Why not just edit the transcription directly? Because writing this way is MUCH easier than editing your tran- scription into writing that reads well on the page. There’s a tendency to want to turn off your brain and use exactly what you say in the transcription, verbatim. This leads to the need for a LOT of editing, and ends up making the process pretty painful. Once you get your transcript back, you’ll see that transcribed audio is not written English. It’s not even close. Attempting to edit it will drive you crazy. It’s much better to read and absorb the spirit of what each paragraph of the transcript is trying to say, and then start fresh with sentences that make sense on the page. This is essentially translating from one medium, audio, to another, writing. Of course, there will be places where you can almost exactly use your words from the transcript. When that happens, it’s great, and it makes your job easier. But for most people, this won’t happen often. Note: In some cases, this may include adding content that isn’t in the transcript. Some ideas require some expansion to connect properly. You will need to add transitions or connections that aren’t part of the transcript. This is totally fine, of course. They’re your ideas, after all. If this gets hard, and it will, just keep going. This is where it’s easy to give up. You’ll regret it if you do. Again, don’t worry about being perfect, as you’re going to come back and do an edit later. This is just getting the first draft done. You’re getting something down that you can come back to and per- fect later. 158 · ThE SCriBE METhOD