Reduct Transcription Guidelines - Dashes/Hyphen

Grammatical rules

Common errors

False sentence starts

Filler words and phrases

Inaudible material and crosstalk

Numbers

Stutters and repetitions

Background audio and sounds

Commas

Inverted commas

Dashes/Hyphen

Proper nouns

Long pauses

Dashes/Hyphen

The use of a dash is pretty common in the type of transcription that we do. There are a lot of instances where a speaker may change the topic mid-sentence, or may be interrupted by another speaker, and the dash is used in all these cases. Use the dash liberally, but correctly. Make sure that there is no space before and a space after the dash when it is used in these situations.

Examples

Yeah, I would just contact- let me just have a quick look once.

They think it will be- that it might escalate even further.

Let’s begin by- sorry, can you just give me a quick second here?

Here the Trumpeter Swan- sorry, wrong slide- performing its ritual mating dance.

We use dashes when a speaker switches direction in the middle of a sentence. Alternately, we use dashes if a speaker is interrupted, but continues the sentence after the second speaker interjects.

Examples

[Speaker 1]: I just love your-

[Speaker 2]: Awesome.

[Speaker 1]: - service and I’d love to keep in touch.

(Here, another speaker interjects with ‘awesome’ but the speaker goes on to finish the sentence. In such a case, the second half of the sentence starts with a dash with a space after it.)

We also use dashes if a speaker trails off in the middle of a thought. Use a dash to indicate that the speaker has left the thought unfinished.

Examples

[Speaker 1]: But usually when it comes to hiring new people, we have a standard process. I can’t think of any-

[Speaker 2]: Okay. Let’s move on to the other topic.

(The first speaker trails off here. And the second speaker switches to a new topic.)

Always remember that a comma cannot be substituted for a dash. They serve entirely different purposes. Many transcribers use a comma in place of a dash when they are starting out, avoid this rookie mistake.

You do not need to use a dash if the transcript (audio file) finishes mid-sentence.

Incorrect

[Speaker 1]: Can you think of more examples?

[Speaker 2]: You need more examples? Okay, let me think about-

Correct

[Speaker 1]: Can you think of more examples?

[Speaker 2]: You need more examples? Okay, let me think about