Task 3- Voice to Text

Let me start by saying, I am not against Christianity or religious schools, camps, etc. This was a strange activity to have kids do at night, and really stands out in my mind as being the most memorable summer camp activity I have ever been a part of.

This is a story about me going to a Christian Camp with some of my friends when I was about 10 years old. For some reason, probably because I was the daughter in a family of boys, I got sent to religious camps while my brothers escaped that fate. This one particular camp that I went to had points that were awarded to members of a cabin. You could collect points for different things. Maybe you made your beds really well in the morning for inspection you would get a point. Sometimes if a dinner bell went off and your cabin lined up first you would get a point. You could also get points for completing a Bible race. This is when someone would shout out a passage in the Bible not the passage but rather the name the book and the verse and if you could find it quickly then you would get some points. New,

So one night we were doing a camp white after. All of the cabins and all of the campers compete in this really big game. On this particular night the camp was playing mission possible. The premise was that every cabin got clues that would lead you on a chase where you would try and find a body part of Jesus. You did hear that right. All these campers went on a sort of treasure hunt where the end result was to find a hidden body parts of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our body part was Jesus’s head. We followed all of the clues, our cabin work together really well because most of us were good friends, but despite all of this we were having a hell of a time finding the head of Jesus. Time kept going it was getting later and later we still were lagging behind with no real idea of where to go. Eventually we abandon the clues Dalton and just started looking and places that we thought would be really really out of the way and strange. Someone suggested that we go to the end of the Camp Road that borders the highway and look in the mailboxes. We did, and wouldn’t you know it, but inside the mailbox was a dummy head of Jesus with a crown of thorns.

Now our cabin finally had our head and toe we ran back to the main meet up place. All the other cabins have already found their body part and we’re waiting for us. There was a giant clock that was counting down time to display how well we did as a camp. We roll up with his head and all of the campers move out of the way. It’s like the seas are parting. Weed timidly walk up to a life-size cross where all the other body parts of Jesus have already been put together. The only thing missing is the head. We Carry It Forward awkwardly place it on top of the stuffed dummy G on the cross and step back. A clock that is counting down time finally stops.

From that day on we were the most hated cabin at Camp because we brought down the final time for the mission so much. That was the worst Jesus Camp I’ve ever been to.

How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

The things that stand out the most are lack of punctuation and capitalization on words when it’s not necessary. The lack of punctuation in turn effects the sentence structure at times. I also had a sentence that started off with “so” which is usually a faux pas. I had to make a very conscious effort to check myself and not keep starting off new thoughts with “but” or “so”.

What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

Overall, I did think there would be more errors than what the computer program picked up. I’d say there is far more that is “right” over “wrong”. While I have never used this specific speech to text program before, this is a tool I sometimes use at work to write up speeches for the Dean. I think having had practice on such tools in the past gave me a bit of an edge in that I knew to slow down my speech and use a somewhat robotic and exaggerated voice. The grammar in this text isn’t too far off from what it should be. Even with my slowed down speech, there are some words that the program recorded as being very different from the words I was using when speaking.

What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

The most common mistakes are short phrases or individual words that the program misinterpreted and recorded as being different from what I said out loud. For example, at the top of the second paragraph, I had said “camp wide activity”, but what now appears in the text above is “camp white after”. These mistakes change the intended meaning of story and make it confusing for the reader to follow the story. The text as a whole loses some of its coherence and cohesion.

What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

Had I scripted the story I would have been able to take the time to plan how I told it. I could have reflected on some of the more subtle details and crafted a story that painted a richer picture at times. Simply put, had I scripted this, I would have had a much greater level of control over how this story comes across to the reader. I would have also been able to include correct punctuation in the story which would have added a bit more clarity.

In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

As long as your audience is literate, written storytelling is more easily understood as it continues to live on the page. One can revisit it as often as needed if a certain detail is forgotten, or if something was unclear after the initial reading. Oral storytelling has a short lifespan. Once the words are spoken, the story no longer exists in its original form. It’s now up to audience interpretation. If you were to ask an audience of 10 who had all heard the same story to recount it, you would undoubtedly get 10 different versions.