3/14/23, 12:23 PM Literably.
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GRADER DIRECTIONS
Go to: Scorer Portal, Instructions, Cheat Sheet, Transcription History,
Transcribe, Change Password
Table of Contents
1. Application Process
2. How to Transcribe a Recording
3. Main Transcription Rules
4. How to Transcribe Non-Words Using the Phoneme Chart
5. Video Demo
6. Foundational Skills (Phonemic Awareness and Phonics) Instructions
7. Grading Tips and Office Hours Recordings
8. What to Expect If Hired
9. FAQs
10. Super Grader Instructions
11. Help
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Application Process
Benefits of working as a Literably transcriptionist:
• Can make over $10 per hour
• Get paid every week
• Work from anywhere
• Make your own schedule
• No experience necessary
• Help teachers and students
Here's how to apply:
1. Create an account at [Link] if you haven't
already.*
2. Read the instructions below thoroughly.
3. Transcribe a total of six training recordings. This should not take you more
than 30 minutes. Please do NOT transcribe more than six recordings.
Quick notes:
• *Please use the first name, last name, and email address attached to your
Paypal account, or we won't be able to pay you (if you're hired). If you don't
have a Paypal account yet, use the first name, last name, and email address
that you will use on your Paypal account.
• Hiring is 100% performance based. We'll contact you if your performance on
your training recordings meets our minimum threshold. Resumes and cover
letters will not be reviewed.
• You may contact us by emailing grading@[Link]. Note that due to the
volume of correspondence, we are able to reply to very few of the inquiries that
we receive. All the information you need to complete a successful application is
found below.
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Before getting started, please be aware:
• In order to complete the application, you will need access to a computer
(desktop/laptop), an internet connection, and the ability to use Google Chrome
(which is free to download).
• You will not be able to complete your application using a smartphone or tablet.
• Literably reviews applications on a rolling basis all year long and we
encourage you to apply at ANY TIME if you think you might be a good fit for the
role.
• We hire transcriptionists all year long but tend to do large hiring rounds during
our busy seasons, when transcriptionists’ pay rates tend to be the highest.
• Early August through October
• January through February
• Late April through early June
• It is very difficult to complete your application task successfully if you just skim
the below information and instructional videos.
• Currently, we are only able to pay transcriptionists via PayPal.
Your task
You'll be presented with a series of audio files of mostly children, but
occasionally adults, attempting to read prepared texts. The audio files range
from a few seconds to a few minutes in length, but most are about one minute
long.
Your task is to produce a complete and exact transcript of the word and non-
word utterances in the audio file.
The reader will usually try to follow the text. So, to save you time, we've built an
online transcription interface that presents you with the original text and allows
you to modify the text to reflect exactly what is said in the audio file.
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How to Transcribe a Recording
For each reading, you'll see an audio player and a text.
To control the audio, use the following shortcuts:
Space Start/stop
Left Arrow Back 2 seconds
Right Arrow Forward 2 seconds
As you listen, modify the text by hovering over a word or a space and using one
of the following shortcuts:
Key Action How to Details
Use
A Add Hover Use A to add a word or non-word utterance.
over
space.
S Substitute Hover Use S to substitute a word or non-word for the word in the
over original text. Note that S is just a combination of D and A. It
word. applies a D to the word you're hovering over and also pops up
the Add box.
D Delete Hover Use D to mark a word in the original text as unsaid/said (it's
over reversible) or to delete a word that you've added by accident.
word.
E End Hover Use E to mark all remaining words as unsaid/said (it's
over reversible). E is also useful if the reader skips several lines.
word. Press E at the first unsaid word and then press E again where
the reader resumes.
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When you're satisfied with your transcription, press = to submit. If it's a training
transcription, we'll report your performance and highlight the errors you've
made. Press = again to move on to the next recording after reviewing your
errors.
Note: our transcription software does not currently integrate with "transcription
foot pedals."
Main Transcription Rules
1. When and when not to mark a recording as unscorable:
For recordings
If you don't feel that you can produce an accurate
longer than 15
transcript of a recording (due to multiple voices,
seconds (usually,
whispering, background noise, or microphone issues)
these recordings just click "Mark as Unscorable." In these cases, you will
are 1 or 2 not be penalized for marking a recording as unscorable,
minutes long): nor will customers be negatively affected.
