Help with grammar

[Fninfl_88]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to submit a longer story on this website, but my grammatical skills are woefully inadequate. Can you suggest any software or programs that can automatically detect any flaws and point it to me? I use MS Word 2013.

Apologies in advance if I can't reply to thank you guys.


Flin

 

[legerdemer]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to submit a longer story on this website, but my grammatical skills are woefully inadequate. Can you suggest any software or programs that can automatically detect any flaws and point it to me? I use MS Word 2013.

Apologies in advance if I can't reply to thank you guys.


Flin

Try grammarly.com - there's a free version that will take significantly large chunks of text and analyze the grammar. Good luck with your story.

 

[SundayNew]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to submit a longer story on this website, but my grammatical skills are woefully inadequate. Can you suggest any software or programs that can automatically detect any flaws and point it to me? I use MS Word 2013.

Apologies in advance if I can't reply to thank you guys.


Flin

take your grammar and shove it up your ass and then type however you like and fuck anyone on this site who tells you you are wrong.

Here's a secret: Grammar means shit when the story is great ... people on here who give grammar advice have too much time reading your shit than working on their own failures.

 

[Bramblethorn]

take your grammar and shove it up your ass and then type however you like and fuck anyone on this site who tells you you are wrong.

Here's a secret: Grammar means shit when the story is great ... people on here who give grammar advice have too much time reading your shit than working on their own failures.

Bad grammar makes a story harder to read. It breaks my concentration on the things that the author's doing right, and makes it much less likely that I'll finish the story.

It's like showing up to a blind date in flip-flops and dirty clothes; you may have a great personality, but your date probably isn't going to hang around long enough to see your good points if you don't make some effort on presentation.

OP: unfortunately, automated grammar tools are a bit limited. They have trouble assessing writing because so many words can be used in more than one way, and because different styles of writing are appropriate for different contexts. A good human editor can do a lot more for you, though they're often in short supply.

 

[Handley_Page]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to submit a longer story on this website, but my grammatical skills are woefully inadequate. Can you suggest any software or programs that can automatically detect any flaws and point it to me? I use MS Word 2013.

Apologies in advance if I can't reply to thank you guys.


Flin

There's no automatic bit of electronic wizardry to correct any flaws. Apart from anything else, the grammar understood may be different wherever in the Lit world the story is read.
I suggest you seek at the least a good Beta reader who can point out the more obvious errors. A real Editor is a bonus.

Good Luck
and
ignore the trolls.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

take your grammar and shove it up your ass and then type however you like and fuck anyone on this site who tells you you are wrong.

Here's a secret: Grammar means shit when the story is great ... people on here who give grammar advice have too much time reading your shit than working on their own failures.

^^^^^Crude but sound advice.

When we're far enough along in life to write LIT posts we generally know enough grammar to do the work. I mean, your post isn't illiterate and unintelligible. Relax.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

There's no automatic bit of electronic wizardry to correct any flaws. Apart from anything else, the grammar understood may be different wherever in the Lit world the story is read.
I suggest you seek at the least a good Beta reader who can point out the more obvious errors. A real Editor is a bonus.

Good Luck
and
ignore the trolls.

John O'Hara recalled how grammar Nazi junior editors constantly bothered him to change great prose to CORRECT prose.

 

[SundayNew]

It's like showing up to a blind date in flip-flops and dirty clothes; you may have a great personality, but your date probably isn't going to hang around long enough to see your good points if you don't make some effort on presentation.

O

Bullshit ... I show up to blind dates wearing a robe, boxers and a stained wife beater and I always get laid ... why? My personality or, it could be the hard drugs I toss on the table and say, 'we doing this?'

 

[HandsInTheDark]

take your grammar and shove it up your ass and then type however you like and fuck anyone on this site who tells you you are wrong.

Here's a secret: Grammar means shit when the story is great ... people on here who give grammar advice have too much time reading your shit than working on their own failures.

Well, no. Grammar is a contract between a writer and reader - agreed upon ways to make things clear. You can deliberately break rules for stylistic reasons - that can be brilliant - but if you just don't know them and inadvertently screw up everywhere, readers will wander off and find stuff that gives them less trouble.

If you write without any rules but your own, you're writing for yourself. Feel free, but it's a small audience and perhaps not the brightest.

