10.0

The Results Box

Exercise 2: Study the following text sample then dictate it in DragonPad. (Ignore any errors for now.)

The more I use it, the software will adapt to the way I sound and the words I use. At the same time, I will also

acquire good habits like pausing optimally, keeping silent when hesitating, and turning the microphone off, or

putting it into its sleep state, when necessary!

As you may have noticed, the following happens when you dictate sentences:

• Your words first appear in a small horizontal rectangle. This is called the Results Box.

• Words accumulate in the Results Box until you pause, at which point they appear in your document. If

many words are dictated without a pause, the Results box automatically stretches out.

• The contents of the Results Box sometimes change as you speak; what first appears there may not be

what is inserted in your document, since Dragon sometimes revises its original guess based on

subsequent words.

Dragon uses the contents of the Results Box to best guess what exactly it should transcribe; this is particularly

important for sounds that can be spelled in different ways, like “to” and “too”. If you speak single words, or

only a few words at a time, the software has few or no contextual clues. For this reason, long continuous

“utterances” can be recognized more accurately than short ones (and long words better than short ones).

IMPORTANT Try to formulate your sentences and commands before you start dictating them. This can be

challenging at first, particularly for those who have been “thinking through their fingers” for years, but you’ll

develop the habit once you see what a difference it makes.

Exercise 3: While looking at the Results Box, dictate four sentences on a topic of your choice. (For now,

ignore any errors.)

Did you forget to dictate punctuation in this paragraph? It can be harder to remember when we are “composing

out loud” but, with practice, it will become second nature.

TIP You can take advantage of Dragon’s option to automatically insert commas and periods as you dictate—

see Formatting under the DragonBar’s Tools menu. The Help contains details about this “Natural Punctuation”

option and the commands to turn it on and off.