Spelling Checker No Replacement for Brain
Comments: 5
In the stating-the-obvious department, Salon mentions an Associated Press story about a University of Pittsburgh study of the effect of software that checks spelling and grammar. Predictably enough, the upshot is that such software is no replacement for a brain.
Study: Spell - check can make writing worse
Charles Sheehan, Salon.comA study at the University of Pittsburgh indicates spell-check software may level the playing field between people with differing levels of language skills, hampering the work of writers and editors who place too much trust in the software.
While I’m generally a good speller, I’m a lousy typist and spelling checking software helps — somewhat — to reconcile this disjunction. Grammar software, on the other hand, seems positively harmful and is best avoided, although it is good for a laugh now and then.
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Posted to General Rants • 2003.03.15 (Sat) • 16:26
Comments
Posted by Ry R. 2003.03.15, 18:54
I wonder if they tested this against normal, spell checkless, writing on the computer. It just seems that writing on the computer screen is much harder in general to proof read because you can’t physically inspect the pages as you can with written or even printed-off documents.
Sure part of this might be spell check, but couldn’t some of this just be the machine itself not being what most people grew up with or are nutured to be used to?
Additionally it is general knowledge that fonts effect the tone, how do default fonts, which people usually don’t change, effect users’ writing?
I think any serious discussion of the computers needs to weight these factors. Unfortunetly I didn’t find this study on Pitt’s web-site, so this might all have been done and I am irrelevantly rambling.
Posted by Ry R. 2003.03.15, 18:56
As an, unintended, consequence of this spell-check-equals-worse-writing problem, I meant to say “nurtured” not “nutured” in the above post.
Posted by jh 2003.03.16, 00:32
Good point. I’m notorious for having to print out anything that requires careful proofing. I need to huddle over a piece of paper, pencil in hand. Screens just won’t work.
And your mention of typefaces affecting writing is very interesting. I’m aware of numerous studies of the legibility of various faces, but none testing whether the actual writing is affected. Considering the number of first drafts that must be typed directly into machinery these days (rather than first being written in longhand) and that almost all computer displays are headache-inducing low-resolution devices, it seems that there’d certainly be something to test here.
Undoubtedly the web has had an impact on writing, although this stems from concerns over legibility and diminished attention spans. Thoughts can get easily truncated because paragraphs are unable to grow large enough to support them without hampering reading.
Posted by Mary Beth 2003.03.17, 00:51
jh wrote:
Undoubtedly the web has had an impact on writing, although this stems from concerns over legibility and diminished attention spans. Thoughts can get easily truncated because paragraphs are unable to grow large enough to support them without hampering reading.After years of reading as a kid, I realized that the speed reading classes pressed upon us in school had taken away the pleasure of reading. I did no more than gloss over books without enjoying the writing. Took me a couple years to start undoing this “skill.” I find it hard to stay focused on the language. I’m betting that the combination of WWW and speed reading in schoool will play into this as well.
Posted by Mary Beth 2003.03.17, 00:52
speaking of which -why don’t you have spell check in your comments so I don’t do stupid things like schoool?????? LOL
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