WhiteSmoke Writer – Gold Edition brings with it cutting edge technology, truly allowing a user to rely on a program for all his/her writing needs. In addition to WhiteSmoke’s Writer, Writer Gold Edition will alert when there are too many subordinate clauses (to many parts that start with “that), fix digits to spelled out words, correct tense and much more that can’t be found in another writing software.

Get Whitesmoke Writer 2010 for PC

I would like to take this to remind you of WhiteSmoke Writer Mac version. Up until now the only way Mac users could use WhiteSmoke Writing Software was via an online editor. With our new desktop application, Mac users can now enjoy the same benefits and user friendly interface as our PC users.

WhiteSmoke Writer Mac version includes the following features/advantages:

• Advanced Grammar Checker – Checks your grammar to perfection
• Spell Checker –  Detects typos, common spelling mistakes and contextual spelling
• Style Checker – Enhances your sentences with alternate words and phrasing
• Writing review – Gives you an overall score of your writing
• Single click activation

Get Whitesmoke Writer 2010 for Mac

The Opening

Make your first paragraph do something; it is both a headline and lead for your message. Plunge straight into your reason for writing. Don’t begin with something your readers already know or by stating the obvious.

After the first couple of paragraphs, your readers’ attention may fall off if you haven’t already made your main points. Newspaper reporters call the first paragraph “the lead”, and they always try to make it effective and interesting. You can learn to do the same.

Don’t waste words in your opening. If you are writing to ask for information, ask for it in the first sentence. If you want people to do something, say so in your first paragraph. If you are writing a report, give the readers the most relevant information – often the conclusions to the report – in the first paragraph. Business writing often fails because of poor openings such as:

In reference to your recent report…
Please be advised that at the last planning committee meeting…

Learn to write a key first paragraph by giving the information most relevant to the reader without delay. Ask yourself this question: What do my readers need to know?

For example, if a 50-year-old woman wants to know if she is entitled to a widow’s pension, don’t spend the opening paragraph quoting the regulation that applies. Answer the key question in the first sentence and then go on to explain the reason.

We’re sorry but you cannot receive a widow’s pension until you are 60 years old.

In a report you need to give the essential information in the first paragraph. This often means summarising the whole report in a couple of sentences. To do this, imagine that your readers only have time to read your first paragraph and so place all the information they need to understand the report in that paragraph. For example:

Over the last 12 months, our sales of breakfast cereals through supermarket chains have grown by 12 per cent. However, between December and February our sales are 15 per cent below the average of all the other months in the year. Our advertising agency has provided figures showing how we could spend $1.2 million next winter to turn around this poor performance. Their solution is simplicity itself – advertise cereals with hot milk.

The Close

The closing couple of paragraphs are your last chance to influence your readers. If written well, the closing paragraph is the one your readers will remember.

In a report, a good summary paragraph at the end should bring all your arguments and evidence together and sway the readers to your point of view. In a memo, the last paragraph might tell the readers what you want them to do or might include recommendations.

In a letter, make your closing sentences polite and to the point. If you want your readers to take some action, show clearly what you want them to do.

Don’t end weakly or apologetically or let your writing fizzle out. A strong closing is as important as a good opening and well-developed points throughout your writing.

Use Direct Quotations

Use this journalistic technique of selecting suitable quotations. This is particularly useful in giving reports the human touch.

Use Direct Questions

Direct questions are an effective way of breaking up the text and keeping the reader’s attention. Try this tip in your letters and reports. Look for the word “whether”, and try to recast the sentence into a question. For example:

It remains to be seen whether the company can profit from investing in precious metals.

Redraft:

Can the company profit by investing in precious metals?

Use Examples, Statistics, Facts and Asides

You can make your writing come alive by giving plenty of examples to explain the point you are making. Often it is the well-chosen fact or statistic, the interesting anecdote or aside that your reader will remember and act upon.

How would you like it if every letter and report from your professional adviser was quick and easy to read?  If their documents were quick to review, with the main points emerging clearly?  If you could copy their advice to your business colleagues without first having to translate it into business English?

