I tried NaturallySpeaking for the first time about eight years ago. At that time, voice recognition technology wasn't as advanced as it is today, and I abandoned the effort after a few weeks because it took me so much longer to use the voice recognition software than it did to just type it myself. But things are different now.
I'm no stranger to dictation. In fact, I do just about all of my grant writing by dictation, and I have for the last 15 years. I resisted at first, because I really felt the need to see my thoughts on the screen as I was developing them, but my grant writing mentor convinced me to give it a try. After a couple of weeks of trial and error, I realized that I could speak much faster than I could type and when I dictated my grant I could write three times as much in the same amount of time. But that was with using a human transcriptionist. My experience with voice recognition software was that the time saved through dictation was lost again in correction.
However, here I am, trying voice recognition software for what is probably the fifth or sixth time and, finally, it works like I always imagined it should! One of the problems was that the software wasn't fast enough to keep up with my natural pace of speech, but the newest version is faster, and more accurate.
I remember the first time voice recognition software was really functional for cell phones. I felt like I had entered the world of Star Trek every time I commanded my phone, "Call home," and it actually did.
If you have been considering giving voice recognition software the chance, now might be the time to try it. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 is fast, accurate, and… magic.
Seriously, the future has arrived.
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Read more A Writer's Journey.
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