 

[SundayNew]

Well, no. Grammar is a contract between a writer and reader - agreed upon ways to make things clear. You can deliberately break rules for stylistic reasons - that can be brilliant - but if you just don't know them and inadvertently screw up everywhere, readers will wander off and find stuff that gives them less trouble.

If you write without any rules but your own, you're writing for yourself. Feel free, but it's a small audience and perhaps not the brightest.

Grammar isn't a contract ... there is no contract between a writer and a reader (look at the writer who take 5 years in between books) ... a book of fiction is on the 'buyer beware' shelf ... there is no warranty ... that's why they don't cost a 100 bucks a copy until a decade later.

Writing is very simple ... you write how you write and people will like it or not ... you can write for a job, become a copy editor, write instruction manuals, whatever ... or you can do like John Cusack said "One for me, and one for them (them being the audience). ... it's a career.

Edit: 'Stylistic' reasons ... you're thinking to much for no reason. Only critiques give writing a real purpose, that's because they can't write for shit or tell a real story (typically).

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Try grammarly.com ...

I just got curious and played with this, dumping one of my stories into it.

It's very good at catching "wrong word" errors that browsers and even word processors don't. But it doesn't like unusual words very much - it flagged "weltering" and suggested "sweltering", when weltering was exactly right. It's fanatical on removing commas it doesn't think are strictly necessary - it didn't like the comma in the previous sentence. And it inevitably stumbles when you write dialog the way people speak.

And when I mistyped "It inevitably stumbles" as "It inevitable stumbles", it didn't complain.

It's not good with erotic context. In the sentence "The head of my cock is almost in and your panting has changed to whimpering." it decided that "painting" was a better choice than "panting". Not the best advice I've seen. But it was ok with "The dog was panting in the autumn heat". (I guess the folk at grammarly don't have much reason to pant.) And it didn't catch the dot-after-quote a few sentences ago.

It probably kicks ass for business letters. I'm less sold on it for dialog-heavy fiction. But as a free tool to get you through basics you didn't pay attention to in school, it's probably worth it.

 

[legerdemer]

I just got curious and played with this, dumping one of my stories into it.

It's very good at catching "wrong word" errors that browsers and even word processors don't. But it doesn't like unusual words very much - it flagged "weltering" and suggested "sweltering", when weltering was exactly right. It's fanatical on removing commas it doesn't think are strictly necessary - it didn't like the comma in the previous sentence. And it inevitably stumbles when you write dialog the way people speak.

And when I mistyped "It inevitably stumbles" as "It inevitable stumbles", it didn't complain.

It's not good with erotic context. In the sentence "The head of my cock is almost in and your panting has changed to whimpering." it decided that "painting" was a better choice than "panting". Not the best advice I've seen. But it was ok with "The dog was panting in the autumn heat". (I guess the folk at grammarly don't have much reason to pant.) And it didn't catch the dot-after-quote a few sentences ago.

It probably kicks ass for business letters. I'm less sold on it for dialog-heavy fiction. But as a free tool to get you through basics you didn't pay attention to in school, it's probably worth it.

It's far from perfect, but it helps make my students' theses more readable.

Perhaps there's a fun game in plunking some over-the-top raunchy text into it and seeing what ridiculous output it spits back. (Then we can choose to swallow, or not.)

 

[Hypoxia]

Grimoire (a book of magic spells) derives from grammar, from the time when literate folks were thought evil wizards. They can write? Burn'em!

Despite some claims, grammar *IS* a contract of sorts, an agreement on presenting and consuming written ideas. Think of flow. A text of smooth orthography (spelling, grammar, punctuation) flows into the reader's consciousness with little impedance. I may choose to play authorly tricks to slow that flow, to force readers to notice certain tidbits, but I restrict my bad grammar to dialogue where we can expect folks to speak roughly.

LIT authors are paid only with votes and comments. We post stories here for our own ends, which may include collecting votes & comments, and/or grabbing eyeballs, and/or mastering wordcraft, and/or sheer exhibitionism & psychosis. If we write for our own fun then anything goes; fuck grammar. If we hope to amuse and affect readers, we need to abide by that orthographic contract and make our shit READABLE.

Our freedom of speech also implies audiences' freedom to ignore us. I hate ignorance.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Bullshit ... I show up to blind dates wearing a robe, boxers and a stained wife beater and I always get laid ... why? My personality or, it could be the hard drugs I toss on the table and say, 'we doing this?'

