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Science 22 September 1978:
Vol. 201. no. 4361, pp. 1145 - 1147
DOI: 10.1126/science.201.4361.1145
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Articles

Writing, Dictating, and Speaking Letters

JOHN D. GOULD 1 and STEPHEN J. BOIES 1

1 IBM Research Center, Box 218, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598

It is commonly assumed that dictation requires a long time to learn, but authors eventually dictate much faster than they write. Performance results now show that novice dictators can learn in a few hours to dictate with the speed and quality with which they write. However, they do not think they perform this well. Dictators with years of experience are from 0 to 25 percent faster than novices, depending upon the complexity of the letters. Planning time is about two-thirds of composition time, regardless of the method of composition.

Submitted on March 15, 1978
Revised on June 27, 1978

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)