Talk to me: Using dictation software to write

How often do you talk to your computer?

Last month I discussed the growing sophistication of programs that read your writing aloud from word processing programs such as Word or Pages.

Now, let’s look at the programs that allow you to speak your words into your work without using your fingers. Some might be old school enough to remember the first clunky dictation software. It involved a CD-ROM and lots of instructions and commands. Well thankfully the industry has greatly improved while becoming infinitely easier to implement.

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: May 27, 2022

Do you start your day writing? Ernest Hemingway once said, “I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast — talk them or write them down.”

Writing, especially academic writing, requires capturing new ideas, doing so at the right time for creative development, and then formatting those ideas into content worthy of publication. As our articles from around the web highlight this week, that can seem simple, but be a lot of work.

As you go forward into the week ahead, look for ways to ensure that you get your ideas down. Happy writing!

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7 Time management strategies to begin, keep working on, and complete your projects

Procrastination is a term applied to putting things off until later, but what can we do about it? In a recent TAA webinar, “Seven Time Management Strategies to Begin, Keep Working On, and Complete Your Projects“, academic writing coach, editor, and author of How to Become an Academic Coach, Mary Beth Averill shared seven proven strategies for getting started, keeping at it, and finishing our projects.

While she did an excellent job providing practical advice on implementing each of the seven strategies – life management, seeing yourself as a writer, saying no, scheduling, getting started, following through, and finishing – she supported those strategies with insightful quotes from her faculty writers group that may provide bite-sized pearls of wisdom to help you begin, keep working on, and complete your projects.

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2 Key systems for juggling multiple writing projects

Are you an academic author who is working on multiple projects at the same time? If so, you understand the challenges associated with keeping track of all the pieces for each project in order to meet individual submission deadlines.

In her recent TAA webinar, “Juggling Multiple Writing Projects…and Completing ALL of Them“, Christine Tulley, author of How Writing Faculty Write and career advice columnist for Inside Higher Education, shared two key systems to log all stages of all of the projects and schedule writing time for each to aid in multiple writing project management.

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Flag for follow up or dump the junk?

Are you overwhelmed by email? I know there are days that the flow of electronic information seems to be non-stop. I might not be the normal person though – but I also can’t imagine I’m the only academic who is managing more than one email account for various roles. I personally check with regularity five (yes, five) email accounts daily between my personal Gmail account, accounts for my adjunct teaching roles, and my full-time position with TAA.

Even after the SPAM filters and categorization tools inherent to the systems do their job of minimizing the amount of true “junk” that makes it through to my inbox, I am often interacting with upwards of 300-400 messages of some importance daily. So I wonder often, am I handling things effectively while trying to manage all of this electronic communication?

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An academic perspective on goal tracking and time management

The focus of our most recent #AcWriChat TweetChat event was goal tracking and time management. During this event we offered a number of resources from our blog to support participants in their academic pursuits.

Common to our TweetChat events, we asked several questions to promote personal reflection and sharing of ideas. Marc Ouellette, a regular participant in these discussions shared his approaches in response. Below is a summary of our questions and his contributions from the event.

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