Read on Twitter
Important reminder for podcasters: your transcripts shouldn't just work when read along with your show audio—they need to be able to stand alone. Someone should be able to read the transcripts without listening to the audio at all and still understand everything. (Short 
)
)
Tone indicators are a BIG part of this! If somebody (for example) says something sarcastically, you need to note that they're being sarcastic in some way, e.g. "[Sarcastically] Yeah, that sounds like a great idea".
If you don't note that it was sarcastic, people who are just reading the transcript might read it as genuine, which completely changes the meaning. Now, you don't have to note tone when the tone is implied from the words, but if the tone contradicts the words, you absolutely do.
So you don't need to write "[affectionately] I love you", but you do need to write "[affectionately] I hate you". Otherwise, people who can't hear the audio will interpret the sentence completely differently than how you want them to.
There are some people who have residual hearing and like to use transcripts while listening to the audio. But there are a lot of people who are going to be ONLY reading your transcript, either because they don't have any hearing or because listening to things is uncomfortable.
Like, for me: sometimes I just read transcripts for shows, because listening is HARD. Sometimes, if I really want to experience a podcast episode but I'm just not up for hearing it, I'll just read the transcripts instead (I just did this with @SeenNotHeardPod, fittingly enough)
People who only use transcripts deserve to get the full experience of your show, too! Make sure to make your transcripts with us in mind, and don't just view transcripts as something that people who have some level of hearing will use while listening to your audio.
