How to handle swear words in quote / transcription? In my research, I interview practitioners/real users. One of them, a native english speaker, used a lot a swear words (basically the f-word).

Question: how to deal with curse words in content you need to quote?

Since I use transcripts for a content (and not formal) analysis, I sometime 'smooth' interviewee wordings (like removing "hum", "well", "you know", and other recurring verbal tics). In some case, I could remove the f-word:


  it's just super f*cking slow, and really f *cking annoying


However, in some cases it is less harmless, because it more deeply changes the perceived meaning:


  if you don't want to do things, just don't f*cking do it
  
  oh f *ck, we'll just go back to do, as we were doing


and in some other, I simply cannot change interviewee's words:


  [...] he really tried and wanted to build up, but he completely f*cked up every single part of every single thing.




Since I am not a native speaker, I don't know how "bad" would using the f-word be perceived (which is why I tried to be careful here.)

In some cases, I could do a cut quote, e.g. "it's just super [...] slow, and really [...] annoying", but it looks like I'm not accurately depicting the wordings.

I've also seen on the internet people using 'f*ck' standing for the f-word. Could this be a solution? (I personally find this solution a bit prudish.)

Otherwise, could I simply quote them? Should I put a warning somewhere?
If you're quoting someone, quote them as they said it. We're all adults. In the literature world, we quote swear words and other potentially offensive things all the time and no one bats an eye. I've no doubt other fields are the same.

Personally, if I saw an asterisk or similar, I would presume you interviewed them via chat or email, and they actually self-censored. If it were a printed text, I'd think it a part of the edition you used.