SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER DICTATION BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER DICTATION:

Before you dictate prepare! Know your purpose. Visualize your reader and consider also your security that will listen to your oral message and transcribe it. Collect all material and facts you will need for the content of your message. Organization your thoughts. Prepare an outline  - with keep words or phrases. If you are answering a letter, you might jot main point in its margin. Set aside sufficient time so you are not pressured and are free from interruptions – especially if your dictation is directly to a stenographer instead of to a machine.

Here are good oral practices to follow while dictating:

1 Dictate from your using language that follows the C’s principles and good organization.

2 Enunciate clearly. Very few people can speak clearly with candy gum or cigarette in their month. He especially careful with plurals and figures that sound similar such as fifty and sixty (“five o” “six o” are much more definite). Distinguish clearly between similar sounds like p and b, m and n, f and v, f and d. Sometimes you need to say “T as in tape” or the like.

3  Spell unusual words and names when using them for the first time. Also be especially careful with the many English words that are similar in sound but different in meaning and spelling. Here are a few examples

Accept                  Except                                              Ordinance                  Ordnance

Addition               Edition                                              Practical                      Practicable.

Affect                    Effect                                                Principal                      Principle

4 Dictating at the beginning of the message any special instruction such as extra copies figures. Or your desire for a rough draft only. For a complicated message report, letter, memo, speech . etc. you will surely want to edit and revise before it is mailed. Thus be sure to ask for a rough draft, double spaced. Your correct instruction can save time as well as paper and supplies.

If your office has a magnetic card or magnetic tape typewriter, you and your typist can save still more time. You can then makes changes or additions easily with out having an entire  report draft retyped. A variation on the magnetic tape typewriter is the word processor. If you have in your office your own word processor your secretary could return to you the draft copy and the ‘floppy’, latter to be inserted in your machine for additional editing.

5 Always dictate as  much punctuation as your transcribe needs to turn out an accurate, attractive message quickly. At least  dictate “paragraph” to indicate each new paragraph: “quote” “unquoted”, ”parenthesis”, “close parenthesis”.

6 Dictate at a normal rate as you talk. Avoid long pauses followed by rapid dictation.

7 Let your secretary use his or her initiative as to grammar corrections, additional punctuation, and arrangement of your letter, memos and reports.

8 When dictating a reply to a letter received, you can save both your time and your stenographer’s time if you dictate only the name of the addressee. Your stenograph can later copy the full address form the letter you return after you have dictate your reply.

9 Especially when dictating by telephone or on a machine (not face to face to a secretary), be sure to omit any side comments that are neither for the operator’s instructions nor for your addressee. For statements like “That guy is really nuts” or “I don’t believe what drain customer wrote” within the transcribe letter. Naturally it had to be revised.

10 If you have many important figures to be tabulated write them on paper from which the stenographer can copy them.

11 Keep the mail you are answering in an orderly pile by turns each letter (or memo) upside down when you have finished answering it. After all your dictation is completed, your entire pile of answering incoming correspondence will be in order for your stenographer to obtain needed information. Attach files copies, and so forth.

12 Set aside definite dictation periods (for instance a set time for each morning and / or afternoon) with no interruptions by telephone or callers: this can save you and your company tie and money.

13 Standardize basic instruction and put them in writing for your transcribers – to eliminate needless “Send a copy with enclosure to our Portland office.”
14 Dictate less and delegate more – if you have an experienced secretary. For repetitive situations develop effective interchangeable form paragraphs she or he can use easily. Dictate only the basic idea, and let your secretary compose the routine letters.

                               

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