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From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Writing style analyzers
Summary: WWB is similar to Rightwriter, but not identical.
Keywords: Understanding and Comprehension, Reality and Modeling, Sentience
Message-ID: <44802@linus.UUCP>
Date: 11 Feb 89 15:43:28 GMT
References: <18464@santra.UUCP> <1241@arctic.nprdc.arpa> <904@ubu.warwick.UUCP> <44587@linus.UUCP> <667@uceng.UC.EDU>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort)
Organization: The Luddite Corporation, Shipinport, MA
Lines: 58

In article <667@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (Daniel Mocsny) 
writes about a prose analyzer called Rightwriter.

Just for fun, Dan, I took the text of your posting and ran it through
WWB (Writer's WorkBench).  Here are the condensed results...

    WWB found no spelling errors, no punctuation errors, no split
    infinitives, and no double words. 
    
    WORD CHOICE
    
    Sentences with possibly wordy or misused phrases are listed next,
    followed by suggested revisions.
    
    beginning line 1 Mocsny
    I have used Rightwriter *[ quite]* a bit in the PC environment.
    
    beginning line 6 Mocsny
    It does spot a few things well, such as passive voice and possibly
    useless phrases ( *["in order to,]*" instead of "to").
    
    beginning line 15 Mocsny
    It is the thermometer *[ which ]* is that *[ which ]* serves to
    accomplish the measurement of the temperature.
    
    beginning line 33 Mocsny
    I suppose the second goal would require "extracting" the underlying
    "facts" in a writing sample and compiling them in some
    *[ sort of ]* a formal knowledge structure.
    
    file Mocsny: number of lines 57 number of phrases found 5
    
    -------------------   Table of Substitutions   --------------------
    
    PHRASE                     SUBSTITUTION
    
    in order to: use "to" for " in order to"
    quite: use "OMIT" for " quite"
    sort of: use "somewhat" for " sort of"
    which: use ""that" when clause is restrictive" for " which"
    which: use "of which" for " of that"
    which: use "when" for " at which time"
    
    READABILITY
    
         The Kincaid readability formula predicts that your text
    can be read by someone with 10 or more years of schooling,
    which is a low score for this type of document.
    
         You have an appropriate distribution of sentence types.
    
         You have appropriately limited your use of passives and
    nominalizations (nouns made from verbs, e.g. "description").
    
Although WWB did flag a few things differently than Rightwriter,
they seem to be interchangeable.

--Barry Kort