Gross lines
Character lines
By the page
By the minute (of dictation)
A "line" is not the same as every other line. Always know your line definition or you're comparing apples to oranges!
DEFINITION:
Gross lines are also known as a “visual line count”. Every line on the page that has text counts as a “line” and every blank line (typically, but not always) doesn’t.
VARIABLES THAT AFFECT GROSS LINES:
Gross line counts are highly dependent on font sizes, character styles and margin widths. Most people tend to like counting by the gross line because of its relative simplicity. However there is no reliable method for directly comparing different gross line counts between reports that do not use the same fonts and margin widths.
Gross lines are directly related to the type of formatting that is done in a report. If a transcriptionist uses a lot of indents or tabs in formatting a report, the gross line count will go up without a corresponding increase in the number of characters typed (savvy transcriptionists know who to "goose" their line counts by formatting this way).
Also, sometimes gross line counts include "blank" lines (although most commonly it is assumed that blank lines are not included).
DEFINITION:
A character line usually consists of adding up the number of characters you physically see on a printed page and then dividing the total character count by some quantity, usually 65, 55 or 50. Most of the time spaces are counted as a character as well as carriage returns (line breaks).
A variation of a character line is what is known as an “AAMT defined line”. The AAMT is no longer endorsing this type of line and has always maintained it is just a "recommendation". According to the AAMT, they are no longer endorsing any sort of billing method. The only criteria is that whatever method is used, it must be independently verifiable by both the client and transcriptionist (note that the ASMART billing method meets this criteria).
The AAMT line is defined as “Any letter, number, symbol, or function key necessary for the final appearance and content of a document.” An AAMT line consists of 65 of these characters. AAMT defined lines have the same problems as character lines in general, but in addition, because the AAMT definition is so vague, many vendors use it to include every single keystroke generated by the transcriptionist, including keystrokes to run macros, run spelling checkers, and open up word processing programs. This leads to deceptively low line rates.
VARIABLES THAT AFFECT CHARACTER LINES:
Character lines are often used surreptitiously by transcription providers when billing. They take advantage of the fact that there is no standard for what counts as a character. Oftentimes, they will include extra characters (usually taken to represent the extra number of keystrokes the transcription has had to make) to create bolds, carriage returns, capital letters, underlines, indents, etc. Sometime this is taken as far as including the supposed number of keystrokes the transcriptionist uses to launch the word processing program, or to invoke macros, etc. See this in action by looking at actual vendor RFP's.
DEFINITION:
This is self-explanatory. Each page of finished, printed, transcription counts as a billing unit.
VARIABLES THAT AFFECT BILLING BY THE PAGE:
Billing by the page suffers from the same problems as billing by the gross line. Margins and font selections will change the billing count. In addition, a problem arises where one page may have a few lines of text on it while another one could be completely full. This results is a poor correlation between the amount of transcription produced and the amount billed.
DEFINITION:
Every minute that the author dictates is a billing unit..
VARIABLES THAT AFFECT BILLING BY THE MINUTE OF DICTATION:
While in theory this seems like a great idea because a minute is easy to define, there are a couple of problems that result from this. Different dictation systems produce different dictation times for the same dictation. This is because the start and stop timers begin and end in different places on different dictation systems. Lastly, because authors dictate a different speeds, the same amount of dictation can produce very different amounts of transcription.