We at the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research (CCOHR) are proud to announce the release of our Oral History Transcription Style Guide! This guide includes comprehensive sections on the transcription process, formatting (including templates), fact-checking, editing and review, and specific style rules. CCOHR Director Mary Marshall Clark had this to say about the guide: "We are proud of releasing this guide to oral history transcription and editing, filled with insights culled over seven decades of work and processing thousands of oral history interviews. The purpose of this guide is to make our ethical and technical procedures for translating the spoken word into written form fully transparent and useable, while simultaneously demonstrating oral history's deep debt to literature and rich, open-ended dialogue."
Begun in 2016, this style guide takes to heart the philosophy of CCOHR's oral history practice regarding transcripts, described here in the guide: "Our transcripts must clearly communicate a speaker’s intended meaning in text, serve as useful and accessible primary source material, and represent the co-creation inherent in the oral history interview and transcription process."
The style guide's creation was led by oral historian Liz Strong in consultation with the team here at CCOHR and INCITE, primarily with CCOHR Director Mary Marshall Clark and former INCITE/CCOHR project manager Caitlin Bertin-Mahieux. Others who offered their invaluable advice include David Olson (Columbia), Amy Starecheski (Columbia), Doug Boyd (University of Kentucky), Michael Sesling (Audio Transcription Center), Michelle Holland (Baylor), Teresa Barnett (UCLA), Martin Meeker (UC Berkeley), and Jaycie Vos (UNC Chapel Hill).
Our hope for this style guide is that it will be a go-to resource for those preparing oral history transcripts that respect the spontaneity of the spoken word and the literary qualities of the written word, for broad public access.
