Speaker Affirmations in Edited Verbatim

Speaker Affirmations

Avoid unnecessary inclusion of the interviewer's encouraging affirmation, that needlessly break up speech. For example, the interviewer says 'Yes', 'Okay', 'Hmmhmm' over the respondent, just to encourage the respondent to carry on speaking.

When to Include Affirmations

However, if they are meaningful they must of course be left in, for example, in response to something that invites a response.

General Guidelines

'Yeah' does not need to be corrected to 'Yes'. Use your discretion as to what suits the transcript best.

Often one person over speaks with rhetorical affirmatives like "Okay," "Right," "I see," or "I understand."

These should not be included (except in strict and super strict verbatim) if they add no meaning or break the flow of speech of the other speaker

If they add meaning, e.g. answering a question, of course include them

Standardised Formatting

Any utterances of 'Hmmhmm' or 'Hmm' should be stylised as such, rather than any other variations like 'mmm-hmm', 'mhmm', 'mmhmm', etc.

Key Principle

Meaning is the determining factor

include affirmations that contribute to understanding, exclude those that merely interrupt flow.