Dragon speech recognition software will take some getting used to, even if you have a history of dictation experience. New users who are accustomed to dictating for someone to transcribe on the other end may require a bit of reprogramming in order to get the best results from the software. When you dictate for someone to transcribe the dictation manually, it’s possible for you to speak to that person and for them to realise that what you’re saying is being directed to them rather than intended for transcription as part of the document. Once transcribed, obviously the person doing the transcription will realise that this information can be disregarded, but there are a few ways of ensuring that it isn’t included in the final draft.
There are a few other major differences between dictation for transcription and using speech recognition software, for instance, you don’t need to include paragraphing or punctuation necessarily when using a digital recorder for transcription at a later stage. Getting into a working routine, the transcriptionist will have a good idea of where the paragraphs need to be included and your sentences will be fairly easy to punctuate based on the flow.
Effectively an intelligent system, unable to understand language or read between the lines, Dragon’s indiscriminate transcription simply transcribes the text without much interpretation other than frequency and context. The productivity enhancing software has the added benefit of being able to spell with relative ease, not requiring any Google searches or proofing in order to get difficult medical terminology and drug names.
You will, however, have to include everything you want to see in the final draft, such as all punctuation and paragraphing. This may take some time to adjust when it comes to previous dictation experience. Some people are used to saying “stop” instead of “full-stop” at the end of sentences.
One of the other requirements is to get used to the rhythm of dictation when it comes to Dragon. The software distinguishes commands from dictation by having a short pause before and after issuing command. This indicates that the pre-saved phrase is in fact specifically a command rather than part of dictation. There are some commands that will automatically be deployed to enable you to carry on dictating without having to delay, however in most cases it’s a good idea to practice the short pause before and after.
Dictating in phrases, you will also realise that issuing the command without making a selection will automatically have the software assume that you are trying to effect a command on the last thing you dictated. This can be very useful when you are trying to delete the last thing you said, because saying something like “Scratch That” will do that very thing.
Just remember that when you are dictating with the intention of transcribing text at a later date, you can pretend you are actually dictating for Dragon in person for the best results. Also, stick to just using punctuation and paragraphing to keep things simple as it’s much easier to do the formatting once everything has been transcribed.