on tendinitis and speech recognition

I don't mean to capitalize on the space here, so I'll be as brief as possible.

Some of you might be interested in trying speech recognition because you can't type fast. I wouldn't recommend it.

As is evidenced in the post below, writing with speech recognition is not easy. Even with an expensive microphone and a fast computer, it basically consists of the following:

1. Say a sentence fragment
2. Wait for the software to recognize it
3. Read over your sentence fragment to make sure that no errors were made. I get errors at least once or twice a paragraph, sometimes nine or ten times.
4. If any errors exist, correct them by speaking, which also takes time
5. Repeat until you get a full sentence.

Even in an environment free of distractions, it can be difficult to hold not just the point of the current paragraph and sentence in your mind, but the conception you have of the flow and the tone and the language of it, and the way it all fits together. This can be seen in my post below: editing could have fixed many of the issues with disorganization, but editing is pretty darn difficult too. In some writing tasks, it's simply not worth the effort past a certain point.

That said, I'd like to warn you all. You don't want tendinitis. If you're feeling pain in your wrist or hand as you type or write or do anything really, don't ignore it. There are things you can do -- an ergonomic desk and keyboard, better writing practices, etc. -- that can help you avoid it. In many cases, tendinitis is life long. For a few months after I first injured myself, I couldn't really even take care of myself. It's not something that you can work through; working through it eventually leads to a type of paralysis of the hands. If you have any questions at all on the matter, from what you can do to prevent it to what to do if you suspect you're developing it, please feel free to ask me.

Trust me when I say that you don't want it.