Reduct Transcription Guidelines - Filler words and phrases

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

Filler words or phrases like “you know” and “like” should be skipped unless they add value to the sentence.

When to include (when ‘you know’ and ‘like’ are used as verbs):

He is like me in many ways.

I like the fact that it’s quite windy outside today.

Do you know why I chose this particular spot over the other, more flamboyant one?

But I’m like wondering whether like that is the best approach to this problem.

But I’m wondering whether that is the best approach to this problem.

This is you know the way that things are done around these parts now.

This is the way that things are done around these parts now.

Remove filler statements such as “uh”, “um”, “ah”, “mm”, unless they provide value to the transcript.

Um, that sounds like a great plan

That sounds like a great plan.

Use the following for minimal positive responses:

[Speaker 1]: Are you going out tonight?

[Speaker 2]: Uh-huh.

[Speaker 3]: Mm-hmm.

Use the following for minimal negative responses:

[Speaker 1]: Are you from Sacramento?

[Speaker 2]: Nuh-uh.

[Speaker 3]: Mm-mm.