Transcription guide
Write lyrics for Genius with reviewed conventions, clear examples, and the checks that help you put them into practice.
Look up a word, paste a warning, or start with a question:
- How do I label song sections?
- How do I credit different singers?
- What if I cannot hear a word?
- How do I write backing vocals?
Sources and the authority ladder
Each entry names its source and authority tier. A linked linter check may cover only part of a convention; read its example and the entry’s qualifications for the limits.
The ascending bars ahead of each entry's tier label are its standing drawn as a ladder: four steps for the four source tiers, filled up to the tier the entry's sources establish. Climbing it is evidence, never an edit — an entry rises only when a higher-tier source confirming it joins its citations.
- LyricLint advisory
- LyricLint's own preference, on a convention no Genius source states — the blank line between song parts, the text-hygiene checks. It shares the bottom step with community guidance, because our preference claims no more standing than unreviewed community writing.
- Genius community guidance
- Ordinary community voice in any venue: an unreviewed annotation, guide-page text with no staff badge, an ordinary forum post.
- External reference
- An authority outside Genius — a dictionary, a language academy, a platform's own documentation. It ranks below a reviewed annotation because it is authoritative about language, not about Genius.
- Editor-reviewed Genius annotation
- A reviewed Genius annotation with no staff among its contributors.
- Genius staff guidance
- Genius staff wrote or touched it: a staff-badged guide page, staff among an annotation's contributors, or a staff reply on the forum. Who wrote it decides the tier, never the venue it appears in.
Proofreading alongside transcription checks
The workbench also uses Harper for English spelling, grammar, and style suggestions. Those suggestions come from the proofreader, so they are not listed here as Genius conventions. Read them in the context of the lyrics before applying a change.