Research in Action – Unlikely Search Tools

A few weeks ago I was typing a set of files all about collectible cars, mostly famous race cars, their drivers and different records set in the past. Every time I turned around they were talking about a different kind of collectible car that I was having to look up in Google. It was getting to be quite time consuming and was eating into my profitability on the files.

That's when I decided I needed a different method for researching. I got up from my desk, walked to my son's bookshelf, found a large hardcover book and sat back down. One of my son's favorite books is a book I purchased at a school book fair called Mega Wheels (The Most Exciting Cars in the World!).

Success! This book had all of the terms I needed. It has a page all about classic cars, one on recording-holding fast cars, different types of racing cars, muscle cars, everything. I went from typing into Google every three minutes to simply glancing down at this huge picture book laid open on my desk. Another benefit of the book was that it has information on multiple cars on each page. This way I had context and was able to remember spellings and acronyms when they referenced other cars later in the files.

This was definitely a lesson in how to think outside the box. Have you ever had success in researching for a file in an unlikely place?

Research in Action – Force Majeure

Have you ever heard of the term "force majeure"? It was completely unfamiliar to me when it came up in a file recently. According to the Yale University Library, force majeure is "clauses excuse a party from liability if some unforeseen event beyond the control of that party prevents it from performing its obligations under the contract."

When the term was mentioned in the financial earnings analyst day file I was working on, I could not for the life of me make out what the speaker was saying. He had a strong Southern accent (though the company ironically is in Wisconsin), and I didn't have any supplemental materials that would help me discern the term. The actual sentence in the transcript was:

"There's also an additional amount that's possible if you have force majeure costs, costs that are outside the control of the utility."

I tried googling for "costs outside the control of the utility," but that yielded nothing useful. Finally after listening to the section many times, I determined that the first word was either "forced" or "force," so I tried googling the name of the company with "forced * costs." If you remember from my post on the Google cheat sheet, the * represents one or more words between "forced" and "costs."

Unfortunately, that too yielded no results. However, on the next search I hit the jackpot, I searched for the company name with "force * costs," and there was the term I was looking for, "force majeure costs."

So if you don't find something on the first search, don't give up. Try a few additional searches with different wording, and you just might hit on the term you're searching for!

Research in Action – Verifying Search Results

One downfall of Google searches is that even an incorrectly spelled word or name can return dozens of results, giving the impression that it's spelled correctly. It is important when evaluating the search results page that we consider the sources as well as the context of the page.

For example, if you were to search coop de tat, it would return a page full of results. At first glance, you might think that the proper spelling should be coop d'etat. However, it's important to look through the list for reputable sites that would give a conclusive answer. Even the results from larger, reputable site (like findarticles.com, Harpers' Magazine and NOLA.com in this case) can be spelled incorrectly. These results do not give conclusive evidence that "coop d'etat" is spelled correctly; however, there is no indication of what the correct spelling is. In fact, the correct spelling is "coup d’état," but you might need to mark it as phonetic if you're unable to find that spelling and the conclusive evidence to support it through your searches.

If you're working on a financial earnings call, it's also important not to rely on the spelling from past transcripts as your confirmation, as there's no guarantee that that transcriptionist has confirmed the spelling.

Finding a Wikipedia page is often a good indication that you've chosen the correct spelling. (And as a side note, be sure to verify the spelling listed if a Wikipedia entry does pop up because sometimes you'll get the correct entry even with an incorrect spelling in your search.) Corporate, political and personal websites for the person, product or company in question or well-known industry websites for technical, business or financial terms are reliable sources to confirm spellings, as is the dictionary.

If however, you're left with any doubt, it's best to mark the word or name as phonetic and let the client review it themselves.

I'll admit that I sometimes find research very frustrating because it can significantly increase my turnaround time on a file. However, verifying names and terms is an important part of our job description, and it's important not to rush through this step.

Researching Analysts for Financial Earnings Calls

During the question and answer portion of the financial earnings call several analysts will ask questions to the company representatives on the call. Identifying them can sometimes be quite the feat. However, if you're lucky, they'll be the analysts that usually handle reporting for that company, making them easy to locate.

