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When it comes to grammar checking utilities, most people shy away from them since everyone has their own writing preferences and no single person's ideas are the same as another's. Such utilities must find the right balance between correctness and invasiveness. The problem with all grammar checkers that I've ever used, including Grammarian, is that they are invasive. If you are writing a thesis for your Ph.D., for example, it is important to maintain proper form. However, if most of your writing take place in a more informal context, such as e-mail, then having a grammar checker ends up being more trouble than it's worth.
Full of features...One of my favorite features about Grammarian is it's high adaptability. It's easy to change the rules it should follow, and it includes about a dozen preset writing styles that it can follow, including casual, legal, and technical. But there are quite a few annoyances and problems with the software.
Grammarian is very proud of its "Checking as you type" feature, which usually ends up being detrimental to your writing. The problem with this feature, which can be toggled on or off easily, is that while writing in one of your more inspired moments, nothing is more annoying that to hear a computer say "incorrect punctuation" or "comma error." Though you may indeed have made an error, you can check that at the end of the process, saving you lost inspiration and time. Furthermore, having to disable and renable this feature depending on your application is tedious.
Grammarian's explanations of errors can also be very frustrating to decipher. After struggling with a few of them for several minutes, I came to realize that the sentence was fine and the utility was at fault. Though I understand that it is hard to explain rules of grammar well, Grammarian does an abysmal job at it.
...but not enough to get the job done.Grammar checkers are still more of a pain to work with than the help they offer. It takes far too much time to get through superfluous (and often incorrect) probelms they point out, and the end result is rarely worth the time it takes scan a document. Grammarian, though far ahead of others in the field, still is hobbled by this basic truth. If you are more casual in your writing or are confident with your grammar, it's not worth the money, time, or effort.
© 1998 The MacNN Review
