BooksForMTs

• Do Not . . .Use old recording tapes. Make a habit of buying new tapes at least once a year if you use them daily. Discard damaged tapes immediately and only after erasing them.
  
• Do Not . . .Dictate in a noisy area. Extraneous noise can make it difficult to hear dictation accurately.
  
• Do Not . . .Mumble. Speak clearly without letting your voice fade-out at the end of sentences.
  
• Do Not . . .Eat, drink or chew gum when speaking. Sialogogues can be used to keep your saliva flowing, if they are small and will not interfere with clear speaking.
  
• Do Not . . .Make errors and then say "strike that" or something to that effect. Use the "cue and review" feature found on most current dictation equipment to erase your last statement. Erasing your own error also negates any chance of misunderstanding on the part of the transcriptionist as to what was to be "struck" or erased from what you dictated.
  
• Do Not . . .Try to spell words you don't know how to spell. If the word is unusual, just say it as clearly as possible and the transcriptionist can usually confirm the spelling if required.
  
• Do Not . . .Say "period" for the end of a sentence. The proper phrase when dictating is "stop" or preferably "full stop."
  
• Do Not . . .Shuffle papers, open drawers, rearrange your desk, rip paper off examination tables, or make loud sudden noises when dictating.
  
• Do Not . . .Forget to say "End of Dictation" at the end of your dictation, so the transcriptionist will know there is no more dictation to the end of the tape.
  
• Do Not . . .Burp, slurp, cough, sneeze, eat, drink, chew gum, clear nasal passages, "pass wind," urinate or defecate while recording dictation. (Yes, all the aforementioned have been done by physicians while dictating, and yes, you can hear it, and yes it is disgusting — not to mention just plain rude.)
  
• Do Not . . .Dictate while driving. It's dangerous and the sound quality is usually poor.
  

Part of good dictation style is avoding the use of unnecessary words, redundancies or grammatically-unacceptable phrases when dictating. It is more professional to be as succinct as possible. Avoid "flowery" language, too many superlatives, and over-used words and phrases. Here is just a short list of what you should avoid:

Wrong or Over-used	Try Using
Very	Avoid or use sparingly
Very normal	Normal
At this point in time	Now
At that point in time	Then
At the present time	Now
In the near future	Soon; specific date/time
As per	per; according to; as
In close proximity to	Near; close to; proximal
I am in receipt of	I have; I have received
In the matter of	Regarding
Very near	Near; close
Is on no medication	Is not on medication

Continued . . .

• The "Dos" of Dictating
• The "Don'ts" of Dictating
• Over­used & Redundant Words
• Sound­Alike words
• Pesky Prefixes & Painful Pronouns
• Dangerous Plurals
• Doing It By The Numbers
• International Alphabet