POWERSCRIBE Dictation guidelines - how to dictate

Speaking Tips

Follow these guidelines to improve the way your speech is recognized while dictating:

Speak naturally, without pausing between words.

Speak at a normal rate.  If you speak too quickly or slowly, PowerScribe might misrecognize you.

Pronounce words as you normally do.  Do not overenunciate.

Be careful not to let your voice drop when you say small words such as the, that, a, or an.

Speak as you would to someone sitting across a desk from you.  Do not speak too loudly or too softly.

If you fumble or make mistakes, simply rewind and re-dictate.

Unintentional Noises

While the microphone is on, avoid making extraneous sounds such as clearing your throat, inserting uhs or ahs between words, clicking your tongue, or thinking aloud. Also, avoid dictating over a radio, a background conversation, or other background noise.  Soft unintentional noises or loud extraneous noise can cause misrecognitions.

Refrain from habits that can confuse speech recognition, such as chewing gum, eating, drinking, carrying on conversations with others, and so on.

Microphone Positioning

Be sure your microphone is positioned properly.  

Hold the microphone close (within one inch) to your mouth, but not touching.  The louder the background noise, the closer you need to hold the microphone to your mouth. However if background noise is soft, keep the microphone away from your mouth to minimize "breath" sounds.

Turn off the microphone when you are not speaking.

Maximizing Recognition

Recognition accuracy is best when you establish a cadence, speaking in 6- to 8-word phrases followed by a brief pause.

Pause slightly before and after small words such as a and the so that these words do not become slurred into another word and lost.

When dictating over 100 words per minute, pause briefly between sentences so the software does not connect all of your dictation as one long sentence.

 


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Dictate in U.S. English

Dictate using American English rather than other English variants.  For example, say "period" or "new line" rather than "full-stop" and "aluminum" rather than "aluminium."

Dictating Punctuation

Speak punctuation marks such as period, comma, colon, quote, and end quote.  

Do not speak punctuation marks in common words like patient's and twenty-five.

For more advice on dictating punctuation click help on your logon screen and help contents, in the search box type dictating punctuation then click on dictating punctuation – a complete list of terms for punctuation will display.

Dictating Sentences and Paragraphs

Start a new sentence on a new line by saying new line.

Begin a new paragraph preceded by a blank line by saying paragraph or new paragraph.

Dictating Capital Letters

PowerScribe recognizes drug names and many proper names, capitalized correctly.  You should not say capital before the name.

To dictate uppercase letters, say capital followed by the letter, for example, "capital A" for A.

You may also use the international alphabet by saying capital followed by the international alphabet word.  For example, "capital alpha" for A, "capital bravo" for B, and so on.


 

Dictating Numbers

Say numbers as you naturally speak them, for example, "one thousand and one."  To say "2 x 3 x 4 centimeters," pause slightly after the digits but not between "by" and the next digit.

Numbers in the thousands and millions are punctuated automatically.  For example, to insert 13,100 say "thirteen thousand one hundred."

Telephone numbers are also punctuated automatically.

For this number

Say this

0

Zero

1000

Thousand

One thousand

A thousand

1205

One thousand two hundred five

Twelve hundred and five

Twelve oh five

12,305

 

Twelve thousand three hundred five

Twelve thousand three hundred and five

3.18

 

Three point one eight

 

2 x 3 x 4 centimeters

 

Two by three by four centimeters

 

 


 

Dictating Dates and Times

Say dates and times as you naturally speak them.  Here are some examples.

A time of day will be formatted correctly if you follow it with "am", "pm", "at night", "in the afternoon", or "in the evening."  Without this context, the speech recognizer will interpret the time as a number and not as the time of day. For example, for this result:

The patient went to bed at 10:30 pm  Say:  The patient went to bed at ten thirty pm

If you say "the patient went to bed at ten thirty", the result will read "The patient went to bed at 1030."

If you want to dictate a military time, say "hours" after the time, for example, "at twenty two thirty hours."

For this date or time

Say this

April 12, 1942

April twelfth nineteen forty-two

April twelve nineteen hundred and forty-two

4/12/1942

four twelve nineteen forty-two

four twelfth nineteen forty-two

04/12/1942

oh four twelve nineteen forty-two

2001

two thousand one

twenty oh one

twenty zero one

2014

two thousand fourteen

twenty fourteen

1:00

one o'clock

8:35 p.m.

eight thirty five pm