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Interview transcript example with speakers, timestamps and files to download.

An interview transcript records every turn with who spoke and when. Below is a 1 minute 45 second research interview transcribed the way FilmScribe delivers it: speakers labeled, a start time on every turn, laughter in brackets and chapters by topic. Download it as TXT or SRT and reuse the layout for your qualitative research, thesis or story.

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Interview about remote work

Length 01:45 · 2 speakers · English

[00:00] Interviewer: Thanks for agreeing to take part. To start, can you tell me how long you've been working from home?

[00:06] Participant 1: Sure. Four years now. I started during the pandemic, like everyone, and when the company called people back I asked to stay remote.

[00:15] Interviewer: What tipped that decision?

[00:20] Participant 1: Mostly time. My commute was an hour and a half each way. That's three hours a day I now spend sleeping better and picking my son up from school. [laughs] He complains that I show up too early now.

[00:34] Interviewer: You mentioned before we started recording that the beginning was hard. What was the hardest part?

[00:41] Participant 1: Keeping things apart. My desk was the kitchen table, so work never really ended. I was answering messages at ten at night. It only got better when I set up a corner just for work and agreed on a stopping time with my team.

[00:59] Interviewer: And did your relationship with the team change at all?

[01:04] Participant 1: It did. We talk less by chance, those hallway conversations are gone. On the other hand, meetings got shorter and more focused. I miss some people, but I don't miss the office.

[01:22] Interviewer: If you could change one thing about your work today, what would it be?

[01:27] Participant 1: Meeting the team in person at least once a month. Not as an obligation, just to keep the bond. I think remote works better when people already know each other for real.

[01:42] Interviewer: Perfect. Thank you so much for talking with me.

What to notice

What a good interview transcript needs

01

Who is speaking

Every turn starts with the name or ID of the person speaking. In research, the norm is to use IDs (Interviewer, Participant 1) so nobody can be identified.

02

When it was said

The start time of each turn, in brackets. That is what lets you go back to the audio to check a sentence or quote the exact passage.

03

What isn't speech

Laughter, long pauses, inaudible passages and music go in brackets, like [laughs], so they're never confused with what was said.

04

How it was said

The transcript keeps the person's words. Fixing grammar or dropping filler words is a choice the transcriber makes, and it should be stated in your methods.

Verbatim, clean verbatim or summary?

The example above is clean verbatim: the words are the participant's, minus the filler words. It's the style most qualitative studies and theses use. If your work analyzes how people speak, use full verbatim.

In FilmScribe, you can fix any word right in the transcript, and the fix carries over to the TXT, the PDF and the captions. Transcription works in 90+ languages.

StyleWhat goes inUse it for
VerbatimEverything said, with repetitions, “um”, “like” and broken-off sentencesDiscourse analysis, linguistics, legal
Clean verbatimThe same words, minus filler and repetitions that don't change the meaningQualitative research, theses, journalism
SummaryOnly the main ideas, in the transcriber's wordsMeeting notes, personal notes
With FilmScribe

How to get your interview transcribed like this

  1. 01

    Upload the recording

    The interview audio or video, as MP3, M4A, WAV, MP4 or another common format, or a YouTube link.

  2. 02

    We transcribe it

    We separate the speakers, timestamp every turn and split the interview into chapters by topic.

  3. 03

    Review and download

    Fix anything right in the text and download TXT, PDF or SRT, with or without timestamps and names.

Transcribe my interview Transcription, speaker separation, chapters and TXT, PDF and SRT on every plan. Naming speakers, such as Interviewer and Participant 1, on Studio and Agency.

Keep going

How to transcribe an interviewTranscription and speakersChapters and momentsFree audio to textWords to minutes

More examples

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Frequently asked questions

How do you transcribe an interview?

Record the interview with the phone close to whoever is speaking, transcribe it noting who said each sentence, and mark the start time of each turn. Then review it while listening to the audio. By hand, one hour of interview takes four to six hours to transcribe. In FilmScribe, you upload the audio, get the text with speakers and timestamps, and just review it.

How should I format an interview transcript for a paper?

There is no single official format, so follow your style guide and your department. Common practice is to put full transcripts in an appendix or a data repository, replace names with IDs, note the date and length of the interview and use brackets for anything that isn't speech. In the body, quote only the passage, with the participant's ID.

Do I need to transcribe every “um” and “uh”?

It depends on the goal. In discourse analysis and linguistics, yes: full verbatim is part of the data. In qualitative research, theses and journalism, clean verbatim without filler words is more common, as long as you say in your methods that you made that choice.

Can I use this example as a starting point?

Yes. Download the TXT and follow the layout: the timestamp in brackets, the name or ID of the speaker and one turn per paragraph. The SRT is there if you want to caption the interview video. The content is fictional, so reuse only the format.

Does automatic transcription identify who is speaking?

Yes, on every plan. We separate the voices and tag each turn with its speaker. On Studio and Agency, you name each voice once and the names show up across the whole transcript and in every file you download.

Which formats can I download the transcript in?

TXT and PDF, with or without timestamps and names, and SRT for captions. The interview also gets chapters with the time of each topic, handy for finding a passage without listening to everything again.

Your interview, transcribed like this. You just review it.

Upload the interview audio or video. We identify who spoke, timestamp every turn and split it by topic. Download TXT, PDF or SRT.

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