•TranscribeFast Team
Transcript Cleanup: Verbatim vs Clean-Read (and What to Turn In)
A practical guide to cleaning transcripts fast: filler words, false starts, punctuation, and when you should keep speech exactly as spoken vs polishing for readability.
After transcription, you usually do a quick cleanup pass. The big decision: do you need verbatim (exactly what was said) or a clean-read transcript (readable, lightly edited)? This guide helps you choose and edit quickly.
Quick rule
- Verbatim: use when your assignment cares about speech patterns, hesitations, or exact wording.
- Clean-read: use for most essays, reports, and “what was said” summaries.
What counts as “verbatim”?
Verbatim keeps fillers, repetitions, and false starts (unless your rubric says otherwise). It’s useful for discourse analysis and some qualitative methods.
What counts as “clean-read”?
Clean-read keeps the meaning but improves readability: remove obvious fillers, fix punctuation, and break long blocks into paragraphs.
Example: same line, two styles
Verbatim:
[00:04:12] Participant: "Um, I— I think, like, exams just, you know, make it hard to sleep."
Clean-read:
[00:04:12] Participant: "I think exams make it hard to sleep."Fast cleanup checklist (10–15 minutes)
- Fix names, key terms, and numbers (use timestamps to replay).
- Break long paragraphs every 2–4 sentences.
- Remove repeated words and obvious fillers (if clean-read).
- Standardize speaker labels (Interviewer / Participant).
- Save 5–10 quotes with timestamps for your analysis.
What not to “clean up”
- Meaningful pauses or emotion (laughter, long silence) if it matters for interpretation.
- Key wording in quotes you plan to use as evidence.
- Sensitive data: don’t just “edit it out”—redact properly and be consistent.
Common mistakes
- Over-editing quotes (your evidence stops matching the recording).
- Leaving speaker labels inconsistent (harder to analyze).
- Trying to perfect the whole transcript before collecting quotes (do quotes early).