Every transcript order includes a choice that many clients make by default: clean verbatim or strict verbatim. The names sound like a quality setting. They are not. They describe two different documents, and the right one depends on what the transcript is for.
Clean verbatim
Clean verbatim records what was said while removing the noise of spoken language. False starts, repeated words, filler sounds and most non-verbal utterances are left out. The sense of each answer is preserved exactly, but the page reads the way the speaker would have written it.
Q. And where were you on the morning of the fourteenth?
A. I was at the distribution center. I arrived around seven.
Clean verbatim is the right choice for most litigation support work: interview summaries, internal investigations, client meetings, recorded calls reviewed for content, and depositions where the testimony itself, not the manner of giving it, is what matters.
Strict verbatim
Strict verbatim records everything. Every "um," every restart, every overlapping word, every laugh or pause that can be marked. The transcript is longer and slower to read, and it is a faithful record of how the words were delivered.
Q. And where were you on the -- on the morning of the fourteenth?
A. I was -- I was at the, uh, the distribution center. I arrived around -- around seven, I think. [Pause.]
Strict verbatim matters when the delivery is evidence. Hesitation before an answer, a change of story mid-sentence, a witness talking over counsel: these can support an argument about credibility, coaching or understanding. It is also expected in some forensic, linguistic and compliance contexts where the recording is being analysed rather than simply read.
How to decide
Ask one question: will anyone argue about how something was said, or only about what was said?
- If only what was said matters, order clean verbatim. It is faster to produce, easier to read and quote, and less expensive.
- If how it was said might matter, order strict verbatim from the start. Converting a clean transcript into a strict one later means re-listening to the entire recording.
When in doubt for a deposition that may be used at trial, strict verbatim is the safer default. The extra cost is small compared with discovering, months later, that a hesitation you remember is not on the page.
Tell us before we start
The style is set before transcription begins, because it changes how the specialist listens. If you are ordering through the quote form, the choice is a single selection in the service details step. If you are emailing a file, say which style you want in the first line.