Prompts
Clean up a transcript without changing what was said
Fixes punctuation and obvious spelling in a machine transcript, and lists every place it changed anything else, so nothing is quietly rewritten. Written for a route that keeps the recording on your own computer.
What may go into it: Sensitive material, on a controlled route only
Do not paste this into a cloud tool.
The prompt
Answer in [ANSWER LANGUAGE], even if the material below is in another language. Below is a machine transcript of a recorded interview, and it stays on my own computer, so work only with what is here and keep the whole answer local. Clean it up for reading. You may: - Fix punctuation, capitalisation and the obvious spelling of the names I list below. - Remove filler sounds and repeated false starts. - Keep the speaker labels exactly as they are. You may NOT: - Complete an unfinished sentence. - Replace a word you think was misheard. - Reorder anything. - Remove a repetition that carries meaning. Keep every [inaudible] marker and its timestamp where it is. Give me, in this order: A. The cleaned transcript. B. A list of every change you made that was more than punctuation, with the original wording beside it. C. The lines you could not make sense of, quoted, so a person can listen again. Names and terms spelled correctly: [LIST THE NAMES AND PLACES] Transcript: [PASTE THE TRANSCRIPT]
25 minutes · Gives you short sections · How much to paste at once: Paste ten to fifteen minutes of transcript at a time. If list B or list C never arrives, or the cleaned text stops mid line, it was cut off: run the next block on its own and keep the blocks in order.
Read the answer against the checks below before you use it in anything that leaves your organisation.
What to fill in
- [ANSWER LANGUAGE]: the language you need the cleaned text in. Keep it the language of the interview unless a colleague has to read it in another one.
- [LIST THE NAMES AND PLACES] that the transcription tool is likely to have misspelled. Write only what already appears in this transcript.
- [inaudible] is the marker your transcription tool already wrote. Leave the word in the prompt so the marker survives.
- [PASTE THE TRANSCRIPT]. Use a transcript produced on your own computer, and run this step in a tool that sends nothing out.
Before you trust the answer
- Listen to the audio for every line in list C before you use it.
- Read list B in full. Anything in it that changes meaning has to go back to the original wording.
- Never delete the raw transcript. The cleaned version is a reading copy, not the record.
When it goes wrong
It will finish a sentence the speaker never finished, in the speaker voice, and leave that change out of list B.
Tools this is written for
Written 2026-09-01Nobody has run this prompt in this language yet, so read the answer twice.
- Controlled route for sensitive materialHas a free versionWorks in Iraq
- Only approved or redacted sensitive materialHas a free versionWorks in Iraq, but not fully
Where to go next
- The task this belongs toTranscribing testimonies and interviews
- The full workflowTranscribe an Arabic interview on your own laptop, without it leaving the room
- Staying safeClassify the material first
Written forJournalist or editorHuman rights activistResearcher or analyst