The first place to check for analyst names would be Yahoo! Finance or the company website. If you look at the Yahoo! Finance page for Ford Motor Company (F) there is an Analyst Coverage section in the left column. Under "Star Analysts" you'll find a list of their top research analysts and other analysts. Hopefully the ones on your call can be found here.

If an analyst asks a question and is not on the analyst list on Yahoo! Finance sometimes the easiest thing to do is do a Google search. They should be introduced with their firm name, so searching the name of their firm and possible spellings of their first and last name can often lead to success. Other places to look include the previous quarter's financial earnings call transcript where the participant names should be listed at the top, the company's investor relations page on their website or possible online databases that the company you're transcribing for provided login information for. If you can't find the correct spelling of an analyst's name mark it as the company specifies and move on. You can always come back to look again if you have extra time after proofing, and sometimes you just won't be able to confirm the spelling of their name.

Company Research for Financial Earnings Calls

In most cases, you should receive your call assignment at least 24 hours ahead of time, if not more. It's good to set aside a time each day to pull together the information for each of the calls you've been assigned

Let's walk through what the research might look like if you're transcribing Ford's financial earnings call.

First, you'll visit Ford's homepage. In the upper right corner, you'll see a link to Investor Relations. Clicking on that will take you to the Investor Relations page, where you can access company reports, corporate officers (under company information) and information about the Ford brands.

You can also search Yahoo! Finance using Ford's stock symbol (F). At the bottom of the results page will be a link for "Company Profile." Opening this page will give you an overview of the business, key executives and other financial information. You can link to the company website through here as well.

It's helpful to go ahead and copy the basics of this information into a Word document, but you'll want to save the links as well so that you can have the windows open while you're transcribing for easy research. Whichever way you decide to organize the information you find, it is very helpful to have this research done ahead of time so that you're not frenetically searching for it while transcribing your call.

Industries and Sectors for Financial Earnings Calls

Financial earnings calls often fall into different industries or sectors, and knowing a particular industry or sector's specific terminology can be very helpful.

As I mentioned before, searching for the industry or sector name along with the word "glossary" in Google can often turn up some helpful websites. It is a good idea to read through the list or at least scan it prior to your call so you have an idea of some of the terminology and it won't sound as foreign to you as you start transcribing.

Below is a list of helpful sites for some typical industries or sectors you may encounter when doing financial earnings calls. Some others to include may be medical research and the pharmaceutical industries.

Some useful glossaries for specialized industries:

Energy
http://www.energy.ca.gov/glossary/
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo/glossary.html
http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/index.html
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/default.cfm

Financial Services and Banking
http://www.finance-glossary.com
http://www.americanbanker.com/features/glossary.jsp
http://biotechterms.org/sourcebook/index.phtml
http://www.geneed.com/glossary/
http://www.rxlist.com/96top.htm

Semiconductors
http://semiconductorglossary.com/

Technology
http://whatis.techtarget.com/
http://www.oasismanagement.com/TECHNOLOGY/GLOSSARY/

Retail
http://retailindustry.about.com/library/terms/blglossary.htm

Insurance
http://sb.thehartford.com/learn_insurance/jargon.asp

Researching Financial Terminology for Financial Earnings Calls

In many ways, financial/investing terminology is a language all to itself. Reading financial earnings calls transcripts or press releases is a good practice that helps you develop your understanding of these terms, but chances are you will still come across some that you haven't used before for at least your first few earnings call seasons. In these situations, it's important to know what you DON'T know so that you can research anything that is at all unfamiliar.

For example, a speaker may say what sounds like "S. G. N. A.," but what they're really referring to is SG&A, which is selling, general and administrative expenses.

Another example of an acronym that has a misleading pronounciation is CAGR, or compound annual growth rate, which is not prounounced as "C. A. G. R." but rather as "kay-ger."

Others include:

• ARPU (which, by the way, I love to say!), average revenue per user, or "ar-poo"
• EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or "ee-bit-ah"
• GAAP or non-GAAP, generally accepted accounting principles, or "gap"

There are many, many more of these acroynms that are not necessarily easy to decipher when spoken, so you'll want to use the context and the common terms list at the end of this post to help you figure out the terminology used.

The following sites all offer comprehensive, searchable databases as well:
Investor Words
Yahoo! Finance
Investopedia

Finally, here is a list of terminology. Please note that this list is not comprehensive, but it does cover a lot of the most common terms. I hope to continue adding definitions to the list for your reference, but having the correct term in front of you is more than half the battle!

