Task 3: Voice to Text

My 5-minute story:

So I have to talk for five minutes how am I going to do that?

I have my performance review today and I think I have a most trouble creating goals or I guess finding what areas of growth that I can have within this coming fiscal year. I have been a manager before for 60 years and towards the end of it I realize that I needed a change managing people can be very exhausting some want to develop and grow and some don’t for those that don’t want to grow they just treat this as their 9-to-5 or, just a way to earn enough money to support their family. Now that I work in a job that I manage projects, I only have to work with my select few of subject matter experts. I don’t have to manage their manners and development. Ever since I started this position, I felt a whole lot lighter and I could use my project management skills in my daily work the reason why I wanted a career change it, so I can use my skills. There is something bigger out there that is bigger than a daily operation. I want to use my skills to serve the community and after today’s performance review, I realize that I am doing that. I am finally working at an organization that the manager team lead and other colleagues see the value that I can bring to the department. I have never felt such a warm group of colleagues that I can depend on and talk through my frustrations then together work on a solution to make sure of our work is done, and I just the work is done, but it is done well.

I have to drive through rush-hour traffic to dinner I don’t like driving I don’t like finding street parking but at least I will have good company tonight tonight the theme is called Insta pot dinner to make everyone feel included. They opened it up to just ordering takeout instead of using an Insta pot. If we don’t have one I’m bringing sushi. I’ve been I’ve been ordering a lot of takeout for these potluck or friends gathering events. I, though I have a culinary background, I’ve still relied on takeout now that I work in a corporate setting work hours are relatively stable but because I spent so much time thinking, and problem-solving at work that the motivation to cook is very little.

Reflection:

Now that I am rereading my voice-to-text story, I realize many areas for improvement. One of the areas is that the message could be more concise; I used too many words to convey one message, and often, I repeat my thoughts and comments. If I were given a chance to edit my story, I would remove many filler words and ensure that my tone is less harsh. As Gnandesikan mentioned, writing is done with more intention and purpose than verbal, and as a result, the “message [is] more precise” (p. 5, 2011). When I was verbally free-styling my story, I had an idea of what I would say, but I didn’t use the correct words for some of my thoughts. The choice of words might give a harsher depiction of my thoughts, ideas and feelings.

Now rereading the voice-to-text story, I realize that I still need to include several pieces of detail that I wish I had included. Oral storytelling gives the audience a more realistic feeling of what the speaker felt at the time. The emotions are not exaggerated. Compared to written storytelling, the author can revise the text to enhance or tone down the emotions. Written storytelling allows the author to go back to the original text and add and rewrite it to ensure the story is complete.

Interestingly, Gnanadesikan said that “writing is associated with education, and education with wealth and power” (p. 6, 2011). I can understand that as accurate when we look at scientific journals and other publications from philosophers. Still, looking at social media, many influencers rely on verbally telling a story or conveying a message. Also, the writer is well-educated if the piece has no grammar mistakes. When I was writing my reflection piece, I turned on Grammarly. This program helps me ensure I use the correct tense and word usage and detect tone. I’ve always had a hard time writing papers because English is not my first language, and I mainly had practice in writing scientific documents throughout post-secondary. With today’s technology, such as Grammarly, do we need to be highly educated to write an error-free piece?

Further, in today’s society, their way of storytelling is powerful. These influences have a talent that I don’t. Who would want to listen or read what I say without an edit? Does my story even make sense to the public? What type of person do readers imagine me to be?

Derrida pointed out that “writing is much more than transcribed speech” (Haas, p. 24, 2013). However, the technological advancement of the voice-to-text function changes the meaning of writing because this function has helped many people with dexterity issues and reading challenges still get their message through to others. For those who do not have the physical ability or knowledge of writing, this function has allowed them to express themselves. Like before people knew how to handwrite, they relied on storytelling; the voice-to-text is just a more advanced version of a recorder or having to relay information to others. We can still have the original speaker’s information without others altering the information.

With technological advancement, the weight of writing integrity needs to start to alter. Although my voice-to-text story may not portray me as intellectual or sophisticated, those who have experience with verbally telling stories will produce a better piece. The advancement of technology has allowed those with dexterity or various reading and writing abilities to have the opportunity to create meaningful pieces of writing.

References: 

Gnanadesikan, A.E. (2011). The first IT revolution. In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet (pp. 1-12). John Wiley & Sons.

Haas, C. (2013). The technology question. In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacy (pp. 3-23). Routledge.