A Thought Experiment About Dictation Software

Imagine for a moment that they invented software that would take a recording of your voice and transcribe it word for word into an electronic document.  Or imagine that you had a secretary who would transcribe a recording of your sermon.  (Now, if you have either of these, you are very blessed.  If you have both, you have to wonder what God is expecting from someone so privileged!)

So you have your imaginary document, a word for word transcription of your message.  What would you discover if you were to analyse it carefully?

* Would you find sentences and thoughts left incomplete, or open loops left unclosed?  Some of us struggle to complete our thoughts when speaking out loud and our listeners can be left feeling confused or disoriented (or even just plain bored).

* Would you find inane repetition of non-words?  I gave a presentation recently and as I sat down I felt very aware that I had used a couple of words repeatedly and slightly out of place.  I don’t think this example was a recurring pattern, but I’d like to know if it is so I could deal with this.  Perhaps you like to use, you know, lots of, well, you know, filler words.  Transcribed sermons would make those just really obvious wouldn’t they?

* Would you find absolutely no reference to yourself, such that the message could have come from anybody?  Seems like listeners value the connection to the preacher, as long as he doesn’t come across as an idiot or a hero.  Speaking of which…

* Would you find excessive positive references to yourself?  I did this, I said that, I met so and so, I answered, I shared, I witnessed, I preached, my church, my ministry, my opportunities, my anointing.  Painful though it may be, knowing that you come across as full of yourself is better to know than not know!

* Would you find a loss of momentum in the message?  It was going great until 2/3rds of the way through, then it sort of tread water for a page and a half.  Better to know that.

* Would you discover that actually your message didn’t make sense.  That would be hard to take, but actually, if it didn’t make sense, it was hard to take for the listeners, so better to join the club and know that too!

Ah well, good thing they haven’t invented such dictation software, or personal secretaries, or even tape recorders so that we could listen to our own messages, transcribe and analyse.  Might be painful if we did!

One thought on “A Thought Experiment About Dictation Software

  1. Yes I have had transcriptions done of sermons for editing into other forms. And I must admit that the delineation of errors that you have presented look very familiar to what I was seeing in my words.

    I do think that the enormity of the task should cause humility as we approach it as well as our shortcomings, however I also think we must realize that sometimes things are conveyed in the preached moment by use of nonverbal communication that are not so clear in print.

    But I think the question of whether we presented something that makes sense should be one that we ask ourselves after every message. It is a minimal standard that all of our sermons should at least reach.

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