Your thesis will not write itself
You are halfway through your research. You have conducted ten in-depth interviews, each lasting about an hour. Now comes the real work: transcribing them. Typing out ten hours of audio by hand takes thirty to forty hours. That is an entire working week spent doing nothing but typing, rewinding, typing, rewinding.
And you have not even started analysing. No codes assigned, no themes identified, no results written. Transcription is the most tedious and time-consuming part of qualitative research, and it does not earn you a single mark on its own. It is pure groundwork.
Unless you automate it.
What transcription software does for you
Transcription software converts your interview recording into text. Not in thirty hours but in five to ten minutes per interview. You upload the audio, the system processes it, and you get back a searchable text with speaker labels showing who said what.
This does not just save you time on transcription. It changes how you work with your data. Instead of spending hours typing, you can immediately start reading, highlighting and analysing. Your conversations become searchable. You can find in seconds where respondent 6 mentioned a specific theme.
How it works in practice
Step 1: Record your interview
Use your phone or a voice recorder. Place the device close to the respondent for the best audio quality. Tip: start each interview by saying the date and respondent number out loud. It saves you hours of sorting files afterwards.
Step 2: Upload and transcribe
After the interview, upload the audio file. With a cloud service, you will have text within five minutes. The result includes timestamps and speaker identification, so you can see exactly who said what and when.
Step 3: Review and correct
AI transcription is good but not perfect. Respondent names, technical terms and regional accents sometimes trip it up. Most tools include an editor where you can correct the text while playing back the audio. Budget five to ten minutes of editing per hour of recording.
Step 4: Export and analyse
Export as a Word document and import it into your analysis tool — Atlas.ti, NVivo, or simply Word with colour coding. You can start coding and analysing immediately instead of spending a week typing first.
What this saves you
- Ten one-hour interviews: 25–35 hours of typing saved
- Searchable transcripts instead of scattered notes
- Speaker labels so you can attribute quotes instantly
- More time for analysis, less time for grunt work
- Export to Word and PDF for your appendices
What does it cost?
Less than you might expect. With Scribeer, cloud transcription starts at €5.99 for 90 minutes. Ten one-hour interviews would cost you around €26 in total (with free minutes included). Compare that to the thirty to forty hours you save. Even valuing your time at minimum wage, the return is hard to beat.
And if you would rather keep your audio off the cloud — for instance because you promised respondents anonymity — you can opt for local processing. The transcription runs entirely on your own laptop. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored on any external server.
Tips specifically for thesis students
- State the date and respondent number at the start of each interview. It saves hours of sorting later.
- Use headphones when reviewing. You will catch subtle words that speakers miss.
- Transcribe the same day. Your memory fills gaps that the AI misses.
- Keep both the audio and transcript in your project folder. Your supervisor may ask for them.
- Check your university's guidelines on AI tools. Most institutions allow transcription, but mention it in your methodology section.
Get started today
Your next interview could be text in five minutes. No installation, no subscription required, just upload and go. Try it with one interview and see the difference.
Try it yourself: scribeer.io — 50 free minutes, no credit card required.