Capitalize
- The Venus Project, The Zeitgeist Movement, Resource-Based Economy
- Proper nouns (John Smith, Washington, )
- Specific deities (God, Zeus, Athena, etc...)
- Religious events (the Great Flood, Easter)
- Titles when followed by a name (President Bush)
- Days of the week (Monday)
- Months of the year (July)
- Holidays (Thanksgiving, Hanukkah)
- Names of countries (Ireland)
- Nationalities and Languages (French)
- First word in a sentence that is a direct quote. (He said “Life is wonderful.”)
- Major words in the titles of books. (‘The Year of Getting to Know Us’)
- Members of national, political, racial, social, civic and athletic groups (the New York Yankees)
- Periods and events, but not centuries. (The Cretaceous, the 20th century)
- Celestial bodies, planets, stars (Mars, the Moon, Alpha Centauri)
- Trademarks (Nike shoes)
Date Format
- Use BC or AD when mentioned after dates (not B.C. or A.D.).
- Use numerals (May 10) and add ‘th’ or ‘nd’ or ‘rd’ if the month is not mentioned (on the 10th).
- The ‘80s, the 1950s, the year 1984, pottery from the 5th century BC, a 5th-century pottery.
Do not transcribe:
- padding expressions (you know, sort of, kind of, hum, well, eh...)
- onomatopoeia: imitations of sounds (oink, meow)
- repetitions, hesitations, pieces of text that do not contain any information.
- audio events not significant to the understanding of the video (ex: Sound of book falling).
Edit the text when:
- a string exceeds what is an acceptable standards of readability. Convey the meaning of the phrase;
- the speaker uses grammatically flawed structures. “And then a lot of people that see the film, they get the wrong impression” would be transcribed as “And then a lot of people who see the film get the wrong impression”;
- the speaker’s inflection does not reflect a correct English structure. Punctuate correctly.
- Imperial Units are not the standard in your language (60 miles = 96 km). Approximation is accepted to avoid decimals.
Intonation
- Do not emphasize a word using all capital letters except to indicate screaming.
|
Music
- Use the musical note icon provided in DotSub’s special characters panel to surround music.
- If the lyrics' flow of text is too fast or too long, indicate only the title and performer in brackets. (Musician performing "The Zeitgeist tune")
Numerals
- If the number is over ten, use the numeral (seven, 45 to 50)
- Use the comma to group blocks of thousands (10,000)
- Use the period only to indicate floating decimals (304.9 meters above sea-level)
Punctuation
- Punctuate according to correct English structure and not to the speaker's inflection, which can be misleading.
- Use ellipses ... only when words are left out at the end of a sentence. (I see constant repeat of the same series of events: war, poverty, recession, again... )
- Do not use ellipses ... to indicate hesitation in the person’s speech if the sentence is complete.
- Do not use commas before conjunctions, except when two complete sentences are joined with: and, but, or, nor. (I want the end of unnecessary human suffering, and I can't see it within a monetary-based system.)
- Do not use spaces before question marks or exclamation points at the end of sentences. (This is final!)
Quotes
- Double quotes “...” are used for direct quotations, with no colon or comma before the quote. (A wise man once said "The most profound understandings are often the most obvious.")
- Single quotes ‘...‘ are used for expressions and titles of book and movie, articles, etc.. (My presentation 'Social Pathology' mentioned that... )
Slang
- You may transcribe slang and profanity to preserve a speaker's persona.
Speaker Identification
- If the speaker is not visible on screen, use his name (Peter Joseph) or identifier (PJ) in parentheses before the text.
- In a dialogue where speakers are visible on screen, use a hyphen directly followed by text. Separate each speaker by two spaces. (-Do you like that? -Yes.)
- In a dialogue where speakers are not visible on screen, use their identifiers+hyphen, directly followed by text. Separate each speaker by two spaces. (PJ)-Do you like that? (JFK)-No, not at all.
Spelling
- Use an English or American spellchecker, according to the speaker’s locale or accent. Be consistent!
|