Writing essays can be a time-consuming process. It’s hard enough to choose the right font and make sure your headings are appropriately formatted, let alone writing the content itself.

How many times have you sat in front of a computer screen to write your essay, and end up writing 90 words in 2 hours? I’ve been that person many times. It’s a terrible feeling. There is almost nothing worse than wasting time sitting around achieving nothing. The pain multiplies in warmer months when you know you could have been sitting on the beach or doing anything else with your time.

On the other hand, there are times when you are in a state of flow and the words pour out onto the screen. You can’t be stopped. Your first draft is completed in one sitting and you wonder why it was so easy.

What causes this?

Well, if you haven’t already, you should read our Simple Guide to Self-motivated Study article. We discuss several techniques in that article to get the most out of the time you dedicate to studying.

To build on the ideas raised in that article, we think that many factors contribute to that blank stare at your blank screen. One of them is the process of writing itself.

The benefits of dictation

For some people, it can be difficult to find your flow state when typing. This is because you’re constantly able to backspace, reword and reread your work. If you are a perfectionist, like many other law students, this can be a problem.

Constantly perfecting your sentences and paragraphs is great when you are finalising the last draft of your essay but can make you very inefficient when you are trying to get out a first draft.

Sometimes, all you need it to be able to keep up a steady stream of consciousness to create the first draft, and then it later becomes much easier to mould what you have on the page into a coherent essay.

This is where dictation can be a useful tool. Dictation is used by many lawyers to do just that – create first drafts of letters or advices, and when the typing comes back from their PA (or appears on the screen thanks to modern speech recognition programs like Dragon) they settle the work and ensure it is ready to send out. This is almost always quicker than typing at first instance and can often sound more human and down-to-earth than the legalese which comes out when many lawyers type.

Talking to your phone or laptop might seem ridiculous, but it’s a great way to remove the pressures of writing.

The first step is always planning and researching. Once you have your outline of what the essay is going to look like (and the sources to back it up where appropriate) and have reached the stage of wanting to type it, then you can turn to dictation.

You’ll be surprised how much you have to say. It’s much easier to find your flow state while talking because you are comfortable doing it.

Recommendations

Of course, you won’t have a PA to do your typing when doing uni essays. So, here are some Simple ways to dictate your essays.

Apple users click here and here.

Windows users click here. 

Or just google search “how to dictate on [your device]”. 

Dictation has got us out of some tight spots before, especially when we are on a tight deadline and need to have something on the page as soon as possible.

Let us know how you go in the comments below.