists working on the same client account — so reviewers spend time on content accuracy, not fixing label formats.
Turn raw AI-generated transcripts into readable interview documents: speaker structure, consistent punctuation, accurate paragraph breaks, and timestamps that let readers verify context in the source recording.
Um, uh and you know kept on the reasoning that they were spoken. On a clean-verbatim job, keeping them is the error — and it appears on every page rather than once.
[inaudible 3:45] instead of [inaudible 00:03:45]. The right tag with the wrong time format is still a rejection.
Overlapping speech marked [inaudible] because it could not be made out. The guidelines separate the two, and editors specifically check for [crosstalk] where speakers collide.
Writing 3 where the rule asks for three. Because it is a habit rather than a slip, it repeats through the file and reads to an editor as a rule not learned.
A correctly structured file drafted or exported as plain text. Labels, stamps and time-stamped tags all fail the formatting rules at once, with nothing in the text itself to show it.
Services that require full or strict verbatim keep every filler, repetition and stutter. A GoTranscript clean-verbatim file judged by that standard reads as over-edited, so the two cannot share a mental default — decide which set of rules you are in before you start typing.
Rev-style work uses its own speaker-label shape and treats timestamps as an option the client sets. The bold Speaker N: label and job-dependent stamps here do not carry over in either direction.
Editors score accuracy from 1 to 5, with 96 to 100% corresponding to a 5. The guidelines page publishes no pass mark, so it is the rating record over time, not a single number, that governs access to work.
The most common GoTranscript QA failures are: (1) missing or non-bold timestamps on jobs that require them; (2) wrong inaudible tags — using [inaudible] without full [00:00:00] or confusing inaudible with [crosstalk]; (3) keeping filler words that should be removed in clean verbatim; (4) non-bold speaker labels; (5) number formatting errors (0–9 spelled out).
Yes. Most transcription platforms allow you to work for multiple services simultaneously. The key is to switch your mental "style guide" when moving between platforms — GoTranscript's job-dependent timestamping and bold Speaker N: labels differ significantly from Rev's optional timestamps and [Name]: format.
Pay rates are not listed on GoTranscript's published transcription guidelines. Rates vary by language, audio quality, and your experience level on the platform. Check your GoTranscript worker dashboard for current pay tiers.
GoTranscript uses clean verbatim — remove all fillers and false starts. Scribie uses full/strict verbatim — keep every filler, repetition, and stutter. This is a critical difference if you work for both. GoTranscript output would be considered "too clean" (errors) when applied to Scribie standards.