Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Free Online Service for Spell, Grammar, and Style Checking and Correction


The name After the Deadline is inspired by the NY Times after Deadline blog, and the service is suppose to benefit everyone, who needs to create well-written text documents online, with no text editing software available. Besides the Web interface, the developers offer additional plugins and bookmarklets for various platforms. The list of these plugins can be reviewed on the developer downloading page: http://www.afterthedeadline.com/download.slp

Main Features

Checks Spelling

After the Deadline's spell checker recommends the correct word 9/10 times. It looks at submitted context and uses artificial intelligence to make smart recommendations.

Detects Misused Words

A common error is writing one word when you mean another. Most spell checkers assume any word in their dictionary is correct regardless of context. This means all misused word errors go unnoticed. The online database includes 1,500 commonly misused words. It checks automatically each use of these words for a better fitting word. If such a word is found, the misused word is marked as misspelled and the correct alternative word spelling is promptly suggested. Note that no other web based writing improvement solution has this feature.

Checks Style

After the Deadline helps you write clearly and concisely. The style checker has thousands of rules and uses context to choose the best suggestions. The rules come from a style known as Plain English.

The style checker allows to:
  • Find complex phrases and suggests simple ones.
  • Locate passive voice.
  • Root out hidden verbs (also called abstract nouns, nominalizations).
  • Search for redundant phrases and suggests what to eliminate.
  • Find cliches and bias-language.

Checks Grammar

The grammar checker in After the Deadline protects you from common writing errors. It has a database of rules that look at entire phrases and parts-of-speech to find errors. After the Deadline uses statistics to automatically find exceptions to its grammar rules, making it one of the smartest grammar checkers around.

The grammar checker allows finding:
  • Confused words (a/an, it/it's, there/their, to/too, you/you're, etc.).
  • Repeated Words.
  • Auxiliary Verb Agreement Errors.
  • Determiner Agreement Errors.
  • Wrong Verb in Infinitive Phrases.

Explains Errors

After the Deadline will make you a better writer as you use it. The misused word detector, grammar checker, and style checker explain the mistakes and suggestions to you. You can click an error and choose the "Explain ..." option.

Screenshot

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