Transcription is the clearest example of a task type that automation changed rather than removed. The machine handles the ninety per cent that was always mechanical. What is left is judgement about the remaining ten.
What to put in the public brief
- Audio length and roughly how many speakers
- Language, and accent if it is strong
- Whether they are transcribing or correcting machine output
- The output format you need
- Recording quality, honestly described
Keep the audio itself private. It is the asset.
What to put in the private instructions
Give the audio, the machine draft, and the format
A named format — speaker labels, timestamp interval, whether to keep filler words — removes every decision they would otherwise make differently from you.
List the proper nouns in advance
Names, products, places, internal jargon. This single step removes most of the errors that survive machine transcription, and it takes you two minutes.
Say what to do with inaudible passages
A marked timestamp and a flag, never a guess. A plausible invented word is worse than a gap, because a gap is visible and a guess is not.
Say whether to clean it up
False starts and repetitions kept or removed. Both are correct for different purposes, and neither is guessable.
Proof worth requiring
Ask for
The transcript in the specified format, plus a list of the timestamps they marked inaudible. That list tells you where to listen yourself.
Do not ask for
A confidence score or an accuracy percentage. Nobody can estimate their own accuracy on their own work, and the number will be optimistic in a way that is not dishonest, only human.
When this task type is the wrong tool
If the audio is legal, medical or otherwise regulated, use a service with confidentiality obligations and liability, not a marketplace.
If you need it in another language as well as transcribed, that is two tasks. Short-copy translation covers what changes when the output has to work in a different market rather than only a different alphabet.