Grammar check software tip:
Get more by asking for less

Having students use grammar check software can create more problems that it solves.

First of all, grammar checkers let students avoid dealing with their errors. They assume the computer finds and fixes all errors. That assumption is wrong, but students believe it because they want to.

Second, grammar checkers assume the computer user knows grammar terms. A student who has no clue what passive voice means is not helped by having the computer flag every passive voice sentence.

If you are going to have students use grammar check software, you need to help students set the parameters appropriately.

Setting the software parameters is tricky. Accepting the default settings may not give the support students need. Checking for every grammar and style problem may give students too much to worry about.

Set picky writing conventions

I recommend having students set their grammar check software to set some picky writing conventions: quotation placement, the number of spaces after a period, and the use/nonuse of a seriel comma.

Those three options appear at the top of my grammar checker menu box.

Different style guides have different requirements for these writing conventions. What's more, these three writing conventions are also physically hard to spot in a paper.

At the college level, a student might take simultaneously take two or three courses with different specifications for these three elements. It makes sense to give the computer instructions and let it make sure those instructions are followed. Just remembering to reset the conventions correctly for each course is challenge enough for most students.

Seek serious errors

Another set of grammar checker options that most students ought to be able to use by middle school is indicated by red check marks in the screen shot at the left, which I took on my computer.

None of these six checked items requires much knowledge of formal grammar, so students will probably understand what the software tells them.

Also, checking these items is likely to identify sentences containing grammar errors.

Correcting grammar errors is a straightforward process:

• Identify an element that might be incorrect.

• Decide whether it is incorrect.

• If it is wrong, correct it; if it's right, skip it.

Beginning and immature writers can correct errors far more readily than they can improve usage or improve grammatically correct writing that is stylistically weak.

Limit style suggestions

Only a few style items produce information that beginning writers will find helpful. I recommend the six indicated by red check marks in this screen shot.

Students who need more help than the red-checked items in this menu and the grammar menu show above provide probably do not have adequate grammar and writing background to profit from more detailed information.

Note that a long sentence in the grammar checker is over 60 words. Most students need to break apart 40-word sentences to keep from tripping in their own grammar. Those students should use an alternative to grammar checking.

Insist students monitor the checker

If you let students use grammar check, you have to work hard — very hard — to get them to check the work of the grammar checker.

For example, students can avoid misuse of the homophones they're and it's by setting the computer to eliminate contractions. Easy, right? But unless students know to check every change to make sure the sentence makes sense after the change, their papers can make them look really dumb.

One category at a time is best

Ideally, you should have students . . . .

1. Add one grammar category to their list of items for the computer to check, then

2. Examine the results for a couple weeks before adding another category.

In that way, students would learn what help each grammar checking function provides.

Students won't want to do the slow-and-steady way. That's human nature. I checked every box the first time I had grammar check software. I unchecked most of them when I saw I was getting too many results that were not helpful to me.

An alternative to fancy dedicated grammar check software is included in every word processing program. If you smile sweetly, you may be able to get your school's technology teacher to teach it for you or with you.