by Joseph T. Sinclair
About 15 years a go I investigated voice recognition software. I found it to be surprisingly accurate but still too inaccurate to be useful for writing by voice (dictating). Nonetheless, I wrote a short book by voice as I hiked in Colorado. It took about five long hikes (about 25 hours). But instead of using the software, I had it transcribed by a person.
Writing by voice worked out well for me. It was superior to typing on a word processor and cut my rewrites in half as well as cut the original writing time. I was quite pleased with myself. As I hike almost daily for exercise, it is a way to make productive use of hiking time. But the cost of transcription by a person is high, even when a highly efficient transcriber does it.
After a ten-year hiatus from writing I decided to again pursue a writing and publishing career. Dragon (Nuance) had a sale on their latest software (Ver. 12.5) in the spring of 2013, which I happened to see online. And I thought, why not? So I bought it. This time I found it to be accurate and indeed very useful for writing. I dictated about 50,000 words in 2013, a lot considering I didn’t even write a book that year.
The software costs about $200 unless you buy it on sale (Dragon Naturally Speaking, http://nuance.com). But the equipment is now inexpensive. I use a highly rated $65 digital voice recorder (Phillips DVT3500 – the latest version is DVT4010). I simply record speaking into the microphone in the recorder.
Of course, if you work (dictate) at your computer, you don’t need the recorder, just an adequate microphone.
In lieu of using a separate recorder, you can use your smart phone. I’ve used my Samsung Galaxy smartphone with recorder apps. They work OK. But instead I use a separate physical recorder (the Phillips) as a matter of convenience; it’s easier to physically control the on/off switch outdoors in the sunlight than it is with a smart phone app.
Having experimented considerably with equipment, I can vouch for the equipment I’ve cited. Nonetheless, there are many choices. The point is that you no longer need expensive or professional dictation equipment to record first-draft-quality dictation.
Go to the Nuance webpage that shows equipment compatible with Dragon: http://support.nuance.com/compatibility/default.asp
Thus far, I’ve dictated well over a half-million words, and Dragon does a good job of transcription. I get a good first draft. I simply transfer the audio files from the recorder to my PC, and Dragon does the rest.
To make it easy to use the Dragon voice recognition software, I use only simple punctuation commands (e.g., comma, period, colon, new paragraph, etc) to write. Dragon features a multitude of voice commands to control your equipment and software. However, I find the punctuation commands alone work just fine.
Writing by voice isn’t for everyone or every book. But give it a try to see if it works for you. You may find, as I did, writing by voice makes it easier to get your writing down on paper, so to speak, more quickly, smoothly, and coherently than with a word processor.
