Verbatim Responses...

[Blindgoldfish]

I had a client return a report to me claiming there were multiple spelling and grammatical errors.

I had a co-worker read through the report and they found no errors other than the verbatim responses. My opinion is that the verbatim responses should not be altered in any way, otherwise they are no longer "verbatim."

Anyone have any differing opinions?

In the future, I'll be putting a disclaimer in about the verbatims...

[jjjjherm]

Agreed that verbatims should be kept intact.

That said, when I say kept intact, the theme and main message should be held true, but I have always cleaned up spelling and in some cases grammar for clients.

Let me us an example, if you include some verbatims in a key page within a report that is going to the "President's" desk, the expectation is that everything is correct, including spelling---even if it is "in the consumer's words." If it is not, it might be the last time you do work for that company.

We had the same issues when I did mystery shopping years ago. Clients had an expectation that the spelling/grammar would always be cleaned up. If it was not, the local managers (who had their bonuses based on the data) would say a low scoring scorecard was falsified and/or wrong because of the spelling (or some other issue.)

Just my two cents, but does not make me right. I am sure others have differing opinions.

[Sherman Whipple]

Jon is aboslutely right. Unless it is relevant to the findings, all the grammar should be correct in the management report and executive summary. The errors, etc. however do belong in your technical report or supporting data.

This said, there are times when poor grammar or slang does have a place in the report when it is used to capture the essence of a finding or response. For example when a significant number of respondents actually state that a particular product is "a total piece of crap":, then you would be misleading your client if you cleaned this up to express this as "very dissatisfied."

So, really, it is a matter of applying common sense.

Sherman

[Blindgoldfish]

Thanks for the input.

When I said "client," it is an internal client as I am an on-staff researcher. If I were to submit the report to an outside client and include the verbatims within the body of the report (and not an appendix), I would certainly adjust the spelling/grammatical errors.

[Rico]

since we are discussing verbatim, what about when you do international research.
I have to use the english translated verbatims, cos it will be nearly impossible for me to find the words in the transcript written in a language unknown to me. While this is far from ideal, i don't have other ideas. Any thoughts?

[davemorgan]

I use a company called Language Connect to code the international verbatim responses. It's cheaper and quicker than getting it all translated . They have mother tongue people who code directly into an English code frame.

[mktgurl]

Verbatims are, in my experience, grammatically/spelling corrected if they are to be used with marketing collateral, print or online; especially in the use of testimonials. No one likes to read typo'd copy.