paixao@ug.cs.dal.ca (Nuno M. Paixao) (02/21/91)
I am in the market for a grammar checker, and about a week ago, I asked for suggestions/recommendations from fellow netters. Here is a summary of what I got. Note that these are my opinions based on the replies I received. I attached most comments, so you should be able to make a decision for yourself. There is a table at the end that shows the votes for and against each product mentioned. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The winner is Grammatik Mac. Product Details: (from Jim Bethin) Reference Software International 330 Townsend St, Ste 123 San Franscisco, CA 94107 (415) 541-0222 (800) 872-9933 Grammatik Mac 2.0 $99 Grammar checker & proofreader program. 10,000 rules. Can turn individual rules off. Directly reads Word, WP, MW, WN, ASCI or RTF. Expert sys. rules. Interface has been improved, faster & more accurate error checking, more rules, modifiable rules, AppleShare network support & more. Bundled w/ The American English Writing Guide, a HyperCard stack. Grammatik Mac, Government Edition ($99/1;$245/5) Grammar checker & proofreader program incl. spelling checker w/ gov.-specific & -preferred spellings, incl. acronyms, official titles & foreign currencies; special Proposal style that incorporates gov. standards; modified help system. Extra standard of comparison to IRS' 1040EZ. The prices above are list prices, and will be considerably lower at mailhouse orders and other locations. Comments: 1. I just got it (Grammatik mac), and it appears reasonably good, but I don't have enough experience with it to evauate it for you. It supports several different writing styles (General, business, technical, informal, etc.), and has a "rules editor" which I haven't tried. It does work with Word 4.0 documents, but I'm not sure about Pagemaker. It only works as a standalone application (e.g. you have to save your document from you work processor and invoke the grammar checker separately). It is multi-finder friendly, which makes this less of a problem. It also comes bundled with a third-party hypercard English style guide. The stack is "Version 1.12", and they want you to send money for "Version 2.0", which is improved and works with HC 2.0. The stack is OK, but I wouldn't pay money for it as a separate product. If you are reasonably capable with HC, it's pretty easy to fix it up for HC 2.0. I paid about $50 for Gram*ma*tik*mac. (from Brian Hanafee) 2. I use Grammatik Mac and really like it. It costs $50 out of the magazines and is really simple to use. Although the interface is MUCH better, it does many of the same things as AT&T's Writer's WorkBench for UNIX. (from krk@cs.purdue.edu) 3. Grammatik is my choice. It catches almost everything that Sensible Grammar (SG) does, and it has two major advantages over SG. 1.you can do edits directly from the grammar checker (SG only marks the errors -- you have to make the changes from your word processor) 2. all errors are highlighted in 1 window. SG puts different things in different windows, meaning that you have to check through the document a couple of times. (From Rich Quadrel) 4. I ran it on a sample file. It was horrible. It didn't find anything I wanted to change and flagged all sorts of perfectly acceptable things. It was very easily confused; it was upset by "U.S." A friend of mine who has used it more extensively says it also has trouble handling quotation marks. (from Steve Goldfield) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Second on the list was Correct Grammar. Details: Lifetree Software 33 New Montgomery Street San Fransisco, CA 94105 (800) 543-3873 List Price $99.00 RGuaranteed to catch 95% of your grammatical and spelling mistakes - or your money back! Works with popular word processing programs.S (from Correct Grammar Advertising) Comments: 1. I am using Correct Grammar right now for my paper purposes and it works great. However, there is a small inconvinient with Correct Grammar which force you to save document in NON FAST SAVE mode in Word 4.0. I am not sure the program will run under PageMaker. The MacProof however, will run on PageMkaer for sure. But the price is much higher (almost twice Correct Grammar). (from Gunawan Herri) 2. You can throw Correct Grammar out the window. It misses many of the errors that the others catch, and sometimes gives recommendations that are just plain *wrong*. It did have the best user-interface, though... (from Rich Quadrel) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Third on the list was Sensible Grammar. Details: Company: Sensible Software (I donUt have any more detals) Comments: 1. Note the Comment given above by Richard.Quadrel@CAD.CS.CMU.EDU. (Good Comment #3 about Grammatik mac - it mentions a few cons.) 2. I borrowed a friend's Sensible Grammar and didn't like the weird way it works... also it's very hard to re-edit more than just the identified phrase (sometimes rewording passive voice requires editing of more than just that phrase). (from L. Maurice Riggins) 3. I am Director of a Publication department, and have only seen one of your list. It was Sensible Grammar. I did not feel that it's use was a good idea for a non-native English speaker, as there were a lot of misleading decisions that it made for you. (From Elizabeth Worden) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ One final product mentioned was MacProof: Details: Company: LUExpertise (I donUt have any more detals) Comments: 1. Note the Comment given above by Gunawan Herri. It mentions price problems about MacProof. (Comment #1 about Correct Grammar.) 