Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!ucdavis!ucscb.UCSC.EDU!haphip
From: haphip@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Jeffq)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: $99 PROGRAM FREE?
Message-ID: <6838@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 24 Feb 90 20:18:34 GMT
Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: haphip@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Jeffq)
Organization: UCSC Open Access
Lines: 78


Here's a contest, sponsered by Reference Software, that can save you $99!
All you have to do is find 15 errors in the below memo, and they'll ship
you the $99 package AND a booklet called 'The Easiest Way to Improve Your
Writing' free!  I came across this ad in a magazine and I figured I'd ask
for y'alls hep on this.  (I'm in obvious need!)  Here's EXACTLY what the
ad says, as far as rules:

  New Grammatik Mac found fifteen errors in this memo in just over a minute.
Circle the same errors, mark exactly what the problems are, and send them to
us.  If you find them all and identify the problems correctly, we'll send you
Grammatik Mac absoulutely free.  

So here's my plan.  Y'all mail me any and all errors you find and, if you want,
tell me and I'll send you the final draft with corrections and explanations,
and who you can write to get your free software package.  Or just mail me and
ask... I am not purposly withholding information or anything, I'd just like
some help and I'd also like to give y'all a chance at this.  Sounds pretty
good, eh?

There are 15 errors; one of them is in the first sentence of the last 
paragraph.  ..'what's it done' is passive voice.  Only 14 more!  Mail 
the errors and identify them (ie what KIND of error.. punctual, sp, etc.)
to:
haphip@ucscb.ucsc.edu

Here's the memo:

Memo To:  Mac people who would like to write better
   From:  Ken Dickens, as writer
     Re:  A great new product, a helpful book, and a contest to get both FREE

I'm a skeptic.  So when the people at Reference Software told me Grammatik Mac
could improve my writing, I said, "Right."  Faster, fontier, or even bolder I
could believe, but better?  Give me a break.  I thought, if it was real good, 
it might help business people write better letters or memos.  Then again, I do
this for a living (not a bad one I might add).  So if software can improve my
writing, it's fantastic.  And I'm not.

Well, two weeks and a whole lot of humble pie later, I'm here to tell you that
Grammatik Mac is nothing like those desk accessory style checkers you might
have tried.  Believe me, it's like an English professor in a box.  The thing
actually proofreads each sentence and breaks it down into parts of speach.
It's scary, remember sentence diagramming?  Well, that's basically what it does
right on your screen.

I guess that's how it knows if subjects and verbs are in agreement  
Prepositions are dangling.  Plurals should be possessive.  All that stuff I can
never remember and have to look up.  For example, Grammatik might stop on a
sentence like "I feel I should have won the Grammatik Mac Contest, it's a real
shame", tell you that "feel" is probably incorrect, suggest "think" instead 
and by the way, "its" should be "it's."  You can ignore the suggestion and
move on (which is what I usually do, making the excuse that it's my writing
style) or change the offending phrase right then and there.  I like that.  It
lets me fix my mistakes without cramping my style.  

Grammatik Mac catches errors like incomplete sentences, improper use of
homonyms (like "their" instead of "there"), split infinitives, noun/modifier
disagreements, passive voice, and etc.  It even flags unbalanced punctuation,
transpositions (like form instead of from, capitalization errors, and 
thousands of others I've never even heard of

So what's it done for me?  Nothing short of making my writing better.  And the
more I use it, the fewer mistakes it catches (could I be learning something
here?).  Anyway, I'm happy to report that I I almost never write in passive
voice, that I've solved my its/it's problem, yet I still split lots of
infinitives.  And I always start too many sentences with and... but, that's
just my style.

          --Ken Dickens


One SP is 'speach', and there are two 'I's (that I I almost never), and
they forgot the close-) in the last sentence of the fourth paragraph ((like
form instead of from), and the 'So what's it done' is in passive voice.

Only 11 more!
-Jeffq