(.) A dot in parentheses indicates a "micropause," a silence hearable but not readily measurable; ordinarily less than 2/10 of a second.



((pause)) In some older transcripts which may be cited in readings, untimed silences may be indicated by the word "pause" in double parentheses.

A rough "rule of thumb" for timing pauses involves saying to yourself the phrase "no one thousand, one one thousand... etc." at roughly the pace of the preceding talk, beginning at the last sound preceding the silence. If the silence is broken at the end of "no," it is about 0.2 seconds; if at the "th" of "thousand," it is about 0.5 seconds; if at the "s" of "thousand," it is about 0.8 seconds. You can fill in the intervening values. if you get through all of "no one thousand," that is 1.0 seconds, and you can use the same guidelines to roughly measure additional fractions.