I was,were,will be confused!

December 8, 2006 1:47 PM

is there a grammar checker out there that will check my documents for consistent tense? I have a teacher who's a real stickler, and even if I go over my paper with a fine toothed comb, I always miss one or two. Does anybody have a program I could use to save myself some points in class?
posted by gilsonal to computers & internet (10 comments total)

WordPerfect does a fair job.
posted by JayRwv at 1:56 PM on December 8, 2006

I think grammar checks in word processing apps can only go so far, even when set on "formal" mode. Two ideas:

1) Get someone else to read it. By the time you've finished writing, you've probably looked at your sentences thousands of times and no longer see them. Fresh eyes can be invaluable for dumb grammatical errors (my weakness is misplaced modifiers).

2) Read your paper backwards (sentence to sentence, not word to word). I find that when proofreading (especially something I've written myself), I unavoidably get caught in the flow of sentences/paragraphs and don't notice an error that would be obvious if I looked at the sentence by itself.
posted by timetoevolve at 2:45 PM on December 8, 2006

There is, I don't think, a perfect (or really strong, superior) grammar checker out there. For one, grammar is sometimes context-dependent. The stand-alone phrases "the boy's book" (the book that belongs to one boy) and "the boys' book" (the book that belongs to several boys), for example, are both grammatically correct. But the one that's actually correct for your particular purposes will depend on the context of whether or not you're actually talking about one boy or more than one boy in the preceding sentences -- a contextual clue that no grammar checker can reliably ascertain.

Also, of course, it goes the other way -- a grammar checker will indicate that certain constructions are incorrect, when in fact they're correct. I see this a lot as editor in relation to compound-complex sentences -- the grammar checker might tell me to change the subject-verb agreement, for example, to a form that's just plain wrong.

It's not to say that a grammar checker can't help in limited ways -- I find that Word's grammar checker does a fair job of alerting me to real mistakes from time to time, but in daily use (I'm a professional editor and writer), I wind up ignoring its suggestions more than I accept them.
posted by scody at 2:49 PM on December 8, 2006

feh! As if to prove my point, my first sentence should actually be: "There isn't, I don't think...."
posted by scody at 2:50 PM on December 8, 2006

The Word grammar checker is okay for this. I recommend writing the paper, going over it with a fine tooth comb, THEN running the grammar checker. Because trying to write with the thing activated is like torture.

Even having someone else check your paper is a tough way to get every tense error, unless they have editing experience and can stay focused on looking at tense instead of reading the paper.
posted by desuetude at 3:13 PM on December 8, 2006

Definitely get someone else to read it. Your school may have a writing center where you could get free help, or arrange to pay someone $10 to read all important papers for you looking for this.

Can you recognize inconsistent tense in example sentences, but you overlook it in a long piece of writing? OR do you not recognize it even in simple cases? If the former, no worries; lots of people have this problem and the best solution is to find someone who can be your second proofreader. If the latter, you might consider getting remedial help from the writing center, since this is an issue you'll face all through grad school and maybe beyond.

If you must do it yourself, the way to do it is to go through the document one paragraph at a time. Focus, within the paragraph, just on tense. Note in the margin what tense it's in, and put a check once you're done. Then skip forward or back randomly to a paragraph you haven't done yet and do the same. If you need to, to help with total focus within a paragraph, you can take a tiny break between paragraphs.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:19 PM on December 8, 2006

Um...

The reason your teacher is being a stickler about this is because your teacher wants you to learn to do this for yourself. Using a computer program or a proof reader to catch these errors defeats the purpose.

The goal of taking a class is to learn the material, not to get a good grade.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:24 PM on December 8, 2006

SCDB, in most cases I would agree that a student should do all parts of their assignment themselves, but when a grad-school prof is a stickler about grammar it's because they want you to:
(a) know the grammatical rules, sure, but also
(b) make proofreading a priority in your mind and treat your turned-in papers like papers you're submitting for publication, which means doing what it takes to fix the typos and grammar errors.

Spellcheckers, grammar checkers (if only they worked), and having a friend proofread are all totally legitimate ways to achieve (b). The poster is not asking for someone to write her paper. She's asking for help catching those last few errors that always seem to squeak by. Having help with that is completely ok, by the standards of every prof I've ever met.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:32 PM on December 8, 2006

I have one suggestion that, although it's not a program, it really improved my understanding of grammer and I captured the ability to simultaneously proof my grammer while writing, is to take courses in the Latin language. I took 8 years of Latin, through high school and undergrad, and my grammer and writing style improved dramatically; Latin forces you to do this otherwise you will not understand the concepts in the translation. It takes a while to understand, but even after one semester of Latin, I noticed better results in my writing (although that's probably not translating into this extended paragraph)

Other benefits of Latin--I believe it's one of the better languages to attempt in it's complexity and precisness. It also helped me understand word bases and word parts--especially when coming across a new word I didn't know--rarely had to look anything up when differentiating a word in context.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but if you or anyone gets the chance to study Latin, take it!
posted by uncballzer at 7:00 PM on December 8, 2006

LobsterMitten's got the right idea. There is no substitute for your own attention to detail, and you need to develop that yourself. Scanning the paper backwards is helpful; also, William Safire recommended letting the piece "cool off" before proofing. Let it sit overnight, if possible. For me, nothing ever looks wrong immediately after I write it.
posted by RussHy at 3:47 AM on December 9, 2006