Friday, June 18, 2010

English Grammar Tips for Plain English Writing

“It is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated. Usage is the only test. I would prefer a phrase that was easy and unaffected to a phrase that was grammatical.”

W. Somerset Maugham

For many of us, learning how to write involved learning about grammar. StyleWriter Software does not concentrate on grammar as the key to good writing. This is not to say that grammar is not important – it is. Obviously, good writing reflects the accepted structure of the English language. However, writing can be grammatically correct but difficult to read. Similarly, readable writing may have grammatical errors but still gets its message across.

Keeping to the principles of good writing will serve you and your readers better than trying to remember all the “rules” of grammar. In fact, by following our advice, you will find using correct grammar becomes easier. For example, if you keep your average sentence length low and use active verbs, you are less likely to make grammatical errors.

The ‘Rools’ of Grammar

Harold Evans, a former editor of The Times, listed the most common errors in grammar. Each ‘rool’ contains the error it mentions.

1. Don’t use no double negative.
2. Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
3. When dangling, watch your participles.
4. Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.
5. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
6. About those sentence fragments…
7. Try not to ever split infinitives.
8. Its important to use apostrophe’s correctly.
9. Always read what you have written to see if you have any words out.

10. Correct spelling is esential.

StyleWriter will not pick up all these problems (if you need grammar checking & correction software, white smoke grarmmar checker will be suitable), so you need to read your writing through to check that it is correct.

False Rules of Grammar

Despite debunking by many writing authorities, some people still stick to grammar “rules” that have no sound basis. These include:

  • not starting a sentence with And or But
  • not ending a sentence with a preposition [up with I will not put.]
  • splitting an infinitive [to boldly go, to thoroughly check]

Although there is nothing wrong with breaking any of these “rules”, doing so can upset some people so think about your reader. StyleWriter picks up split infinitives and advises you not to split if possible. However, if avoiding a split infinitive makes your writing sound odd, leave it in. You can delete the split infinitive pattern if you don’t want StyleWriter to highlight them in your writing.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

English Grammar Software & Writing Enhancement Software Reviews

A precise English writing and grammar checking tool is mandatory to bring a touch of sense and style to your work. English writing and grammar checking software provides advanced technological solution for our basic writing, english editing and proofreading needs. In this global environment where most of the daily communication takes place on the web by writing e-mails, memos or reports, we notice an increasing trend in use of advanced language writing, editing and processing tools.

Needless to say, for ever changing environment and severity of situations each instance requires a unique well deliberated and well versed communication mix to convey right words in correct construction to send across a right message in persuasive manner.

Web based tools and their downloadable versions have completely transformed the whole perspective of learning, by making it easy to get your write up checked online for grammatical errors through a grammar checker service. Further you have the option of downloading a variety of templates. All of this helps in building compositions, correct use of phrases, and rephrasing our English sentences to make an accurate, clear, and fluent communication piece.

The sophisticated language processing technology has recently made a significant progress. Now, it has plenty to offer: such as suggesting corrections for common grammar and punctuation problems, spell checking, and suggesting ways to enrich your text. Similarly there are many paid programs that have a claimed reputation of delivering value in return to your investment. These are mostly preferred because these are easy to use; all you need to do is copy and paste your text at a specified area of the window to check for errors.

Online checking software doesn’t require installation of any program locally and it is a lot faster, easier and time saving proposition with no squandering of time involved in waiting for the installation to be over and done. English writing software provide a wide array of services including checking for errors in spellings, grammar, punctuation, composition and also suggesting alternatives to better writing.

However, these software have certain limitations. Since there are a number of expressions that have multiple meanings, context and usage of word that directly affect the tone of a sentence. So it is almost impossible right now to say that any software can read author’s mind and make contextual corrections but still it enables user in identifying sentence construction problems that may have been missed during manual proofreading.

Now let’s have a quick review of some highly acclaimed software in the art of editing, style and grammar check, available on the World Wide Web. Software like StyleWriter, White Smoke, Pro-Grammar, Grammar Expert etc. teaches how to cut the waffle, and how to turn a draft into clear and concise English by persuading users to change their deep-seated style. It persuades writers to produce prose that helps readers – effectively and briefly. StyleWriter has a mechanism of analyzing the writings for 35,000 known styles and common usage faults. It also highlights complex words and suggests simpler alternatives; it draws attention to abstract words, confused and misused words that can cause grammatical errors.

Whitesmoke & Ginger software is both grammar checker and writing enhancement software.

Stylewriter is not for grammar correction & checking, but the writing software to help improve the quality and clarity of written communication.

More About English Writing Software, See English Improvement, Writing Enhancement Software Reviews