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As part of my research, I interviewed some students last week. This week, I'm typing up transcriptions of those interviews, using one of those cassette transcribers with the foot pedal for controlling forward and reverse. I have learned two things of importance that are unrelated to the actual topic of the interviews.
1) Using one of these things HURTS. Even the smallest flaws in the ergonomics of your work area will be thrown into harsh relief by the requirement that you keep hands and feet (well, a foot) in the same basic positions. I'm a fidgeter, so even with my hands on the keyboard, my body is in enough different positions over time that I don't get uncomfortable. But having to keep a foot in place meant I couldn't do that. Also, I tried using it in stocking feet to get better control over the pedal, and my feet got painfully cold. So now I'm just putting up with clumsy shod use.
2) Actual, everyday speaking is HORRIBLY ungrammatical, my own included. I think we just learn to tune out all the stop-and-change bits, the verbal litter (uh, um, ah) and general bad grammar, reconstructing the sentences in our heads into something more like TV or novel dialogue. And since I spend a lot of my time conversing via keyboard, where most of these issues don't surface (if you change your mind about what you're going to say a second after you say it, you can just backspace and retype before hitting enter...doesn't work that way with spoken word), it is REALLY bugging me now as I have to fight my natural urges to clean up the badly formed dialogue.
Well, three down, one long interview to go. Hopefully I'll be able to get enough done today on it that I can finish it tomorrow without going into overtime.
1) Using one of these things HURTS. Even the smallest flaws in the ergonomics of your work area will be thrown into harsh relief by the requirement that you keep hands and feet (well, a foot) in the same basic positions. I'm a fidgeter, so even with my hands on the keyboard, my body is in enough different positions over time that I don't get uncomfortable. But having to keep a foot in place meant I couldn't do that. Also, I tried using it in stocking feet to get better control over the pedal, and my feet got painfully cold. So now I'm just putting up with clumsy shod use.
2) Actual, everyday speaking is HORRIBLY ungrammatical, my own included. I think we just learn to tune out all the stop-and-change bits, the verbal litter (uh, um, ah) and general bad grammar, reconstructing the sentences in our heads into something more like TV or novel dialogue. And since I spend a lot of my time conversing via keyboard, where most of these issues don't surface (if you change your mind about what you're going to say a second after you say it, you can just backspace and retype before hitting enter...doesn't work that way with spoken word), it is REALLY bugging me now as I have to fight my natural urges to clean up the badly formed dialogue.
Well, three down, one long interview to go. Hopefully I'll be able to get enough done today on it that I can finish it tomorrow without going into overtime.
