Crosstalk

Updated: 09/17/24

How do we transcribe crosstalk?

When speakers talk at the same time, it can be difficult to discern what order to place the transcribed sentences in. <crosstalk> should ONLY be used if they are talking over each other and some part of the interruption isn't heard in the audio file.

Try to be as accurate as possible. Here is an example of how it might look in a transcript:

Here, use your intuition and place them in the order that makes the most sense, and if parts of the speech are being jumbled or cut off, indicate that crosstalk occurred using <crosstalk>. This helps the client make sense of interruptions and other conversational interactions that might make sense in real life, but not on the page.

❌❌❌ The following is incorrect notation❌❌❌:

Here's an example where the second speaker talks over the first, but the first continues instead of stopping their speech:

Even if crosstalk is unintelligible, we should still include it: