Real-Life Math
Braille transcriptionists often do work on a freelance basis. This
sort of work means that you will be in charge of making up bills for the company
who hired you so that you can be paid.
You are a braille transcriptionist
working out of your home. A publishing company has asked you to transcribe
a math textbook for them. Before awarding you the contract, they would like
a cost estimate from you, detailing the charges for your service.
You
must prepare an invoice estimate for the project. The book has 587 pages.
You look through it and record that 403 of these pages will require Nemeth
code, the mathematics braille. The other pages will not require Nemeth code.
You usually charge $4 per page for literary braille and $8 for Nemeth code.
The
publishing company would also like you to transcribe 15 diagrams that are
in the text. They would pay you by the hour for these diagrams, as they are
cumbersome. You charge $23 per hour for your work. You estimate that 5 of
the diagrams would take you 1 hour each and the remaining 10 would take you
a half an hour each.
"I need to have a good general knowledge of secondary
school print math symbols in order to transcribe math," says Susan Graham,
a braille transcriber. "I also need to understand the objective of the math
lessons and the meaning or skill the student needs to learn from the materials."
How
much do you estimate the project will cost?