2. I have been using MacProof for about a year now--well, that's not quite true; I've HAD it for about a year. In my opinion, MacProof is not worth the hard-drive space it would take. It operates as a DA; you write your document, then copy the text to the clipboard, and then select MacProof from your apple menu to run the checks. The checks that it does are for non-standard usage, capitalization, etc. It is VERY picky on usages of "been", and it takes care of some offensive usages. But that's about it. It doesn't select wordy sentences, it doesn't catch things like duplicate words, and it doesn't catch run-on sentences and things like that. As I said, I've had it, I used it once or twice, I de-installed it. (From David Hightower) 3.I purchased Gramatik mac ($50) and was a little disapointed with it. Then saw an add for Mac Proof ($100) and decided it must be twice as good. WRONG. Ended up sending it back - cost me $5 for return shipping. (from Peter Evans) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ A summary of peopleUs votes: I received several different replies to my posting. Here is a tally of all the votes: Program | Votes For | Votes Against -------------------+------------------+----------------------- Grammatik | 8 | 1 Correct Grammar | 6 | 1 Sensible Grammar | 1 | 3 MacProof | 0 | 5 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ A few final comments: 1. I did a comparison between Correct Grammar, Sensible Grammar and Grammatik by running all three programs through the sample files that were provided by the software companies, as well as a number of my own files. All of these files contained deliberate errors which were designed to check the behavior of the programs. The program that caught the least number of these errors was Correct Grammar. In fact, Correct Grammar made some suggestions for improvement that were simply incorrect. Correct Grammar did, however, have the cleanest interface and was the easiest to use. In spite of its interface, though, this program went immediately into the trash. While no grammar checker is perfect, both Sensible Grammar and Grammatik were successful in dicovering errors in both my technical papers and informal correspondance. Both programs allow the user to control the rules that are used to perform the checking, and both programs are quite comprehensive. Personally, I prefer Grammatik, primarily because of its interface. Grammatik highlights the errors it finds in a single text window, while Sens. Gram uses three or four windows that contain errors, forcing you to read each one separately. Sensible Grammar doesn't seem to catch as many potential problems as Grammatik does, but it's still a pretty good program. And either of these beats the pants off of Correct Grammar, in my opinion. (from Rich Quadrel) 2. Moral of story is that there is a lot of differences and a package that suits one person might not suit another depending on their style of writing, the mistakes they make etc. Advice only buy from somewhere that offers a money back guarantee. Gramatik Mac offers such a guarantee where ever you buy if from. (from Peter Evans) -- Nuno M. Paixao \\ PAIXAO@UG.CS.DAL.CA \\ So I don't have an exciting 2319 Clifton St. \\ DEXTER@AC.DAL.CA \\ .SIGNATURE file.... If you Halifax, NS, CAN. \\ DEXTER@DALAC.BITNET \\ hate it that much, why don't (902) 492-9402 \\ \\ you design a better one for me.
jdonohue@pro-angmar.UUCP (Jeffrey Donohue) (02/25/91)
In-Reply-To: message from paixao@ug.cs.dal.ca Grammatik Mac is a very efficient and powerful tool, but, it does have a few flaws: Someone mentioned that they had heard it didn't deal with quotes well. This is true, it seems to remove certain characters around a smart quote. Also, (at least on Microsoft Word 4.0 documents) it has a nasty habit of removing footnotes and footnote markers and shuffling them either to the end of the paper (hence they are then end-notes, not footnotes) or putting the footnote at the bottom of the page and forgetting about the superscripted number. Other than that, it is a wonderful program, although you will have to wade through heaps of silly comments about the word "however" and overly long sentences. Jeff Donohue ---- ProLine: jdonohue@pro-angmar Internet: pro-angmar!jdonohue@alphalpha.com UUCP: uunet!alphalpha!pro-angmar!jdonohue
spencer@eecs.umich.edu (Spencer W. Thomas) (03/13/91)
In article <3480.mac.apps@pro-angmar> jdonohue@pro-angmar.UUCP (Jeffrey Donohue) writes: > Grammatik Mac ... > ..., it is a wonderful program, although you will have to > wade through heaps of silly comments about the word "however" and overly long > sentences. Grammatik Mac comes with programs that allow you to customize the set of errors it complains about. I think you can turn off any messages you don't like. (I haven't tried out the customization features yet.) -- =Spencer W. Thomas EECS Dept, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 spencer@eecs.umich.edu 313-936-2616 (8-6 E[SD]T M-F)