If the student does NOT begin reading within 15 seconds
of the start of the recording (e.g., they start reading after
20 seconds have passed), mark the recording as
unscorable.
If the student does begin reading within 15 seconds,
transcribe the recording as you normally would.
If there are no words heard in the recording and the
recording lasts longer than 15 seconds, mark the
recording as unscorable.
If the student reads for the entire time in a different
language, mark the recording as unscorable.
For "partial Most "short" recordings you encounter should be scorable, unless there
recordings" is a clear and major audio quality issue (e.g., multiple voices,
(usually 15 whispering, background noise, or a microphone problem).
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seconds or If the student does not read the text in the recording and
shorter) the recording lasts less than 15 seconds, do not mark the
recording unscorable:
If you see text displayed, you will mark all words as
unsaid using the E button. (See
Screenshot/Recording A below as an example.)
If you do not see text displayed, press = to submit.
If you don’t see text displayed for a given recording, you
can still transcribe a recording and NOT have to mark the
recording as unscorable. For example, if you hear the
student read “we like to climb” within 15 seconds but you
see no text on your screen, please use the “A” button to
add “we like to climb” and then press = to submit. (See
Screenshot/Recording B below as an example.)
Screenshot A
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0:00 / 0:05
Screenshot B
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0:00 / 0:10
2. Transcribing the text title and formatting:
• If the reader attempts to read the title, transcribe their attempt before the first
word in the text.
• Do not use punctuation except for apostrophes that are part of a word, like
"isn't."
• You can choose to transcribe in exclusively lowercase or to capitalize in the
usual way, with one exception: please capitalize proper nouns!
• If the reader substitutes a single word/sound for a whole string of words, it
does not matter where you locate the substituted word/sound within the string
of unsaid words. For example, imagine the text says "The brown cat runs," but
the reader says "The klab runs." In this case, you could press S over brown, S
over cat or A over any of the three spaces. All are equally correct as long as
brown and cat are marked as unsaid and klab is inserted.
3. What if there are multiple ways to fit what the student said
over the words in the reading?
Sometimes there are multiple ways of transcribing the audio that are both
accurate because you can choose to either mark a word said or make that
word appear as an inserted word while marking that word unsaid. In these
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cases, we ask that you choose the option that leads to the student appearing to
read the text as accurately as possible. See this grader tip for an example.
4. Ambiguous recordings:
There are times when it's not totally clear whether a reader is pronouncing a
word correctly, or it might be apparent that the student reads with a clear accent
or speech difference. In these cases, we'd like you to lean towards marking the
word correct. Teachers get upset if they feel that their readers are being
penalized for accent/pronunciation differences. So, in borderline cases, please
mark the word as correct.
5. How should I handle pauses as students sound out words?
If the reader says all of the right sounds in the right order without pausing in
between sounds, mark it as correct, even if the word sounds "stretched out."
However, if the student takes an audible pause in between the sounds, mark it
as incorrect, even if all the sounds are in the right order.
For example, the recording below should be marked as incorrect and
transcribed as "sk- rap":
0:00 / 0:03
In contrast, the recording below should be marked as correct:
0:00 / 0:03
6. I hear a parent or teacher inserting a word, what should I do?
You should ignore what the other voice(s) say and transcribe what the student
says. The one exception is a case where the parent/teacher appears to be
"giving away" the word, leading the student to say the word correctly. In this
case, if the student then says the word correctly, please simply mark the word
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as unsaid (by crossing out the word and not inserting it). If you are unsure what
to do or find this difficult, please mark the recording as unscorable.
7. The recording is cut off on a partially pronounced word, what
should I write?
Transcribe the partial pronunciation phonetically, and mark the full word in the
text as unsaid.
8. I can transcribe an utterance either using the phonetic
transcription or using an actual word. Which should I use?
If the student inserts a real word, please transcribe the actual word. If the
student inserts a non-word utterance, please transcribe the utterance
phonetically using the phoneme chart, and insert a hyphen at the end of the
utterance (see "Rules for Using Hyphens" below).