Some law firms know their clients would love this, but are not quite ready to deliver it.  Their lawyers learned their style from judgments, statutes, textbooks, teachers and colleagues, all pretty much using the same style clients have been complaining about for hundreds of years.  (IT professionals sometimes meet similar criticism from lawyers.)

That style is not easy to read or quick to review.  See how long it takes you to find the error in this 56-word sentence.

‘Without prejudice to any other right or remedy we may have, we reserve the right to set off any amount owing at any time by you to us, whether under this Agreement or any other agreement which may exist from time to time between us, against any amount payable by you to us under this Agreement.’

Perhaps your clients don’t mind legalese in their agreements.  But do they want it in your advice?  Or in your legal updates and pitch documents?  One way to eliminate hard-to-read documents is to use plain English style checking software, such as StyleWriter.

What does StyleWriter do?

StyleWriter is a Word add-on.  You click on a button and in seconds it has checked the whole document for the three main obstacles to understanding: long sentences, passive verbs, and hard words.  It gives the document a score for the first two, and an overall score for clarity.  And it suggests improvements. About how to use stylewriter, see following posts:

Using StyleWriter with Ami Pro
Using StyleWriter with Microsoft Word
Using StyleWriter with WordPerfect

It works like a spellchecker, flagging word patterns it has been taught to recognise as potential problems.  Where possible, it offers alternatives for the writer to accept or reject (or ignore) with a click of the mouse.  Or it may suggest ways to edit out the problem.  As you edit, StyleWriter updates its scores. It gathers statistics to help organisations audit their documents for clarity.  What you can measure, you can manage.

In three years of working with StyleWriter, I have found its advice sensible and user-friendly.  If a document scores well on StyleWriter Software, it is not hard to read.

What doesn’t it do?

StyleWriter is no substitute for expert editing.  It can’t solve problems, only flag them up.  It can’t tell you where to add headings, or how to chop up a long sentence or why lawyers keep saying ‘from time to time’.  If you don’t know these things, you need training to go with it.  But it can tell you whether your own solution to these problems is easy or hard to read.

StyleWriter can only check language, not other important aids to ease of reading such as good layout, useful headings or a logical treatment of the subject.  And it is no judge of context, so the author must always decide whether to accept its advice.

Other Writing Software like whitesmoke, ginger software are only check spell & grammar too, but they are focus on text enrichment & grammar checking. More about these 3 top rated writing software, see whitesmoke, stylewriter, ginger software comparison.

Example

Here’s what you get when you run StyleWriter on the clause just quoted.

The ‘Style index’ is the score for clarity, taking into account the average sentence length, percentage of passive verbs, and a lexicon of tens of thousands of words and phrases it has been taught may unnecessarily hamper the reader’s understanding.

Here’s another version of the clause, ten words shorter and in three short sentences, making it quicker to review.  See how long it takes you to find if the mistake is still there.

‘Set-off: We may set off anything you owe us under any agreement against anything we owe you under this Agreement.  This does not affect any other right or remedy we may have.  It is not limited to agreements already made or sums already due.’

Its scores reflect the improvement.

Style Index                               45        Average for General Writing
Average Sentence Length      15        Excellent
Passive Index                          33        Good

Does it work on legal documents?

StyleWriter is designed for business, government and academic use.  So it doesn’t pick up problems unique to the legal profession, like the abuse of ’shall’ and ’such’ and it questions legal terms that lawyers use correctly, such as ‘novation’ and ‘fiduciary’.  You can tailor StyleWriter’s advice for legal documents; I’ve done it myself twice, although it’s not a job for the novice.  But if your aim is to write business English, the original lexicon will give useful results even on legal documents.

What about pitches and legal updates?

Contracts and legal advice don’t need to grab the reader’s attention; any reader usually has a strong motive to find out what they say.  If the writer has set no obstacles in their way, you can honestly call the clarity ‘Excellent’.

