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It was probably twenty years ago when I first heard of speech recognition software. The idea seemed crazy to me. Speak into a microphone attached to your computer and the computer understands what you say? It seems like science fiction yet I was willing to give it a try.
I loaded up software, attached the microphone and gave it a try. Unfortunately it was probably less than an hour later that I deleted the software for my system, laughed that the company who made the software, and made up my mind that I would never again try speech recognition software.
The garbled mass of words and letters that popped out of my word processor was not even editable. It took me longer to sort through that mess that it would have to simply start again.
If that's the experience that some of you may have had, I've got news for you. Technology has come a long way, and it just might be time to try speech recognition software again.
To get started, you simply read a few sample paragraphs into the software until it understands your voice. The software learns how you pronounce each particular word or phrase and converts them into electronic waves. Then it memorizes the exact patterns that your voice uses, and turns the waves into English phrases and words.
It took about 30 minutes for the software to begin understanding my voice well enough to reach about 95% accuracy. Certainly not every word is understood correctly, but the results I achieved so far have been excellent.
And, as a side benefit, the software has taught me to speak much more clearly! I now find myself saying the word "than," for example, much differently than I speak the word "then."
I'd even started editing using the speech recognition software. If one of the words was translated incorrectly, I simply double click the word to highlight it then say the word that I'd like to replace it. It's just that easy.
If you're interested in trying this out for yourself there are two pieces of software that you should probably check out. A program called Dragonspeak is considered by most people to be the top of the line when it comes to speech recognition software. The basic version is about $100.00, and there is a professional version that is a little more costly. But, if you have a reasonably recent version of Microsoft office or Microsoft word, then you already have a pretty good piece of speech recognition software built into your system.
Just open up a new Microsoft word document and select tools. One of the options under the tools menu is called "Speech." Select this option and follow the instructions (of course, this is assuming that you've already attached to a quality microphone to your computer).
Set aside 30 minutes to one hour to get the software up and running and to read all of the required sample paragraphs. After this short investment of time you'll be ready to start speaking into your computer and watching the words march across the page.
About this Author
There are many other ways to incorporate the techniques of this article into your own material. But maybe you don't know quite where to start. I've spent years as a fiction writer, learning to do exactly that. If you'd like to test drive some of my best tips, simply go to http://www.FictionSecrets.com and let me know where to send them.
Kevin Franz is a successful fiction author and online marketer. For more than twenty years he has made his living putting words to paper, and he has helped thousands create their first written works. He is currently showing internet marketers how to incorporate the techniques of great fiction into their online sales efforts. You can find the details on his blog - http://www.kevinfranzonline.com.
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