9. If a student has a side conversation in the middle of reading,
should I transcribe this?
If a student makes utterances that are clearly not related to their attempt to
read the text (e.g., talking to someone else in the room), you can leave those
utterances out of the transcript. However, all utterances that are related to the
student’s effort to read the text should be included.
10. What if there are multiple correct pronunciations of a word?
For example, "bow" can be pronounced as "b-oe" or "b-ow".
If the student's pronunciation matches a sense of the word that is
unambiguously wrong given the context, mark it incorrect. Otherwise mark it
correct. If there is any chance that the student's interpretation is correct, mark
the word correct. For example, in the story "We Read," you should let the
student pronounce the word "read" as either "red" or "reed"--each of the
sentences could be interpreted as either the past tense or the present tense.
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11. Should I transcribe numbers as words or numerals?
Use numerals to save space if the numerals accurately describe what the
student said. If there is no way to accurately describe what the student said
with numerals, do a phonetic transcription.
12. What should I do if the audio recording makes it difficult or
impossible to hear what the student is saying?
Please mark those recordings as unscorable. This should be done, for
example, when you hear pure background noise or inaudible whispering. In
these cases, do not simply submit a transcript with every word unsaid or every
word said.
13. What if the student starts recording after she starts
reading?
Please score the recording as you normally would. If the text starts by saying
“The boy goes to school” and you only hear the student read "to school," please
mark the words "the boy goes" as unsaid.
14. Should I pay attention to vocal stress in grading?
No. As long as the student has the correct phonemes in the correct order, mark
the word as correct, even if she emphasizes the wrong syllable(s)
15. If the student mispronounces an uncommon proper noun,
what should I do?
If a proper noun has multiple correct pronunciations (e.g., Lena as "leenu" or
"lenu,"), please accept these variations as correct. For proper nouns that might
be more obscure (e.g., Tycho Brahe), please mark as correct if the student
pronounces the name in a reasonable way (e.g., based on how it looks).
16. If the student reads a year as a number, what should I do?
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If the text contains a year (e.g., 1986), but the student reads this as a number
(e.g., one thousand nine hundred eighty-six), please mark it as correct, unless
the student says the number incorrectly.
How to Transcribe Non-words Using the
Phoneme Chart
When the reader says a non-word, you should transcribe the sounds
phonetically. You may be unfamiliar with phonemes and phonetic transcription.
A "phoneme" is the smallest unit of human speech - like "ch" or "b." All words
are made up of phonemes. For example, the word "shin" has three phonemes:
"sh" "i" and "n."
Note that minor pronunciation errors that emerge from
a student's accent or overall speech pattern should not
be counted against the student and do not constitute a
non-word. For example, imagine a student who generally pronounces her
"th" sound as a "d" sound. If you hear "du" in place of "the," you should simply
treat the word "the" as having been read correctly. You will often have to use
your best judgment to decide whether a student is reading a word incorrectly or
whether the way she is reading the word is just part of her normal speech
pattern.
We've adopted this phoneme chart. You should study the phonemes and their
spellings carefully. You may want to print the phoneme chart for reference.
We've also prepared a video to teach you the phoneme sounds and spellings.
You must use these phonemes to transcribe non-words
uttered; transcribing what you hear in a way that "looks
right," but does not match the phonemes in the chart, is
not acceptable.
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When transcribing a non-word, you will simply string together the appropriate
phoneme spellings. For example, if a child says "b" "l" "i-" "k," you should write
"blik-."
Rules for Using Hyphens:
1. Sometimes, your phonetically transcribed non-word will coincidentally have
the same spelling as a real word with a different pronunciation. In these case,
just add a hyphen "-" to indicate that the spelling should be interpreted
phonetically. For example, if you hear "i-" followed by "s," you should write "is-",
"-is" or "i-s," because "is" will be interpreted as the word "is," which is
pronounced "iz". Similarly, if you hear an "i-" phoneme all by itself, you should
write "i-" not "i," because "i" will be interpreted as the word "I," which is
pronounced "ie".
