Book excerpt: Interest in transcript-based research has grown significantly in recent years. Alongside this growth has been an increase in awareness of the empirical utility of naturalistic research on language use in interaction. However, a quick scan of the literature reveals that very few transcription books have been published in the past three decades. This is an astonishing fact given that there are perhaps hundreds of books published on spoken discourse analysis. This book aims to narrow this gap by providing an introduction to the theories and practices related to transcribing communication data. The book is intended for students with little to no knowledge of transcription work and/or instructors responsible for teaching introductory courses on transcript-based research. Readers who are learning or teaching discourse/conversation analysis or similar analytic methods of investigation will find this book particularly helpful. The author: Christopher Jenks has many years of experience teaching transcription work and analysis of communication data to postgraduate students and researchers. In addition to running workshops and giving presentations on similar topics at universities around the world, he has published widely in top international journals and has numerous other forthcoming publications.