How to Make Money on Mturk Transcribing for CastingWords, Part II

So now that you have had your cup of coffee and done your happy dance, it's time to get to work.

Your qualification score – unless there was an error somewhere – should be 85. That's good enough to work the lowest-paying "hits" CastingWords has.

I wish that it could be otherwise, but, alas, it's not. You have to earn your way to the top. The only thing that I can tell you is that it gets better. Try to take the hits that you can reasonably do (good advice no matter what your score is) and give yourself plenty of time to do it right.

CastingWords gives an ample 4 ½ hours, so don't feel as though you need to rush through it. I suggest, at this point, that you get yourself a couple of tools.

First, a decent-quality headset. Preferably one with good padding around the ears. You're going to be wearing it a lot.

Second, download a free program called Express Scribe. It allows you to automate much of the audio process by binding keys to either the keyboard, or, as many more experienced transcriptionists use, a foot pedal.

For now, though, those two things should get you started toward that all important number, 99. That's when you can start making the big bucks.

Before you do your first transcription, take the tutorial offered in the hit. You don't have to accept the hit before you take the tutorial. Also read up on the style guide and maybe copy/paste the information into notepad so that you can refer to it whenever you need (which will be often in the beginning, believe me).

Now, set aside a big chunk of time – say an hour or so – to do the work. Take it as slow as possible, backing up the audio as many times as you need to get their words just right, while leaving out all the "buts" and "umms" and false starts.

You WILL get the hang of it. Just like any job, it will become easier and easier and in no time you'll feel like a pro.

OK, so now you've put together a few hits and have gotten a few grades. Now what? What do they mean?

Well, the grading system for CastingWords is a hit or miss proposition. It's generally graded by more than one person and their final grade is the result of some sort of secret formula that the CIA would be envious of.

At this stage, you should be shooting for 7's with the occasional 8. If you're getting more 8's than 7's, you're doing it right and you'll start seeing your qualification value (along with your pay) climb.

Once your qualification value (hereafter called a PPT) climbs to the north of 90, you can start doing better paying hits. But to maintain (and increase your score) you're going to have to be getting minimal 7's at this point. Maybe even the occasional 9.

This is where the money starts to be worth it. But, your grammar and spelling and how well you follow the style guide become SO important. Literally one misspelled word can knock a good transcript from a 9 to an 8.

Sometimes there are rogue graders who don't really care that you just typed the perfect transcript. They just want their .04 and to be on their merry way as fast as possible. That hurts you and your pocketbook.

It's not fair, but there's nothing much you can do about it except work harder. Do as many transcriptions as you can and do your best job. It might take a while, but you'll get there.

Then, one day, you'll log in and see that your PPT score has finally hit 99. That's the magic number that will allow you to take the best hits. They don't come up all the time, but when they do make sure your ready to pounce on them.

These pay $1 per audio minute and are generally in the 9-10 minute range. Thus, if you can catch one of those a day, you can earn yourself some pretty good coin.

Now that all of your hard work has paid off, you can finally upgrade from Dunkin' Donuts to Starbucks.

In case you missed it, here's Part I.



If you enjoyed this article, please rate it and link it to your friends.

Other articles of mine that you may enjoy:

How to Make Money on Mturk Transcribing for CastingWords, Part I

To view all my articles, visit my Profile.

Follow me on Twitter, "akeetlebeetle" for alerts to new articles.

If you would like to write articles and get paid for them, follow this link and sign up for your free Bukisa account and start earning today! I will help get you started.