paixao@ug.cs.dal.ca (Nuno M. Paixao) (02/20/91)
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.yue@leland.Stanford.EDU (Kenneth Yue) (04/09/91)
I remember MacWorld or MacUser did a comparison test on grammar checkers a few months ago, but I forget which issue the test was in. Does anyone remember? Well, if there wasn't such a comparison test (i.e. I was just dreaming), could anyone tell me the pros and cons of the three (or four?) grammar checkers that are currently available in the market? If you know any PD/free/shareware grammar checker exists, could you tell me where it is and how good (or bad) it is, if you have used it. Thanks. Ken Yue yue@leland.stanford.edu
pkane@peg.UUCP (04/09/91)
Does anyone out there know of a really good grammar checker?
graham@june.cs.washington.edu (Stephen Graham) (04/10/91)
In article <198900009@peg> pkane@peg.UUCP writes: > >Does anyone out there know of a really good grammar checker? Your brain. I just couldn't resist any longer. The best way to ensure grammatically proper English is to read some book such as Margaret Shertzer's "Elements of Grammar" and then apply it. As far as I know, all commercially available grammar checkers include mistakes. -- Steve Graham graham@isis.ee.washington.edu (206) 543-8115
hoepfner@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov (Patrick Hoepfner) (04/11/91)
graham@june.cs.washington.edu (Stephen Graham) writes: >In article <198900009@peg> pkane@peg.UUCP writes: >> >>Does anyone out there know of a really good grammar checker? >Your brain. I just couldn't resist any longer. The two top contenders are Gramatik Mac and Sensible Grammar. Gramatik Mac used to come with a book about Grammar just so that you can fine tune your brain! Gramatik Mac actually works itself out of a job after some time. I guess that would be the best compliment a grammar can get! +--------------------------+---------------------------------------+ / Patrick Hoepfner | NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center \ / America Online: PatrickH9 | Internet: hoepfner@heasfs.gsfc.nasa.gov \ +-----------------------------+------------------------------------------+
rda@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Robert Dale) (04/16/91)
hoepfner@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov (Patrick Hoepfner) writes: >>In article <198900009@peg> pkane@peg.UUCP writes: >>> >>>Does anyone out there know of a really good grammar checker? >>Your brain. I just couldn't resist any longer. >The two top contenders are Gramatik Mac and Sensible Grammar. Sorry to re-open this one yet again. If what you are after is a *grammar* checker -- something that checks your *syntax* -- then you *don't* want Sensible Grammar because it does not make any attempt at checking syntax. Check out Houghton Mifflin's CorrecText, or whatever they call it now. It's pretty good. I just get so annoyed about the misuse of terminology by vendors ... R -------- Robert Dale Phone: +44 31 650 4416 | University of Edinburgh Fax: +44 31 662 4912 | Centre for Cognitive Science ARPA: rda%cogsci.ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | 2 Buccleuch Place JANET: rda@uk.ac.ed.cogsci or R.Dale@uk.ac.ed | Edinburgh EH8 9LW Scotland -- Robert Dale Phone: +44 31 650 4416 | University of Edinburgh Fax: +44 31 662 4912 | Centre for Cognitive Science ARPA: rda%cogsci.ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | 2 Buccleuch Place JANET: rda@uk.ac.ed.cogsci or R.Dale@uk.ac.ed | Edinburgh EH8 9LW Scotland
chai@hawk.cs.ukans.edu (Ian Chai) (04/20/91)
hoepfner@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov (Patrick Hoepfner) writes: >The two top contenders are Gramatik Mac and Sensible Grammar. Well, I got Gramatik Mac on that special offer deal for WriteNow users... and it's nothing to hoot about. It frequently misses mistakes and frequently catches things that are not mistakes... so much so that I've basically stopped checking stuff with it unless it's really big and important and am willing to spend time wading through tons and tons of stuff that it catches that aren't mistakes... -- Ian Chai | "God loves you just the way you are, but Internet: chai@cs.ukans.edu | He loves you too much to let you stay that Bitnet: 2fntnougat@ukanvax | way." - Harry Poindexter