2. Because there is some overlap between phonetic spellings (e.g. "e" and
"ee"), there will be times when the same phonetic transcription could be
interpreted in multiple ways. For example, the non-word "keer" could be
interpreted as "k" "ee" "r" or as "k" "e" "e" "r." Our parser starts at the left and
prioritizes two-letter phonemes ("ee") over one-letter phonemes ("e"), so "keer"
will be interpreted as "k" "ee" "r." As a result, if you hear "k" "e" "e" "r," you
should be sure to separate the e's using hyphens. You could write "k-e-e-r" "ke-
er" "k-e-er" or "k-e-er." All that matters here is that the e's are separated.
3. As a rule of thumb, please use hyphens in the following cases:
• Please insert a hyphen at the end of any non-word utterance
(which should always be transcribed phonetically). For example, "klag-." In
contrast, utterances that sound like real words should be inserted as the actual
word, without the addition of the hyphen.
• Please insert a hyphen after any utterance that contains just a single
phoneme (i.e., any of the phonemes on this chart). As an example, if the
student says /o/ as in "hot," you would insert "o-." Some other examples might
be: "oe-," "au-," "ch-," etc.
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Video Demo
Now that you’ve read through the instructions, below is a short YouTube video
showing how to transcribe a recording. Please view this video before
transcribing your training recordings.
Literably Transcription Demo Video
Foundational Skills (Phonemic Awareness and
Phonics) Instructions
In the fall of 2021, Literably introduced phonemic awareness and phonics
assessments (also known as foundational skills assessments) for early readers.
Please view the following directions for grading these types of recordings:
• Main directions for grading foundational skills recordings
• Grading segmentation recordings
Grading Tips and Office Hour Recordings
You can see additional grading tips and transcription examples here. We ask
that you look over these materials closely if hired.
What to Expect If Hired
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Training Recordings
Before being hired, you will be transcribing training recordings. Training
recordings are recordings that we have already transcribed. When you submit
your transcription for a training recording, we'll show you our transcription
below your transcription, and highlight the word errors in your transcription. We
will also report the percentages of words/phonemes that matched our
transcription. Note that there may be a delay of a few seconds while your
transcription is analyzed.
We do not expect your transcription to match ours perfectly. Sometimes our
transcriptions even have minor errors. In general, we are looking for <1% word
differences and <10% phoneme differences, however, when we review your
transcriptions, we also consider qualitative factors (e.g., were very simple
mistakes made). If you are consistently transcribing at this level of accuracy (or
sometimes slightly worse) on the 6 training recordings in your application, then
we will personally review your transcriptions. If we think you're ready for real
recordings, then we'll offer you a position as a Literably contractor. We'll have
you agree to a contractor agreement, review the transcription instructions, and
then start delivering you real recordings.
Once you are hired, you will be transcribing a mix of real recordings and
training recordings, and you won't know whether the current recording is a real
recording or a training recording until after it's scored. If, after you are
hired, one or more of your recordings (training or real)
reveals that your transcription accuracy has declined,
we will audit your transcription history and may be
forced to permanently de-authorize you from working
for Literably.
Reviewing and Correcting Work
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You can view a list of the recordings you've completed by going to
[Link] which you can also access by clicking
“Transcription History” at the top of your scorer portal. If you accidentally
submitted a real recording too early or otherwise made an error, you can
correct it by clicking on the link to the recording and re-submitting it. Sometimes
it takes a few minutes of processing before a recording can be modified. You
cannot resubmit a training recording.
If you're curious about how many recordings you've done, you can see a count
on this page as well. This may be useful if we've asked you to complete a
certain number of recordings.
Payment
We will pay you via Paypal once per week, generally Friday evenings, based on
the total number of audio minutes accurately transcribed since your most
recent payment. We cover all Paypal fees; you will not pay any fees as the
recipient. The price per audio minute will fluctuate depending on the volume of
audio to be transcribed, and can always be found at the Scorer Portal. The
current range of price fluctuation is $0.38-$0.80 per minute of audio. As of
December 2020, the average pay per audio minute over the past four months
was about $0.51.