But the Bog index draws on an even wider lexicon of 200,000 words, plus acronyms and technical terms, to measure whether the text is gripping or boring.  If boring, StyleWriter can offer only general advice – to write in personal terms (you and we), use contractions (can’t and won’t), include names (Daphne not The Author) and use lively verbs.  You can display graphically the most and least boring words and sentences in your work, to help you edit.  The Bog index for both the original and rewritten clauses is better than the Style index, because it gives them credit for using you and we.

The real value of the Bog index is for pitch and marketing text or anything the client or prospective client has not paid for and might decide not to bother with.  Take this text from a firm’s web site, which has an Excellent style score but is still boring, with an Average Bog index (55).

A negligence claim against a professional services firm can be expensive, time-consuming and, for the individuals concerned, traumatic. Our lawyers have been helping these firms for more than 10 years.  Our professional liability team consists of experienced lawyers from our commercial litigation, construction and finance groups, based in our offices throughout Europe and the Far East.

Compare this opening paragraph from a legal update, with a Good Bog index (27).

Say you received your payslip one day and noticed that out of the blue your salary had been doubled. Tempting as it would be to keep schtum, surely most of us would put our hands up and query the figure?

Doesn’t Word have a style checker?

Word 2003 and 2007 both include a Grammar check tool.  It works like a spell checker, with an option to display statistics.  Word’s readability statistics for the original set-off clause look like this:

This tells you the percentage of passive verbs and the average sentence length.  And it says you’d need 25 years of education to understand this clause at first sight.  But it doesn’t identify this clause as a long sentence, because it only does that for sentences over 60 words.  In fact, Word finds no fault with the clause at all.

Its grammar checker merely tells you ‘That style is not easy to read or quick to review’.  If you can add a Style check (2007 only) it actually strips out plain English, suggesting you replace But with Nevertheless and Or with On the other hand.  Lawyers don’t need this sort of advice.

Other products exist to help edit your writing, such as MyWriter Tools. This is cheaper but you may not find it as useful.

Are there any technical limitations?

You need Word to get the full benefit of StyleWriter.  If Word is your email editor, you can also use StyleWriter to edit Outlook files.  And you can edit clipboard text copied from other programs, but you need to copy it back again when done.

You can install StyleWriter on a network, which may involve some work to get it working smoothly with a document management system.  You’ll need to decide whether to allow users to add or delete words and phrases, or to do it only centrally.  You could also decide to add your own house style to StyleWriter’s advice.

StyleWriter v4 costs £110 plus VAT or $160  for a single user.

Daphne Perry is a plain language trainer, writer and consultant with three years’ experience of working with StyleWriter to promote plain language in a City firm.  Before moving into training and writing, she practised commercial law for 12 year: daphne.perry@clarifynow.co.uk.

“It is well to remember that grammar is common speech formulated.  Usage is the only test.  I would prefer a phrase that was easy and unaffected to a phrase that was grammatical.”

W. Somerset Maugham

For many of us, learning how to write involved learning about grammar. StyleWriter Software does not concentrate on grammar as the key to good writing.  This is not to say that grammar is not important – it is.  Obviously, good writing reflects the accepted structure of the English language.  However, writing can be grammatically correct but difficult to read.  Similarly, readable writing may have grammatical errors but still gets its message across.

Keeping to the principles of good writing will serve you and your readers better than trying to remember all the “rules” of grammar.  In fact, by following our advice, you will find using correct grammar becomes easier.  For example, if you keep your average sentence length low and use active verbs, you are less likely to make grammatical errors.

The ‘Rools’ of Grammar

Harold Evans, a former editor of The Times, listed the most common errors in grammar.  Each ‘rool’ contains the error it mentions.

1.    Don’t use no double negative.
2.    Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
3.    When dangling, watch your participles.
4.    Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.
5.    Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
6.    About those sentence fragments…
7.    Try not to ever split infinitives.
8.    Its important to use apostrophe’s correctly.
9.    Always read what you have written to see if you have any words out.

10.    Correct spelling is esential.

StyleWriter will not pick up all these problems (if you need grammar checking & correction software, white smoke grarmmar checker will be suitable), so you need to read your writing through to check that it is correct.

