User blog:Fluffbrain/Running Transcript Doctrine

This is a running tab of formatting inconsistencies/uncertainties/oddities I run into while going through transcripts. This is meant to be part consistency tracker for my own personal use and part public feedback forum since some of these items are a bit debatable.

I review transcripts every day as part of a personal language routine; however, I only work with older episodes, which tend to have outdated/non-standardized formatting. My intent has been to standardize them per what appears to be the most common formatting choices, though I have avoided any large-scale overhauls.

• Two functions seem to inform what is included in transcripts: 1. document all noteworthy dialogue and sounds in the episode, and 2. present such in an easily readable format that includes contextual actions. Though the second one is largely limited to things like "[beat]", it may also manifest in the selective inclusion of sounds or actions that may normally be too minor to mention but which serve to give useful and relevant context to otherwise unexpected dialogue.

• Generally, concision and readability are the primary guiding factors. If it uses fewer characters, achieves the same effect, and is no less easy to read, it’s likely a good change.

• Em-dashes, not hyphens or en-dashes, are used for interjections and sentence cut-offs.

-For sentence interjections, no spaces are used between the words and the dash

• For showing actions, nameplates are usually preferred to stand-alone brackets unless the agent is highly generalized.

-Ex. Cutie Mark Crusaders: [laughing] -instead of- [Cutie Mark Crusaders laughing]

-Ex. [ponies cheering] -instead of- Ponies: [cheering]

• Stand-alone bracketed actions (those without a nameplate) should be as simple as possible, only including as much information as is necessary to understand the context of a sound.

-Ex. [muffin squawks] -instead of- [flying muffin squawks]

-In cases where the agent is unknown or unconfirmed, the agent should be omitted as well.

• Most bracketed onomatopoeia are changed to a brief description.

-Ex. [explosion] -instead of- [boom]

-Ex. [knocking] -instead of- [knock knock knock knock]

• Consecutive nameplates for the same agent are combined.

• Common collective nameplates should be used when appropriate.

-Ex. Main cast, Rest of main cast, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Ponies, etc.

-If necessary, “sans” to be used in place of “except”

-Most common nameplates to be used, e.g. Rest of main cast -instead of- Twilight’s friends

• “Alright” vs “all right”

-According to my online research, several reputable sources consider “all right” to be more correct than “alright” across the board. In my personal experience, “alright” is by far the more common expression as an interjection and has a clear distinction from “all right” as a modifier. My outlook thus far, both from a stylistic and consistency point of view, has been to always use “alright” as an interjection (ex. “alright, enough is enough”) and as a modifier as necessary, i.e. when something is “just ok” as opposed to “completely fine”.

• Scene changes, marked by paragraph breaks in the transcript, are generally defined by distinct jumps in time and/or space accompanied by a sudden, discontinuous camera change.

• Lines read or quoted by a character are in italics, between quotes, and/or preceded with "[reading]", depending mostly on length and scene context.

• Use of italic text

-I largely leave this alone but inconsistencies sometimes come up. Most common use seems to be when words are either shouted, read/quoted, or emphasized by intonation or syntax. Italicizing of punctuation is also a bit inconsistent; my general approach is to include punctuation as appropriate to fit the emotion of the line.

• Song formatting

-I haven't been gathering formatting standards on these so far since they're all very consistent anyway.

-Nameplates for lines sung are in bolded brackets, while nameplates for spoken lines are in standard format with the tentative exception that, when there are multiple agents in the same nameplate, the entire nameplate is bolded (including commas and the word "and", which normally are not). I have only noticed this in The Perfect Stallion so far.

Things I ignore:

• A lot of stylized speech seems a bit inconsistently transcribed, such as with AJ’s accent, and in most cases I have no interest in trying to make an argument for one way over another. It’s usually pretty agreeable.

• I used to think “[beat]” was unnecessary until the pause in Twilight’s B.B.B.F.F. explanation in A Canterlot Wedding, which twice made it possible to avoid consecutive nameplates. I think that’s the only time I feel it added something in the transcripts I’ve gone over so far; regardless it’s something I don’t intend to standardize one way or another.

• Starting in season 4, transcripts no longer include [music] before [credits] at the end. I proposed this as a potential bot function a while back but the situation remains the same.

• Annotated actions such as "[gasps]" and "[laughing]" vary frequently in what part of speech they take (most often verb, participle, or noun form). I think it should be consistent locally, perhaps even no broader than within a single piece of dialogue, but I don't think it's practical or necessary to standardize it globally.

• Judging from a limited sample size, it appears newer episode transcripts are more liberal with annotations and tend to use onomatopoeia rather than brief descriptions of sounds. I'm inclined to consider this difference appropriate for the shift in the show's tone (I mean this frankly, without saying one format is better or worse) and intend to continue working toward a more chronologically local standard (earlier seasons vs later).

• Capitalizing the first letter of a line that beings with an ellipses has been somewhat inconsistent. It seems like an easy rule to establish that the first letter of each character line be capitalized, but because precedent on this is a bit wobbly in the transcripts I've looked at so far, and because I think you could make a case for style to forego capitalization in certain situations, I haven't been changing these.

Notable Exceptions:

• In Magical Mystery Cure, as the song "A True, True Friend" begins, Twilight Sparkle has two consecutive nameplates that cannot be reduced because the second nameplate is (appropriately) generated as part of the lyrics template and thus cannot be removed in the episode transcript.