Headphones
It is not required, but we highly recommend using a high-quality pair of
headphones for our transcription work. This can really help for picking up hard-
to-hear words and phonemes. A great option for under $20 are these: SONY
MDRZX100.
FAQs
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1. What is the status of my application? When will I hear back
from you?
We generally contact successful applicants within two to twelve weeks. At any
time, you can check your application status at the top of your transcription
history page. We receive a very large volume of applications, so questions
about the status of any individual application will be ignored. We also cannot
guarantee that we will contact you until we are ready to move forward.
2. I keep getting a "no recordings" message, or the price is a lot
lower than I want it to be.
Most of Literably's audio files are generated from K-12 students reading out
loud in a school setting in North America. For this reason, volume fluctuates a
lot. There will be extremely few recordings available from the last week of June
to the first week of August and around the times of U.S. Thanksgiving and
Christmas. We expect the highest volume, and thus the highest prices, to be
during February, May, September, and October.
3. I didn't use my Paypal email for my account. Can I change it?
To be paid, your first name, last name, and email address on Literably must
exactly match the credentials attached to your Paypal account. If you did not
set these properly when you initially signed up, you can change them to match
your Paypal account in the Scorer Portal once you have been hired. If you
have not yet been approved yet, there is no way to
change your Literably account information.
4. Can children transcribe on Literably?
To avoid potential liability issues, we require that all transcriptionists be at least
18 years of age.
5. What information can I use for tax filing purposes?
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Literably's EIN is 46-1838070. Literably's mailing address is: Literably, Inc.
2261 Market Street #4177, San Francisco, CA 94114. Here is information from
PayPal regarding how they report PayPal payments to the IRS, and here is
how you can find your 1099 tax forms in PayPal.
6. Can I do more than six training recordings as part of my
application?
You may do more than six, but out of fairness, we compare applicants primarily
on the first six recordings. We'll look at your later unpaid training recordings
only if you're on the border of being approved. Please don't do more than 10
recordings. We don't want to waste your time or our time.
7. I accidentally messed up on one or two recordings, and they
are bringing down my scores.
First, review your work before submitting and please don't submit recordings
with errors! The students we serve need impeccable transcriptions and we take
our responsibilities to them seriously. This is not a typical transcription job
where a modest level of error is acceptable. Second, we have designed our
review process to account for the possibility of a flukey training transcription.
Please don't ask us to give it special attention beyond this; out of fairness to
other applicants, we can't.
8. What locations can I work from?
As of November 15, 2019, we will no longer engage individuals located in the
following U.S. states as independent contractors (due to state contractor laws):
California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, or New Jersey. By
signing up, you are confirming that you neither live nor will be performing
services for Literably in any of the listed states. Your representations to this
effect may be subject to ongoing confirmation by Literably.
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9. Can I have more than one grader account with Literably?
Graders should not have more than one active account with Literably.
Submitting duplicate applications may lead to having your grader accounts
suspended.
10. I was not approved. May I re-apply?
Unfortunately we only have one application right now, so you will need to wait
until we put together a new set of application materials. Please check back in 1
year.
11. Do you accept international applicants?
Yes, you can apply from outside the U.S.
12. I work at a district/school that uses Literably. Can I apply?
We currently cannot authorize graders who are affiliated with a district/school
that has an active Literably subscription, since we cannot guarantee that you
will not receive a recording from a student in that district/school. If your
affiliation changes in the future, please feel free to apply.
Super Grader Instructions
IMPORTANT: if you have not been contacted by Literably about being a super
grader, you can skip this section.
You can access Literably's super grader directions HERE.
Help
We receive a huge volume of email! As a result, we have worked
hard to provide answers to every frequently asked question in our training
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materials. Before asking for help, please make sure you're using the latest
version of Google Chrome and that (1) you've read all of these instructions
thoroughly, (2) you've reviewed the phoneme chart, and (3) you've watched the
YouTube instructional videos. If we don't reply to your question, it's likely that
it's because the answer is found somewhere in the instructional materials.
You may contact us by emailing grading@[Link]. Note that due to the
high volume of correspondence, we are able to reply to few of the inquiries that
we receive.
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