MEPX
Chapter 9 of 10All chapters
  1. 1Why English is like this
  2. 2Doubling consonants
  3. 3Adding endings
  4. 4The i before e rule
  5. 5Words people mix up
  6. 6The commonly misspelled
  7. 7Plurals and possessives
  8. 8British and American
  9. 9Spell checkers
  10. 10Getting better

Chapter 9 of 10

Spell checkers

Helpful and not sufficient.

What they miss

A correctly spelled wrong word passes every check: form for from, their for there, manger for manager. Those are the errors readers actually notice.

  • Grammar checkers catch some of these and produce false alarms too.
  • Read aloud, or read backwards, to catch what the eye skips.

Proofreading

Check names, numbers and headings separately, since they are where errors survive longest and cost most. Time away from the text improves detection more than any technique.