By Anonymous - 06/04/2013 21:39 - United States - Arcata

Today, I interviewed three elderly residents at a nursing home, hoping to use the transcript for a very important paper due next week. It went great, so I wrapped up and drove home. I sat down to start typing, and realized that my recording had stopped ten minutes in. FML
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Same thing different taste

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Top comments

slooby_fml 25

You can probably remember the jist of what they said; fill in the gaps with plausible things

64 2
FlyingPie 17

I bet that kind of thing gets old after a while.

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Comments

armonicavita 13

Aww man that's too bad. But look on the bright side maybe your second interview will be better than your first.!:)

3 6
babeababe 16

Maybe you can go off your memory? Try and write it the best you can from what you remember, and if its not good enough, see if you can go back and just ask the questions you didn't remember. That sucks though OP. Good luck.

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deet124 11

And that's why we wing it these days :D

3 5
Torch15 9

Eye luv how every1 talks in perfect grammer, some just to plz grammer nazis. Haha just trying to give them hell. :p

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moonsalt 20

When I'm in this situation, I recreate the interview as well as I can remember it. Then, I email a script to the interviewee(s) - I always collect contact information because it's necessary for some publishing processes. In the email, I tell the interviewee(s) that this will be the final project, but there may be slight errors in the script, and I ask if the script seems correct. Although the interviewee(s) normally can't remember anything they said, it can help occasionally.

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Kamibu 12

How has this happened to you more than once or twice? After that, don't you learn and check the recorder, extra batteries and tapes, and take all other precautions? The first time I lost a slaved-over doc in Word, you can bet I was ctrl+s-ing religiously. Also, this is much less helpful advice when dealing with seniors at a nursing home who aren't likely to have email, or if they do, use it often enough to help this kid out. They'd just snicker and mutter about technology under their breath. ;)

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spaboolly 26

What a great lesson about relying too much on technology. If you're doing an interview, you should be focusing enough to remember what is said. If you can't do it just from memory, take notes.

8 3
tgod2013 5

You are also stupid #25, he had a valid point

4 2
Pstraka6 20

Remember what you can and work with it! You don't need hours of recording to make an awesome project!

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lonewolf621 17

FYL. It took me two days to finish transcribing an interview that was an hour long. Next time, keep checking if the recorders on and have two recorders just incase.

1 0
perdix 29

Make the paper about senile dementia -- say that your subjects were lucid for about ten minutes and then they zoned out (much like your recording device did.)

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