Terms/Acronyms	Definition
accrual, accretive, accrue	growing in size
ADR	American Depository Receipt
ANDA (ay en dee ay)	abbreviated new drug application
annualized	financial figurextrapolate a value for a given time period to reflect a full year value
antigens (medical term)
AP	accounts payable
apples-to-apples	to compare like values
ARPU (ar poo)	average revenue per user
APR	annual percentage rate
ASP	average selling price
assay
AR	accounts receivable
B2B	business to business
backwardation	when futures prices are lower in the long term than the near term
Big Pharma, pharma	short form for pharmaceutical companies
BOE	barrel of oil equivalent
book-to-bill ratio (semiconductor industry)
BP	basis point
BPD	barrels per day
brownfield
buy side/sell side	analyst coverage of stocks
CAGR	compound annual growth rate
CapEx	capital expenditures
cath lab (medical term)
churn	rate of customer attrition
CLEC (see-lek)(telecom)	competitive local exchange carrier
COGS	cost of goods sold
comp, comps, comp store sales
contango	upward sloping forward curve in the futures market
covenant	loan agreement
CRM	customer relationship management
de novo	financial reports of a new/young company
dilutive
DSOs	days sales outstanding
EAFE	Europe and Australia Far East Equity Index
e-business
EBITDA, EBIT, EDITDAX (ee bit uh)	earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization
e-government
EITF (accounting standards)	Emerging Issues Task Force
EMEA	Europe, Middle East and Asia
EPS	earnings per share
escrow
ETA/ETD	estimated time of arrival/departure
fab, wafer fab	short for fabrication
FAS 142, FAS 143	financial accounting standard
FASB 123(R), FAS 123(R)
FASB	Financial Accounting Standards Board
FDA	Food and Drug Administration
FERC (ferk)	Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions
FFO	funds from operations
FICO	credit score
FIFO	first in, first out
FIN (financial standard)
First Call	analyst reference
fiscal
follow-up	additional question
Form 10-K, 8-K 10-Q	SEC forms
free cash flow
FX	foreign exchange
GAAP, non-GAAP (gap)	generally accepted accounting principles
FY	fiscal year
GM	gross margin
greenfield
headcount
HMO	health management organization
ILEC (eye-lek)
in vivo
IPO	initial public offering
JV	joint venture
kinase
LIBOR	London Interbank Offered Rate
LIFO	last in, first out
link-quarter
liquidity
LOE	lease operating expenses
LY, HY, FY, FY '04	last year, half year, full year, full year ‘04
M&A	mergers and acquisitions
mark-to-market
Mcfe (resource sector term)
MD&A	management discussion and analysis
metric, metrics
Mmbtu (exploration)	one million British thermal units
NAREIT	board governing REITs
NDA	new drug application
NOI	net operating income
NOLs
NYMEX	New York Mercantile Exchange
OEM	original equipment manufacturer
OpEx	operating expenses
OPM	original product manufacturer
P/E	price/earnings (ratio)
P&L or P/L	profit and loss
pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics
Phase I, II, III, IIa	clinical trials on medical/pharma calls
pari passu
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
pro forma
protease inhibitor
proteomics
puts, swaps, calls	stock trading terms
Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q4 '04, Q2 '03	1st quarter, 2nd quarter, etc.
QA	quality assurance
Q	abbreviation for Form 10-Q
queue	line up, as in queue for Q&A period
R&D	research and development
ramp up
reagent
Regulation FD, Reg FD
REIT (reet)	real estate investment trust
Reuters
RevPAR	revenue per available room
ROA	return on assets
ROE	return on equity
ROI	return on investment
ROIC	return on invested capital
run rate
S&P	Standard & Poor's
SAC	subscriber acquisition costs
Safe Harbor provisions
Sarbanes-Oxley Act, SOX, SarbOx
SEC	Securities and Exchange Commission
SG&A, G&A	selling, general and administrative costs
share repurchase
Six Sigma
SKU (skew)	stock keeping unit
spend (noun)	the amount spent
spud (oilfield term)
stent, shunt
stock buy-back
TBA/TBD	to be announced/determined
the Street (the City in the UK)	the analyst community
The Patriot Act
top line, bottom line
tranche, traunche
true up
turnkey system
turns (inventory)
VoIP	Voice over Internet Protocol
webcast
website
wellhead
YTD	year to date

Research in Action -- Searching for Glossaries

One of my favorite things to do when I have a file on a specific topic is to search for glossaries. Whether it's an internet marketing glossary or one with Jewish divorce terminology, they can be a huge help all the way through a file.