I'm going to go with the hard drugs.

Especially if they are talking drugs. I mean that could get anyone's attention.

 

[SundayNew]

It's far from perfect, but it helps make my students' theses more readable.

Perhaps there's a fun game in plunking some over-the-top raunchy text into it and seeing what ridiculous output it spits back. (Then we can choose to swallow, or not.)

Is writing a theses easier than writing a thesis? ... What's your grading scale?

 

[JKendallDane]

Grammarly is fine for most things, but it is the ultimate comma nazi. Think of it as that one ultra bitchy English teacher you had that would stand over you, tapping her wooden ruler against her palm just waiting for you to screw up.

Doesn't like the use of ellipses much either...like I care.

.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Is writing a theses easier than writing a thesis? ... What's your grading scale?

...

I *think* he thinks he just caught you in a typo. That's wonderful. To add to the irony, grammarly caught his error when he tried to use a plural noun as singular. I'm guessing he was no idea why you placed the apostrophe that way, either...

SundayNew, hold whatever opinions you want on your own writing. But legerdemer knows the language she's using, you don't, and you're coming across as comical at best trying to take her on. Seriously, she's out of your league. Maybe you should offer her some hard drugs instead. Stick with what you know, is what I'm saying here.

 

[SundayNew]

...

I *think* he thinks he just caught you in a typo. That's wonderful. To add to the irony, grammarly caught his error when he tried to use a plural noun as singular. I'm guessing he was no idea why you placed the apostrophe that way, either...

SundayNew, hold whatever opinions you want on your own writing. But legerdemer knows the language she's using, you don't, and you're coming across as comical at best trying to take her on. Seriously, she's out of your league. Maybe you should offer her some hard drugs instead. Stick with what you know, is what I'm saying here.

Just fucking with them, most people will laugh at first, then 'google it.'

That's the thing with type: You really don't know what the person knows unless they spell it out.

 

[legerdemer]

Is writing a theses easier than writing a thesis? ... What's your grading scale?

It's all about this grammar thing called singular versus plural. Each student writes his or her thesis. When they turn them in, I have to edit all their theses.

 

[legerdemer]

...

I *think* he thinks he just caught you in a typo. That's wonderful. To add to the irony, grammarly caught his error when he tried to use a plural noun as singular. I'm guessing he was no idea why you placed the apostrophe that way, either...

SundayNew, hold whatever opinions you want on your own writing. But legerdemer knows the language she's using, you don't, and you're coming across as comical at best trying to take her on. Seriously, she's out of your league. Maybe you should offer her some hard drugs instead. Stick with what you know, is what I'm saying here.

I think my days of being in the market for the drugs he's offering are over, but I can always use the comic relief.

 

[SundayNew]

It's all about this grammar thing called singular versus plural. Each student writes his or her thesis. When they turn them in, I have to edit all their theses.

Do you think I wrote that line for you or do you think I wrote it to make myself laugh; wondering how many people would laugh at it for the wrong reasons and how many would laugh at me for 'fucking up'?

 

[Weird Harold]

I use MS Word 2013.

The Grammar Check in MS Word is configurable to ignore "business speak" faults, so it can be much more useful than its reputation suggests. The key to effective use of any grammar check is to figure out why it faults on any given instruction. Forex: naming a character Frank will cause a lot of false faults when the grammar check sees it as a verb instead of a name.

As others have said, nothing beats a good proofreader or editor. It is nearly impossible to proof and edit your own work without letting it sit for a month or more first.

 

[SamScribble]

‘Grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power.’ Joan Didion

The best grammar program is usually your own ear. Read aloud what you have written. If it sounds right, it probably is.

Good luck.

 

[Handley_Page]

It's all about this grammar thing called singular versus plural. Each student writes his or her thesis. When they turn them in, I have to edit all their theses.

How about giving the students a copy of Gramarly and letting them do the bloody work ?
Ah we;;, perhaps another day. . .

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just fucking with them, most people will laugh at first, then 'google it.'

That's the thing with type: You really don't know what the person knows unless they spell it out.

If you choose to act stupid, especially in the presence of people who haven't seen any other side of you, don't be surprised if they take it at face value.

Expecting otherwise is... well, considerably more stupid than not knowing the plural of "thesis".