This chapter aims at shedding some light on the place of transcription in the data interpretation process. More specifically, it focuses on the example of verb-final [e] in oral second-language French, which causes interpretation problems when con- text does not provide disambiguation cues. Through an analysis of three studies on this phenomenon (Herschensohn 2001; Prévost 2007b,a; Granget 2015), displaying a variety of theoretical frameworks (generative versus functional) and transcrip- tion options (written- and spoken-centric approaches), I show that transcription choices, whether made intuitively or in a theory-constrained manner, are often problematic as they entail an early categorization of data, even before data coding and analysis, thereby introducing an interpretive bias (Mondada 2007). Finally, I draw conclusions and offer suggestions regarding best transcription practices.