Proofreading Principles for the Audio to Text Fidelity Project
This list is an evolving list and will be added to as we encounter various forms of issues in our Audio to Text Fidelity service. This list will cover all elements needed for a new person to come forward and immediately be able to correctly proofread the transcriptions of Srila Prabhupada's audio files.
TO DO LIST and THINGS TO CHECK for Proofreaders
Common Editing Issues
- Spelling - The standard here is American spelling.
- Extra/missing words - Sometimes even several sentences are missing.
- Punctuation - There are a couple common punctuation mistakes.
The first is extra spaces, for example when there are double quotation marks. " 'text' ". The spaces in this example should be deleted. Also there is sometimes extra spaces before commas, like this - "Bhakti-yoga ,".
The second is concerning ellipses, which is the three dots (...). In normal written English this is used only to show that something is missing from a quotation. But in transcriptions, where we have many incomplete sentences, we use this to show the end of an incomplete sentence. It is often used when Śrīla Prabhupāda starts saying a few words and then switches to a different sentence. When using this remember to capitalize the next word, which will be the start of a new sentence.
The mistake which is very commonly made is when ellipsis are followed immediately by a comma - "...," This does not make sense because the two parts contradict each other - one means the sentence is over; the other means the sentence is continuing. I change this to just a comma if I think it should remain as one sentence, or else I remove the comma and start a new sentence.
- When you see (?) or (indistinct), this means the original transcriber could not understand. Try to listen to this a few times to hear what is there, and if you cannot understand make a comment at that point so we can listen.
- Missing references - Whenever Śrīla Prabhupāda quotes something, especially from his own books, it should have the reference in brackets. If you find something quoted without a reference or with a (?) after the quote try to find where it is from, either through the Vedabase or Google. If you don't find it, leave a comment so we can look. Here are some examples of common references.
| (SB 1.1.1) | Srimad-Bhagavatam |
| (BG 1.1) | Bhagavad-gita |
| (CC Adi 1.1) | Caitanya-caritamrta |
| (Bs. 5.43) | Bramha Samhita |
| (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 3.45) | Caitanya Bhagavata |
| (Gurv-aṣṭaka 1) | Gurvastaka Prayers |
| (Ṣaḍ-gosvāmy-aṣṭaka 1) | Ṣaḍ-gosvāmy-aṣṭaka Prayers |
| (Brs 1.1.11) | Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu |
| (Vedanta Sutra 1.1.1) | Vedanta sutra |
| (NoI 1) | Nectar of Instruction |
| (Īśo Invocation), (Īśo mantra 1) | Isopanisad |
- Capitalization of pronouns referring to Krsna or Caitanya.
- Paragraphing. Sometimes there are very long paragraphs that can be broken up where there is pause or change of subject in the middle.
- If there is anything else you are unsure about, please explain it on a comment next to it. If you select some text and right click it, at the bottom of the menu should be the option to add a comment.
For the first few lectures you do we will also edit them, and send you back what we found and some feedback. After that we will just be checking your edits and not listen to the whole lecture.
Coding to Place Around Your Edits
| SW ("word") | Suggesting a Word |
| MR ("reference") | Missing a reference |
| MW ("word") | Missing a Word |
| EW ("word") | Extra word in the transcription |
| SM ("Correct spelling") | Spelling Mistake |
| PM ("Correct Punctuation") | Punctuation Mistake |
| IT ("Transcription") | Indistinct Transcription |
| HT ("Translation") | Hindi Translation |
| BT ("Translation") | Bengali Translation |
Questions to Ask
Here we raise questions on grammatical standards in order to discuss and be informed about what is correct.
Contact Us
Please contact us if you have any suggestions to improve or add to this list.