An interview transcript is the written record of an interview: who said what, and when. Below is the same short interview written up three ways, full verbatim, clean verbatim and timestamped, with a guide to formatting your own and a template to download.
An excerpt from a fictional customer interview with a bakery owner. It is an example, not a real conversation.
Every word as spoken, including fillers, false starts and sounds such as laughter.
Interviewer: So, um, how did you start taking orders online?
Participant: Well, it— honestly, it was the pandemic. We, uh, we had no choice. People couldn't come in, so we, like, set up a form on our website in, I think, a weekend.
Interviewer: Mm-hmm. And how's that working now?
Participant: It's... it's okay? The form's fine, but, um, I spend maybe an hour every night copying orders into a spreadsheet. [laughs]
Interviewer: An hour every night?
Participant: Yeah, every— yeah. Every single night.
Fillers and false starts removed, meaning untouched. The most common format.
Interviewer: How did you start taking orders online?
Participant: Honestly, it was the pandemic. We had no choice. People couldn't come in, so we set up a form on our website in a weekend.
Interviewer: And how is that working now?
Participant: It's okay. The form is fine, but I spend about an hour every night copying orders into a spreadsheet.
Interviewer: An hour every night?
Participant: Yes. Every single night.
Clean verbatim with a timestamp on every turn, so you can jump back to the audio. This is the format Stenovo produces.
0:00Interviewer: How did you start taking orders online?
0:04Participant: Honestly, it was the pandemic. We had no choice. People couldn't come in, so we set up a form on our website in a weekend.
0:15Interviewer: And how is that working now?
0:18Participant: It's okay. The form is fine, but I spend about an hour every night copying orders into a spreadsheet.
0:27Interviewer: An hour every night?
0:29Participant: Yes. Every single night.
| If you are doing | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Qualitative research or discourse analysis | Full verbatim | Hesitations, pauses and laughter can be part of the data. |
| Journalism, hiring or user research | Clean verbatim | Easy to read and quote without changing what was said. |
| Podcasts, video or reviewing the audio | Timestamped | Find any quote in the recording in seconds. |
Download it for Word or Google Docs, or copy it below and fill in the brackets.
Interview transcript Project: [project name] Date: [date] Location: [place or video platform] Interviewer: [name] Participant: [name or ID] Transcriber: [name] Recording: [file name, length] Format: [full verbatim or clean verbatim] Tags: [inaudible 0:00] [crosstalk] [pause] [laughs] [redacted] [0:00] Interviewer: [question] [0:05] Participant: [answer] [0:42] Interviewer: [follow-up question]
A written record of an interview, with every turn labelled by speaker. Researchers, journalists and recruiters use transcripts to quote, analyze and share what was said without replaying the recording.
Full verbatim keeps everything: ums, false starts, repetitions and sounds such as laughter. Clean verbatim removes those but keeps the speaker's own words and meaning. Most interview transcripts are clean verbatim.
By hand, about four hours for every hour of audio, and more when the audio is poor or several people speak. With an AI transcription service such as Stenovo, it takes minutes.
Yes. Upload the recording to Stenovo and you get a transcript with timestamps and speaker labels in minutes, plus a summary of the key points. Download it as TXT, PDF or SRT.
Upload it and get a transcript with timestamps and speaker labels in minutes.
Transcribe an interview
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