False Rules of Grammar

Despite debunking by many writing authorities, some people still stick to grammar “rules” that have no sound basis.  These include:

• not starting a sentence with And or But
• not ending a sentence with a preposition [up with I will not put.]
• splitting an infinitive [to boldly go, to thoroughly check]

Although there is nothing wrong with breaking any of these “rules”, doing so can upset some people so think about your reader.  StyleWriter picks up split infinitives and advises you not to split if possible.  However, if avoiding a split infinitive makes your writing sound odd, leave it in.  You can delete the split infinitive pattern if you don’t want StyleWriter to highlight them in your writing.

To select a writing task style:

1.    In the main StyleWriter window, go to the Task menu and select the task you want, or
2.    In the Statistical Summary window, click on the Writing Task box and select the task you want.

StyleWriter’s long sentence limit and its assessment of your style index, sentence length and passive index will change to reflect the new writing task style.

For General Writing, StyleWriter Software adjusts its statistical measures as follows:

StyleWriter also has the following writing task styles to choose from:

Academic Paper

Memo

Advertisement

Newsletter

Instructions

Regulation

Legal Document

Report

Letter

Student Essay

Manual

Technical Report ]]> http://www.writingsoftwarereviews.com/blog/plain-english-writing-styles-in-stylewriter/feed/ 0 http://www.writingsoftwarereviews.com/blog/most-comprehensive-writing-software-list-for-writers-editors/ http://www.writingsoftwarereviews.com/blog/most-comprehensive-writing-software-list-for-writers-editors/#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:27:03 +0000 admin http://www.writingsoftwarereviews.com/blog/?p=64 Maybe, all of your really needs for writing are notebook and pen. But there are lots of Writing Software that can make life easier for professinoal editors, writers, copywriters or bloggers. Whatever you want to be able to do, there’s almost certainly some software out there to help you. The list below includes the best packages to help you plan and structure a novel, share documents online with other people, format your screenplay or script correctly, minimize writing distractions, improve your English Writing Skills, and correcting grammar errors in your blog posts.

Writing Enhancement Software

English writing enhancement software for grammar checking and spelling correction purposes should always have a single aim – to help you to write better English. The advertised English checking software is regarded among the finest English writing and editing solutions around and it’s the final result of years of development by a leading team of Natural Language Processing software professionals and checking algorithm experts.

Whether you simply want to create well–written emails to family and friends, or just need professional results for corporate and business settings, WhiteSmoke delivers. Its innovative grammar editing and correcting features are based on a dynamic, self-learning technology which constantly analyzes millions of documents and holds a growing proprietary dictionary database that permanently updates itself.

Stylewriter plain english writing software

Stylewriter is The Writing Software to help improve the quality and clarity of written communication. We believe in the philosophy of plain English writing — a style that is clear, concise and readable. The savings to individuals and organizations in time, administration and increased sales are massive.

More about stylewriter, see stylewriter review from writingsoftwarereview.com

White Smoke All in One Writing Solutions

White Smoke writing enhancement software is used by children at school, adults in the workplace, by people learning English as a second language, and by corporate professionals writing business reports and documentation. Any who is writing English, either online or on the desktop, can benefit from WhiteSmoke Writer’s text correction and enhancement.

Ginger Software

Ginger Software’s mission is to facilitate error-free writing, particularly for those who use English as a second language, or for those with learning difficulties like dyslexia. Ginger’s breakthrough automatic spell and grammar checker enables struggling writers to independently generate error-free texts of unprecedented accuracy for business and personal use.

Ginger is a spell and grammar correction software. Lexington, Mass. (June 15, 2009) – The National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI) named Ginger Software, Inc., one of five award recipients in the 2009 Technology in the Works competition.

Ginger is an intelligent spell checker that identifies and fixes all your mistakes. Ginger Software recognizes words in context and provides the most appropriate corrections for spelling and grammar mistakes according to the intended meaning of your sentence. Ginger can tell when a correctly spelled word is misused and replaces it with the right word.

