Yes, just use a 4 gig USB drive, preferably USB 3.0 as it's SO MUCH faster than 2.0 when it comes to installing Windows.
The basic gist is that you format the USB drive to FAT32, do some diskpart commands, set the drive as active, and then copy over the contents of the Windows 8.1 install .iso over to the USB drive.
VERY CRUCIAL STEP HERE!
If you want to keep upgrade privileges from Windows 8 to 8.1, you need to use the vbs script from here...
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/27129-product-key-find-windows-8-a.html
You'll need that product key to successfully activate Windows 8.1 with the tablet's precooked key.
Also, if you want to do a clean install of Windows 8.1, you'll need an MSDN copy of Windows 8.1 Core.
I personally wipe out the recovery partition and keep the base UEFI partitions, the EFI and OS partitions, and leave the rest. It's mostly because it'll give you some added disk space and, well, if Windows craps itself, you already have a USB drive that you can use to repair it, of which is a clean copy of Windows and not Dell's image of such. But if you use the Windows installer from the USB drive, it'll make the default partitions.
Lastly, when you actually DO the install, don't google around to how to enter the BIOS of your tablet as I'm sure as the devil you'll find people saying to hit, "F2, F12, F10 or the Del key." Don't. Those don't work WHATSOEVER with UEFI BIOS. It's such a peeve of mine to read that because that only applies to MBR BIOS systems and not UEFI. The easiest way is to go into PC Settings, General, Advanced Startup, I think Troubleshoot, then Advanced, and then Boot to UEFI USB Drive. It'll reboot to the Windows installer on your USB drive.
I've done this more than a few times if you can tell.