Hello,
Could someone give me the scoop on style checkers? I am a college student and I do lots of essay writing. I’ve been told that my style is good, and I feel confident enough in my writing abilities, but it never hurts to be perfect. 
However, if it’s not worth the money, I won’t bother.
TIA 
If you’re getting compliments on your writing style, don’t bother with a checker. Save that money for beer. 
Please, for the love of God, no! Don’t waste your money. Microsoft et al. are not authorities on the English language. Quite often the “rules” that so-called grammar checkers are iffy at best and out-and-out wrong at worst.
Continue to trust your good old human brain and your standard reference books.
Scarlett, a copyeditor who is forever being asked, “Can’t they just use a spell checker?” :mad: (The answer is, “No, but thanks for the huge insult.”)
I would say yes, if just for the entertainment value. It’s great stress relief, after you’ve finished a paper, to go through and see all the silly things the word processor is complaining about, and to click “ignore” for each.
Also, you shouldn’t have to buy such software separately. I’ve yet to see a word processor without a spell/grammar/style checker built in, and you probably already have a word processor on your computer.
Hey, speaking of spelling, is that really how they spelled “diverse” back in those days? I’m certainly no Shakespeare scholar.
Just for S&Gs, find one of those extended pieces of copy that have all homonyms of the words that should be there. They’re usually used to show the inadequacies of spell-checkers. Run the copy through the grammar checker and be amazed at how few errors it finds.
While I’d never rely on the grammar checker for style, it does tend to catch when I type a homonym in a sentence, and the spell check is always useful. As long as you don’t take it as an iron-clad guide, you’ll find the green squiggles can be a big help.
But…but…without a spell checker, how would you know The Truth?
At about the same time as the article, I checked some of my own writings and found that MS’s spell checker suggests “oaf” as the proper spelling of “AOL.” Pffftt. Unfortunately, it’s now been corrected, and I haven’t had much fun since.
Snooooopy: Yes, kind of. Divers means something closer to ‘various’ than ‘diverse’, though in many cases they are interchangeable. You could say ‘divers ways’, but not ‘a divers community’. Merriam-Webster says that it’s usually pronounced like ‘divers’ (people who plunge into water) but has several other pronunciations.
Grammatik, the grammar checker in WordPerfect (once a stand-alone product), is substantially better than the one in Microsoft Word. The Word grammar checker only has a few styles and is best adapted to proofreading business correspondence for people who aren’t terribly experienced in that style. I’m not sure about third-party grammar checkers.
Still, I wouldn’t think that they’re very good at proofing fiction or college-level essays. They might catch basic grammatical errors you could miss, but they will also flag many constructions that are entirely acceptable. It’s even possible that you could introduce errors if you don’t carefully examine its recommendations. I’ve had grammar checkers flag correct sentences for plurality agreement, and suggest incorrect replacements. A lot of the errors they mark are also just annoying, like Word’s insistence that the passive voice not be used.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m always looking for useful things that will help me improve my writing, but it sounds like investing in software would be a waste.
Thanks again!
Oh, and I do have spell checker…it’s handy for catching typos.
Holy poop! It’s not even an old-timey word! I didn’t bother looking it up in the dictionary because I just couldn’t imagine it being there, but there it was.
As for the OP, grammar software can be a real ego-stroker when you use the “What grade level is this written on?” feature on what you’ve written and it gives you a really high number. Unless you’re writing for newspapers, in which case you want to aim kind of low.