Usually I just do a Google search for the subject matter with either "terminology" or "glossary" and see what I come up with. Sometimes sites dedicated to the topic will provide a glossary to define words that are commonly used. For example, with my Jewish file I found a very helpful glossary on the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance site that took care of the majority of my rabbinical court terminology.

One Reason I Love Wikipedia – Help for Research

I was reminded today why I love Wikipedia for research. I often do political files that deal with different countries and get quite in depth, and one of my favorite things to use Wikipedia for is to look up past politicians.

If you go to the individual country sites you can see the current politicians on the right side of the screen. If you click on a specific political office you'll get to a page that may contain a list of people who held that office in the past. If you don't see it right away, scroll down and there should be a link to it if it's not in the main article. For example, if you go to the Wiki page for Indonesia and click on the word "president" in the right column you find the list of former Indonesian presidents.

I've found this useful when researching historical events too. If I can link to the politician's name or find an article that mentions the topic it is usually linked to an article about the event I'm looking for.

Research in Action

Earlier this week I was typing a file that dealt with computer software companies. The recording was done in a busy coffee shop, and understanding the participants was not always the easiest. At one point in the file the interviewee mentioned a company that sounded like "Ametrics." I couldn't find anything and continued with my file, marking the word.

A few minutes later the speaker mentioned the company was founded by a Paul Allen. Google quickly revealed the true name of the company to be Asymetrix, changed to Click2learn and then merged with Docent to become SumTotal, which explains why I had trouble finding concrete evidence for its spelling earlier. That search also yielded the interviewee's personal website, making future references much easier to find context for.

Research in Action – Using Contextual Clues

"First it's a real pleasure for me to be able to present to you what we do at L'Oréal in the field of arthropod experimentation."

Say what??? Surely L'Oréal is not testing their latest skincare product on spiders, but that's what it sounded like the speaker was saying through his extremely thick French accent.

Now, a poor transcriptionist would have typed exactly what I typed above without a second thought. Yes, that's right. I've seen many, many transcripts with these kind of gross errors, simply because some transcriptionists do not take the context of the rest of the content of a transcript into consideration. While proofing I've seen numerous instances of a transcriptionist just typing whatever he/she thought he/she heard, without stopping to think that it has no relevance to the subject at hand and giving it another listen.

A so-so transcriptionist might do a few Google searches, not come up with anything concrete, and mark it as unverified in some way and moved on.

A highly-skilled transcriptionist will go the extra mile to figure out what the term in question is, especially when it is used extensively throughout the transcript. Searching for L'Oréal experimentation turned up nothing, as did a few other terms from later in the transcript. (Important point – sometimes you can find a really good resource on the subject by using other terminology, and it will help you figure out other terms by scanning the website.)

As luck would have it, a few more minutes into the file, the speaker mentioned "the HTE approach," and I thought, "Hmm, I wonder what HTE stands for?" A quick Google search of L'Oréal HTE told me that it's an acronym for High-Throughput Experimentation. Eureka!!! That's when it clicked that he was saying "high-throughput," and not arthropod (which I already knew, but I didn't have to mark it as questionable)!

It's so satisfying to be able to fill in the blanks like that. Call me crazy, but it's one of the reasons I love transcription!

Research in Action - Google Shortcuts At Work

A few weeks ago I was transcribing a medically-laced dictation for a lawyer when I came across a term I was unsure of. A quick Google search revealed that the proper spelling was "laminectomy and fusion." I continued along until I reached a few other words that I needed to confirm. Remembering I had seen a PDF link that I thought possibly contained what I was looking for, I used Tara's Google Cheat Sheet to search only for PDF files.

Searching "laminectomy and fusion filetype:pdf" revealed the link I had seen prior. This one search sent me on the course of finding the long list of terms I was encountering regarding acute transverse myelopathy and sent me skipping happily along, giving me a new place to start my Google searches from there on out when I encountered terms like "erythematosus." It's amazing how finding that one necessary word can change your search just enough to provide the information you're looking for. Knowing how to focus your search definitely helps.

