The first decision on every transcription order isn't turnaround time or file format — it's which verbatim style you actually need. Get it wrong and you either end up with a document buried in "um"s and false starts, or a polished transcript missing the hesitation that mattered to your analysis.
Clean verbatim
Clean verbatim removes filler words ("um," "uh," "like"), false starts, and repeated words, while keeping the actual meaning and phrasing intact. It reads the way a person would write down what was said, not the way it technically came out of their mouth.
This is the right default for almost everything: podcast transcripts, business meetings, most research interviews, blog and article source material. It's faster to read, easier to quote, and doesn't distract from the content with speech patterns nobody needed captured.
Full verbatim
Full verbatim captures everything — every "um," every false start, every repeated word, every trailed-off sentence. Nothing is smoothed over.
This matters when the way something was said is part of what you're studying: linguistics research, legal depositions, qualitative research coding hesitation or discomfort, or any analysis where speech patterns themselves are data. If you're not sure whether you need this, you probably don't — full verbatim is a deliberate choice for a specific kind of analysis, not a "more thorough" default.
A quick way to decide
- Going to quote or publish this? Clean verbatim.
- Studying how something was said, not just what was said? Full verbatim.
- Not sure? Start with clean — you can always request full verbatim for a specific section afterward.
Either way, tell us which one you need when you request your quote — it's built into the order, not an afterthought during review.