Grammar checker face-off - spelling/grammar checkers - includes related articles on performance test results - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, July, 1992 by Jack Nimersheim

They Ain't Perfect, but One of These Programs Can Polish Your Prose

Let's face it. The English language is a metaphorical mine field. A single word can have a dozen different meanings, while a dozen different words often mean basically the same thing. Illogical spelling conventions confound even the most logical thinker. Should you ever manage to master these nuances of our unique language, myriad obscure or convoluted grammatical rules still litter the literary landscape, waiting to sabotage your personal and professional writing. Used wisely, a grammar checker can be an invaluable ally in this ongoing war of words.

HOW GRAMMAR CHECKERS WORK

As the name implies, the fundamental purpose of a grammar checker is to ensure that written documents emerge from your computer pristine and error-free. Almost all grammar checkers, including the stand-alone programs tested here and the ones that come in word-processing packages, can uncover potential problems in three critical areas. These are grammatical errors (incomplete sentences, subject-verb disagreements, tense shifts, double negatives, and the like), mechanical mistakes (misspellings, incorrect punctuation, misuse of capitalization, and so forth), and the weaknesses in style (the use of archaic or colloquial language, a reliance on jargon, overuse of the passive voice, repetitious phrases, and similar short-comings). Discovering and correcting such problems can improve the clarity of your writing, thereby adding to its effectiveness.

Many grammar checkers complement their basic operations with several useful writing tools. These include such on-line items as a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a style guide. One of our test programs, The Writer's Toolkit, even throws in a dictionary of popular quotations, the judicious use of which can enhance your documents.

Running an electronic document through a grammar checker is not unlike handing a printed document to a copy editor. Both analyze your text to determine whether it contains any obvious errors or questionable passages. The biggest difference between the two is that a human editor often corrects any mistakes immediately, consulting with the writer only when necessary. Using a grammar checker, on the other hand, tends to be a more interactive process.

A grammar checker analyzes the contents of a file based on accepted grammatical rules (but the programs reviewed don't use all the same rules, which explains why our test results vary greatly, as you'll see). Should the software detect a potential error, it pauses and displays the text in question, just as most spelling checkers do. The grammar checker than briefly describes the problem and suggests ways to correct it (some checkers offer more detailed suggestions than others). You decide whether the suggestion is correct and, if it is, whether and how to modify your document.

Most grammar checkers can scan and edit files created using several popular word processors. All the MS-DOS and Windows-based programs we reviewed work with WordPerfect and Microsoft Word files. Four of these programs--PowerEdit being the only exception--also recognize files created by WordStar, Microsoft Works, Professional Write, PFS:Write, and XyWrite. Each program also supports additional word processors, although the specific ones differ. Similarly, the Macintosh grammar checkers support Word and WordPerfect files along with other popular Mac word processors such as WriteNow and MacWrite.

However, don't despair if a particular grammar checker doesn't work directly with files you created using your word processor, a new version of that program, or another type of application (such as a database). You'll still be able to use the checker by converting the files into ASCII text. All grammar checkers can scan and analyze documents stored in this generic file format.

FLEXIBLE FEATURES

The latest grammar checkers offer a level of flexibility not found in earlier releases. Almost all of them let you select from several proofreading methods based on the type of writing being analyzed. PowerEdit, for example, can check your writing using the grammatical rules applied to any one of four different writing styles: Business, Technical, Literary, and Journalistic. Correct Grammar, on the other hand, adds a number of other styles to this list, including Advertising and Legal.

By modifying specific program settings, you can customize a grammar checker to reflect your personal writing style. For example, Grammatik lets you specify the number of modifiers that can appear in a split infinitive before you want the program to flag a potential error. The Grammatik documentation uses an expression familiar to any "Star Trek" fan to explain how this feature works: Specifying a single modifier would permit the phrase "to boldly go" to pass undetected; "to boldly and impulsively go," on the other hand, would be caught.

Most grammar checkers also let you choose a level of formality based on a document's target audience. The more formal the audience, the more stringently the program applies accepted grammatical rules and stylistic conventions. For example, most of the programs are much more forgiving of sentences written in the second person (such as "You can expect . . . ") when checking an informal document such as a personal letter. If you analyze a more formal document--a report or proposal, for example--the software would, in all likelihood, recommend that you replace this phrase with "One can expect."