Why Don’t Spelling And Grammar Checkers Catch Every Error?

Your spelling and grammar checker is only guessing at what it thinks you have done wrong. It is a form of power proofreading because it checks over the text and applies grammatical and spelling rules, but it does not attempt to understand what is being written. The person using the checker also needs to understand (to some degree) the rules of grammar and spelling–in order to choose the correct answers to the spell checkers/grammar checkers suggestions.

The spelling and grammar checker is guessing what is wrong

It does not work in the same fashion as book editors who will change text according to their own tastes, opinion and knowledge. A spelling and grammar checker is simply trying to guess at what you mean. It doesn’t actually know if you have used “their” in the right context, and many times they will only highlight such instances where you have made a devastatingly big error (to the point where it would be obvious to an illiterate child).

You need an understanding of spelling and grammar yourself

Automatic programmed checkers will only work if you already know the rules of spelling and grammar. If you were to click “change” for every suggestion that a spelling and grammar checker made, then you would actually make your work incorrect. For example, most introduction statements should be five words long unless they are related to the previous sentence. But many spell checkers will simply suggest that you put a comma in front of the first occurrence of something such as “You” or “And.”

A grammar and spelling checker does not understand your text

This is the fundamental flaw in all grammar checkers. If the program did try to understand what you were writing, it would have to present itself with so many options on how to interpret you text, that almost every sentence would have a suggestion attached.

Sometimes they suggest something for the sake of it

Some spelling and grammar checkers will make suggestions for changes which are not even necessary. For example, it may suggest that you change the word “Crafted” into “constructed,” but unless the word crafted has been used two or three times, then there is no need for the change.

Author bio: Robert Hudson is a writer and proofreader. He generally writes on different topics and also he is writing for Essay4students.com which provides professional essay writing help for everyone.

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