Getting Started – Research

So here I was all ready to write this great post with tips for learning how to effectively research terminology, names, locations, etc., in transcripts, when I ran across this fabulous website, Internet Detective. Quite honestly, I don't think there's any way I can top it, so I figure if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Seriously, this site is chock full of information laid out in an easy-to-use tutorial fashion, complete with specific examples and quizzes to test your knowledge. I especially like the emphasis that they place on critical evaluation of the source material. This is an extremely important but often overlooked detail many transcriptionists don't factor into their research.

The site says the tutorial takes about an hour, and I for one plan to go back to it later this week and spend some more time with it after I dig out from under this mountain of work.


By the way, please share any pressing questions that you have about research. This seems to be a problem area for so many transcriptionists, and we'd love to help you with it.

Google Cheat Sheet

Call me crazy, but I really get a thrill out of being able to verify an obscure name or unfamiliar term in a transcript. I think the ability to research is one of those things that sorts out the good transcriptionists from the really great transcriptionists.

A friend of mine introduced me to this spreadsheet on About.com a few years ago. It includes many useful tips on how to use Google most effectively in your research. I printed it out and stuck it in the front cover of my transcription binder, and I still refer to it on an almost daily basis.

Google Shortcut	Finds Pages That Have...
nokia phone	the words nokia and phone
sailing OR boating	either the word sailing or the word boating
"love me tender"	the exact phrase love me tender
printer -cartridge	the word printer but NOT the word cartridge
Toy Story +2	movie title including the number 2
~auto	looks up the word auto and synonyms
define:serendipity	definitions of the word serendipity
how now * cow	the words how now cow separated by one or more words
+	addition; 978+456
-	subtraction; 978-456
*	multiplication; 978*456
/	division; 978/456
% of	percentage; 50% of 100
^	raise to a power; 4^18 (4 to the eighteenth power)
old in new (conversion)	45 celsius in Fahrenheit
site:(search only one website)	site:websearch.about.com “invisible web”
link:(find linked pages)	link:www.lifehacker.com
#...#(search within a number range)	nokia phone $200...$300
daterange:(search within specific date range)	bosnia daterange:200508-200510
safesearch: (exclude adult content)	safesearch:breast cancer
info: (find info about a page)	info:www.websearch.about.com
related: (related pages)	related:www.websearch.about.com
cache: (view cached page)	cache:google.com
filetype:(restrict search to specific filetype)	zoology filetype:ppt
allintitle: (search for keywords in page title)	allintitle:"nike" running
inurl:(restrict search to page URLs)	inurl:chewbacca
site:.edu (specific domain search)	site:.edu, site:.gov, site:.org, etc.
site:country code (restrict search to country)	site:.br “rio de Janeiro”
intext:(search for keyword in body text)	intext:parlor
allintext: (return pages with all words specified in body text)	allintext:north pole
book(search book text)	book The Lord of the Rings
phonebook:(find a phone number)	phonebook:Google CA
bphonebook: (find business phone numbers)	bphonebook:Intel OR
rphonebook:(find residential phone numbers)	rphonebook:Joe Smith Seattle WA
movie:(search for showtimes)	movie:wallace and gromit 97110
stocks:(get a stock quote)	stocks:ncesa
weather:(get local weather)	weather:97132

Research in Action – Phrases

I recently did a transcript with the following sentence in it.

The drug distribution business in south Florida can be a pretty rugged game, and some of these folks decided to shuffle off this mortal coil long before the cases could be brought to trial.

Now, I could not for the life of me make out what word he was saying after "mortal." Yes, I know (now) it's Shakespeare. Yes, I read Hamlet in both high school and college. Apparently sometime between college and now, that piece of knowledge was lost to mommy brain or some other memory lapse.

Luckily, I can rely on Google these days when my memory (and hearing) fails me. A great feature is that when you enclose your search query in quotation marks it searches only for instances of when those words appear together in exactly the order you've typed. I did a quick search for "shuffle off this mortal," and I was able to complete the phrase and refresh my memory on its origins and, mostly importantly, move on in my file.

We've got more great tips for research, so stay tuned!