Collaborative Writing Tools

Often when writing, you’ll want to share a document with other people – either to ask for feedback, or to get them to add to it. Collaborative Writing Service below will allow you to share documents online, so that multiple people can have access to and edit them.

Google Docs

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a web-based editor that allows you to create text documents and spreadsheets. You can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more. Google Docs & Spreadsheets allows you to upload your files and make changes to them online. It accepts most popular file formats. It is possible to invite people and work on files collaboratively; additionally, you can publish your documents and spreadsheets online with one click, as normal-looking web pages. Free to use.

Writeboard

Writeboard is a web-based editor that enables you to write online documents and collaborate with colleagues. You can subscribe to documents via RSS to be notified of changes and keep your writings organized with Backpack integration. Writeboard requires Internet Explorer 6.x, Safari, or Firefox and it is free to use.

Zoho Writer

Zoho Writer is a collaborative editor that lets you create your documents and share them publicly or privately. The interface is very intuitive and you can import any existing document to work on it. Zoho Writer also enables you to export you text in several formats, such as PDF, ODT, Word, HTML and others. Zoho Writer offers about 20 different fonts among which to choose. Free to use.

Strategy Nets

Strategy Nets is an online asynchronous collaboration platform that supports collaboration on all environments. It’s web-based and hosted, so there’s no installation. Strategy Nets is based upon emerging web-standards and takes advantage of many of the core components driving the new web. Strategy Nets integrates blogging, wikis, calendaring, email, file sharing, RSS output, tags and more. The basic edition costs $9.95 per month and $99.95 per year.

Socialtext

Socialtext is a collaboration platform that allows everyone to work on the same page. It allows users to edit within a simple WYSIWYG interface and you can also preview while editing and comment on any page. Socialtext provides both a hosted service and a hardware / software appliance for installation. Deployment options are designed for range of organizational needs: Enterprise, Professional, Personal and Open Source. The basic account is free.

Quick Doc Review

Quick Doc Review gives you an instant private space for gathering comments on any Word and HTML document. Your group can comment on each paragraph, directly within the document, and you can also display, sort, and print the comments separately. You can start your document review in about one minute. It’s even easier for your readers because they don’t have to register or sign in. The basic review service is free, while a Pro version which adds password protection and full customization costs $79/year.

EditGrid

SynchroEdit is a browser-based simultaneous collaborative editor. This tool is fully WYSIWYG, dynamically displaying bolds, italics, underlines, strikethroughs, with various justifications, indents and listing styles as an author inputs them. SynchroEdit also supports a simple, text-only editor for more basic documents. The editor window clearly depicts every user’s changes in a specific color and also marks where each user is currently editing with a colored flag listing the user’s name. Free to use.

PleaseReview

PleaseReview is a browser-based collaborative review and authoring solution. Every contributor can comment on the same document (both in real-time or asynchronous mode). The service includes deadlines management, email invitations and reminders. It is also possible to review the documents offline. PleaseReview supports MS Word, MS PowerPoint and allows the inclusion of images. PleaseReview costs $55 per month and $270 per year. Free 30-days trial available.

Coventi Pages

Coventi Pages is an online tool that enables users to share, discuss, and revise documents. Coventi Pages is a tool that makes it easy to collaborate on documents, whether there are two or twenty people involved. Coventi Pages emphasizes the single author’s ownership of a document, with others permitted to comment on rather than being allowed to alter text. Users tell us that they work with documents as large as 50 pages.

Collaborative Writing Software

Gobby

Gobby is a collaborative editor that allows you to edit text documents over a network. All users can work on the file simultaneously, without the need to lock it. The parts the various users wrote are highlighted in different colours and an IRC-like chat is also included. Gobby is completely cross-platform, therefore it runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix-like platforms. Free to use.

ACE

ACE is a downloadable collaborative editor that allows groups of users to view and edit in real-time a shared text document. ACE is a simple text editor with standard features such as copy/paste and load/save. Multiple documents can be edited at the same time. Furthermore, ACE can share documents with other users on different computers, connected by communication networks. ACE runs across all major platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac. Free to use.

