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At-A-Glance Captioning Style Guide

The following are basic guidelines for captioning adapted from the DCMP Links to an external site. & Amara Links to an external site..

Length, Duration, Speed & Timing
Subtitle line length	Keep subtitle length to about 42 characters – 21 characters per line; avoid more than 2 lines per subtitle
Minimum duration	Subtitles should not be less than 1 second.
Maximum duration	Split subtitles lasting more than 7 seconds.
Reading speed	8-25 characters/second is recommended; 8-16 characters/second for children.
Maximum timing offset	Subtitles shouldn't start more than 0.5 seconds before or after the audio begins.

Speaker Identification & Simultaneous Dialogue
Off-Screen Speaker Identification	Use brackets to indicate when someone is speaking off-screen. *ex: If speaker is known* Michael: Wait for me! *ex: If speaker is unknown* >Wait for me!
Initial Speaker Identification	See above.
Continuing dialogue	After speaker is identified, use these arrows to designate specific speakers. Used exclusively when two speakers talk in the same subtitle. Each speaker should have one line, and both lines should have a: > >> *ex:* >John: I knew him as a happy person. >>Martha: Yes, I agree, always smiling. >I’ve never met someone so positive. >>Yes, he was so charismatic too.

Music & Non-Verbal Communication
Music	Describe relevant music which does not have relevant lyrics. *ex: Known genre* ♪ [jazz music] ♪ *ex: Known artist & song title* ♪ [Beatles “A Hard Night”] ♪ *ex: Complex/Unknown Song* use ♪ for the beginning of the song clip; use ♪♪ at the end of the song clip use [Music playing]; use [Music ends] at the end of the song clip
Sounds	Describe meaningful sounds that are relevant to the plot. *ex:* [water dripping]
Lyrics	Wrap relevant lyrics in musical notes. *ex:* ♪ Tell me dear Billy, ♪
On-screen texts	Translate the texts on the video that are relevant to the plot.

Focus on Context
Use meaningful speech	Exclude things like “um” “ah” and other disfluencies if it detracts from the focus on the content. However, try to stay true to what is being said especially if it reinforces character development or is connected to the content focus and non-textual sounds to give learners an equal experience.
Indicate inaudible parts	If the audio cannot be deciphered, it should be marked as [inaudible].

Translations
Translate the whole idea	Translations don't need to be word for word. Look at the context. Make sure you are using the correct punctuation for the whole unit of text.
Foreign language	Identify relevant speech in foreign language. *ex: Initial dialogue in different language, different from the set subtitled language with known speaker:* >[John – in Russian]: Thank you. *ex: When using continuing dialogue with known/unknown speaker:* >>[Russian]: Thank you.