If you have a Mac, do you use the speech function to proof your work?
(apologies in advance for the prolix question)
I have a Mac, and one of its capabilities is the speech function.
I highlight an area that I want spoken aloud, press a key combination and the area is verbalized (I happen to use the ‘Jill’ voice which is the least robotic voice I’ve ever heard).
I catch many errors and even missing punctuation marks. ‘Jill’ briefly pauses for commas, a longer pause for periods and uplifts ‘her’ voice for question marks. Or when I used ‘of’ instead of ‘have’.
So if what I wrote doesn’t sound correct, I’ll add or delete commas. I found several errors in this question when the text was verbalized. In the last sentence, I had omitted the ‘was’ in-between ‘text and ‘verbalized (“alone when the text was verbalized”).
Also, when I hear what I had written, I notice when a sentence or paragraph doesn’t flow properly.
I think there’s a non-free application for Windows (Naturally Speaking). If you have a Windows OS, would you buy (and use) a package to detect your typing mistakes?
Spelling checkers are great, but they won’t detect multiple words as in my above sentence that originally was “I highlight an an area”. I didn’t catch the error visually, but I heard the error.
Also, ‘Jill’ verbalizes e.g. and i.e. which is great when you used one in the wrong context.
Sadly, there is no software that can detect poor writing skills or homonyms (e.g., their, there, they’re). But “Jill” articulates “there” and “they’re” slightly differently.
I wonder how many errors I’ve made in this question that I didn’t detect?
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