Mistranscribe

Mistranscribe is a verb meaning to produce an incorrect transcription of spoken or written material. It refers to rendering audio or manuscript content into text with errors. The term is used across fields that rely on transcription, such as journalism, academia, legal proceedings, medical documentation, and entertainment subtitling. A related noun is mistranscription.

Causes include human error—mishearing, misreading, typographical mistakes—as well as misidentification of names or terms. Technical factors such as heavy accents, rapid speech, poor audio quality, background noise, or similar-sounding words can lead to mistranscription. In automated systems, limits of speech-to-text and optical character recognition, plus autocorrect or keyboard mistakes, can introduce errors.

Impacts can range from minor inaccuracies to serious misinformation, especially in legal transcripts, medical records, or quoted material in journalism. Mistranscriptions may misrepresent statements, misname individuals, or alter meaning, affecting accountability and decision-making.

Mitigation includes human verification against the original, timestamped transcripts, and adherence to transcription guidelines. In automated workflows, improving training data, implementing post-processing reviews, and labeling uncertain segments help reduce errors.