Thursday, January 25th, 2024

Transcription vs Translation: What’s the Difference and Which One Do You Need?

Transcription and translation both involve converting information from one format into a slightly different one. However, they are two separate services that are often confused with one another. Knowing the difference between these two services can save much time and effort when looking for a partner to help you and ensure what you receive is 

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Friday, November 22nd, 2019

Small change has a large impact on transcriber staff welfare

It cannot have escaped the notice of those working in the audio transcription industry that Rev, the US-based firm, have recently dropped their transcriber pay rate from $0.45 per audio minute to $0.30. Its USP – charging $1.00 flat rate per audio minute – will have lured in a high volume of custom, appealing to 

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Wednesday, September 13th, 2017

Thank You Internet

Those of you who have been around for as long as I have will definitely remember when the internet became such an important part of our working lives and particularly whilst working at McGowan Transcriptions.

Even whilst writing this blog, I have just nipped online to see when the internet was first available – August 1991 (26 years ago)!
So, back in the early noughties, the big day finally arrived when I had broadband installed and it was with some trepidation that I turned on my PC and started to explore the big World Wide Web (whatever that was!).

Monday, September 2nd, 2013

20 Years Established Today!

McGowan Transcriptions are officially 20 years old!

If I were to write about the differences in technology and business this year to the year I established McGowan Transcriptions this blog would be 20 pages long, so here are some highlights:

The Good
We have a large team of dedicated professional transcribers, in 1993 I was on my own!
McGowan Transcriptions is a trusted name both in the UK and abroad.

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

So You Think You Can Type!

It has been almost two years since Joe McGowan of McGowan Transcription Services threw me my employment lifeline. I was in Costa coffee at the time using their bottomless Wi-Fi facility.

At the time, I felt I had the requisite experience and that my legal and PA audio transcription background would equip me for the job of transcribing for McGowan Transcription services. I felt that my skills, especially typing speed, were effortlessly transferable. How wrong I was! It was merely a starting point, a foundation on which to rapidly build solid digital transcription experience.

Thursday, January 10th, 2013

Strabismus

One of the unexpected benefits of transcribing market research, and research interviews, is the amount of trivia I’ve picked up since starting to work for McGowan Transcription Services. I am not usually very good at retaining knowledge that I read. I am much more likely to remember visual things like faces and places. However, because audio transcription requires real concentration at all times, my listening skills have improved, as has my knowledge retention. I think, possibly, that my quest to hear what has been said, often requiring me to rewind and play back certain phrases frequently, until the penny drops, means that some bits of information have been indelibly imprinted in my memory banks.

Monday, November 26th, 2012

A Stretch Too Far?

Technology is a wonderful thing, especially when it is working in our favour but it seems to me that there is a danger that it can dissociate us from our immediate environments and the societies in which we live. Of course there are huge benefits in uploading a digital file 100 miles from where it was recorded to be transcribed and returned to a different location even further away, within a 24 hour period. The carbon footprint, I would venture, is negligible when compared to couriering or posting audio cassettes.