What does it mean to take dictation?

To take dictation means to write down what someone says, in the words they say it. The speaker decides what is said, and the person taking dictation records it. The word dictation comes from Latin, and its first known use in English dates to 1624 ¹, long before any recording machine existed. For the history of the practice, see our history of dictation.

The dictionaries put the speaker in charge of the words

Merriam-Webster defines dictation as the act of uttering words to be transcribed, and it also uses the word for the material that is dictated or transcribed ². The Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as the activity of dictating something for someone else to write down ³.

The definitions do not say whether a person or a machine does the writing. Both put the words with the speaker, so the question is not who is writing but who is choosing the words. When you take dictation, you record someone else's words. When you dictate, you are the one speaking them.

Taking dictation is writing down, not composing

In an office, the manager composed a letter and the secretary wrote it down. The secretary's job was to get the words right and produce a clean page, not to decide what the letter said. That division was normal for most of the twentieth century, when business people recorded voice letters and a secretary typed them up from the recordings ⁴.

A writer taking dictation can still ask questions, such as how to spell a name or which paragraph comes next. What they should not do without asking is change the meaning, which is the speaker's responsibility.

Who takes dictation today

Software types what you say, so you must be careful about what you say aloud. Apple says that in Voice Control's Dictation mode on Mac, any words that are not Voice Control commands are entered as text ⁵. In a controlled study, English speech input on an iPhone reached 153 words per minute ⁶, but the study used short phrases read aloud in a quiet room, so it does not show the speed of long dictation or the time spent proofreading.

"Can you take dictation for me?" depends on what is asked

The phrase is usually a request to write down words you will speak, so the answer depends on what you need:

• If you are asking a person, yes, if they have the skill. Ask about their turnaround time, their accuracy on names and technical terms, and whether they will return the text in the format you want.
• If you are asking a tool, check whether the app has a dictation mode. A dictation app takes dictation in the sense that it types what you say rather than deciding what to write.
• If someone says "dictate for me," they usually mean that they will speak the words and you should write them down. Ask whether they want the text word for word or tidied up.

What to do before you start

1. Say whether you want a verbatim transcript or edited text, because the two take different amounts of work.
2. Give the spelling of names, places and terms in advance.
3. Check the finished text against the recording before you rely on it.

To learn the steps for speaking your own text, read how to dictate. For the speed-writing side of the same idea, see what shorthand dictation is, and for the device that held the words before software, see what a Dictaphone is.