How Does Editor Help a Writer?

Editor compares every word and phrase in a document against a database of problem terms.  This database is by far the largest in the English text-checking world.

The text must already be spell-checked; Editor will look for fifty thousand or more additional misspellings not caught by standard checkers, and for tens of thousands of other writing problems in more than fifty categories.

Editor's specialized database derives from long-term analysis of student and professional writing and from an ongoing study of dictionaries and glossaries, manuals of usage, and academic and other professional handbooks of writing and editing, both printed and online.  Most of the published sources and many electronic ones are listed in Editor's extensive bibliography.

In addition to its diligent stylistic analysis, Editor has unique routines that check words in context for homonym mistakes, plural-possessive confusions, and frequently misused terms like effect and affect, than and then, loose and lose, and its and it's.  Other routines look for common errors in mechanics—in spacing, punctuating, and quoting; in the use of abbreviations, hyphens, dashes, parentheses, ellipses, and numbers; and in citations and references.  In matters of mechanics and style, Editor bases many of its judgments on the Chicago Manual of Style as well as on academic resources like the MLA and APA style manuals.

When Editor finds a writing problem in a text, it prints a message locating and identifying the problem.  Each problem is linked to a reference screen that explains the problem and gives examples of correct and incorrect usage.  An onscreen Writer's Manual provides additional information and advice on writing as well as on using the program to improve a text.   (Files to make a printed version of the Writer's Manual, if desired, are included with the program.)  Taken together, the usage and mechanics reference screens and the Writer's Manual constitute a comprehensive library of writing problems and solutions.

An Editor feature, added at the suggestion of a professional writer and editor, helps writers find awkward or unnecessary repetitions of short phrases and of longer passages in their work.

The Standard Edition of Editor makes a plain-text draft of the document with sentences numbered for easy reference.  Printing a copy of this draft and marking it up based on Editor's comments and the writer's judgments is a good way to edit the document.  The writer decides which of Editor's suggestions to adopt, then transfers those decisions to the original text in the word processor.   Teachers have found that the editing-and-markup process promoted by Editor teaches students sophisticated editing skills.  Click to see Standard Version output.

Editor for Word, a version of Editor purchased with a Microsoft Word Add-In option, installs a toolbar item in Word 2003, 2007, or 2010 that allows direct editing in Word with Editor's analytical comments displayed on screen.  Click to see an Editor for Word editing display.

Editor can be customized in a number of ways for individual and group uses.

Last revised 21 June 2011