Groove

Groove features folder synchronization and integration with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office. You can also share files, discussions, calendar, sketch, web links, pictures and a notepad. Collaborating users can also edit their documents while they are offline and sync up changes once they go online. Groove Virtual Office is available at no cost for personal use or 60-day business evaluation.

That’s right –
We finally managed to crack the text genome!
WhiteSmoke T-Gen takes sentences apart – and puts them together the proper way.

The new features of the new version truly make it easier for you to proofread and enrich your text anywhere and anytime.

Let’s say you are writing an e-mail, instead of actually leaving your document in order to run WhiteSmoke on it, WhiteSmoke new version will actually automatically check your text the minute you click on “send”.
That way you can rest assured that no one will witness your grammar or spelling mistakes.

This really saves you the time and trouble of proofreading your text.

On top of that, I find myself relying on the new version when it comes down to using the right word the right way.
WhiteSmoke new version actually enables you to find the right synonyms for each word, add adjectives & adverbs to enhance your writing, provide examples that will help you use the word properly, find the right definition and perform an online search for each chosen word.

I really can’t ask for more. I find it really useful, and I trust you will too.
It’s all so simple. This great version really saves you the time and trouble of thinking about the right way to write the right thing.

Whitesmoke T-Gen is the new and enhanced version of WhiteSmoke Writer.

It includes 2 revolutionary features – Writing Tool Menu © and the Email Checker Tool ©.

The Writing Tool Menu enables you to find the right synonyms for each word, add adjectives & adverbs to enhance your writing, provide examples that will help you use the word properly, find the right definition and perform an online search for each chosen word.

The Email Checker Tool is a one-of-a-kind tool that enables you to check each and every email before you send it, gives a score to your text, and helps you send a properly written email in a click of a mouse button.

Get WhiteSmoke T-Gen Today and Write Like a Pro – Anytime, Anywhere.

Dictionary.com defines a typo as: “An error while inputting text via keyboard, made despite the fact that the user knows exactly what to type in.”

FACT: Everybody makes typos. Language experts and journalists make typos.

The Queen of England, if she uses a computer (or even a typewriter), probably makes typos. The CORRECTION of typos is crucial in order to save your writing; not bemoaning the fact that they exist.

Whether we like it or not, typos are here to stay . . . until computers replace our brains and human errors cease to exist.
All we can do is learn from our mistakes, correct them, and move on.

Use WhiteSmoke to avoid typos

How They Are Caused

Rushing
Distractions
Mechanical Failure (technical malfunction of keyboard, computer, or mouse)
Ambivalence/lack of interest (writing quickly without paying much attention)

How They Affect You (If Left Unchecked)

Embarrassment
Low grades in school / Writing not taken seriously by readers
Miscommunication

Common Typos

Typos are spelling “accidents”.

Fortunately, many Word Processors automatically correct some common typos. (Microsoft Word automatically converts “separetely” into “separately”, based on your program settings!)

However, some typos include contextual spelling errors, which spell-checkers (such as Microsoft Word) simply do not catch, since they are words spelled correctly, but used incorrectly. (no/know, to/too/two, from/form)

WhiteSmoke’s spell checker can correct contextual spelling errors, too.

Learning From Our Mistakes

Just like we all mess up certain parts of our speech – if we’re preoccupied, nervous, distracted – we all occasionally mess up parts of our writing.

Raising awareness of the importance of typos is only the first part of this enormous world-wide problem. For continued protection against typos:

* Check your work. When you have finished a paper or even an e-mail, read over it carefully.
* Use a spellchecker
* Get a second set of eyes to look over your work, to spot things like contextual errors you might still be missing.
WhiteSmoke Software contains a reliable contextual spellchecker component.

Last Minutes Sale: Get WhiteSmoke All-In-One English writing software and receive an additional license FREE OF CHARGE, plus a special discount for our readers!

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