Can you rely on Microsoft Word to correct your spelling and grammar?

• Word’s spell checker effectively corrects common misspellings, saving time and preventing errors.

• Word’s grammar checker accurately detects and suggests corrections for basic grammatical errors, such as subject-verb disagreements and verb tenses.

• Word also does an excellent job of correcting punctuation errors and detecting passive voice, but it struggles with complex grammatical issues and understanding context.

When writing documents in Microsoft Word, it is easy to make grammatical and spelling errors. But can you rely on its grammar and spellcheck to detect and correct them? We checked it out and this is what we found out.

What Microsoft Word Spelling and Grammar Checker Does Best

If you make a mistake in Word, red and blue squiggly lines will appear under the problematic word or phrase. Red squiggles are spelling errors, and blue squiggles are potential grammatical errors. When you click on them, Word will suggest corrections or improvements..

The grammar tests below are examples where Word was able to detect errors and suggest corrections.

Microsoft Word will not catch every instance of these errors, but most of the time it will. It’s always a good idea to proofread documents by hand rather than relying solely on any spelling or grammar checker.

Writing

When typing, it’s common to misspell words, especially if you type very quickly. We assessed how Word detects and corrects commonly misspelled words, e.g. received, businessAnd address. And he discovered them and suggested corrections in all cases.received, businessAnd addressSincerely.

Microsoft Word has an AutoCorrect feature that automatically corrects common spelling and capitalization errors as you type. It’s as if someone instantly corrects the words you write, making it a huge problem. time saving feature in Microsoft Word.

Basic Grammar

We first tested whether Word would pick up subject-verb disagreement on a basic grammar test. This is a common grammatical error when the plurality of the subject and verb do not match.

Word detected a subject-verb disagreement in the sentence. Cats are running. Then it was suggested to change runs To run to ensure subject and verb agreement. The correct sentence now becomes Cats are running.

Another common grammatical error that Word can catch is incorrect verb tense. Here the timing of the action does not coincide with the verb.

An example could be: He goes to the gym every day. The word suggested changing go To coming fix it by making a correct sentence He goes to the gym every day.

Punctuation

Word is also good at detecting missing or incorrect punctuation. Consider the following suggestions: Let’s eat! (no apostrophe), I love apples, oranges and bananas (missing comma) and The dog barked loudly, but no one heard it. (missing comma or semicolon).

Microsoft Word easily corrected incorrect sentences. It was proposed to change them to Let’s eat, I love apples, oranges and bananasAnd The dog barked loudly, but no one heard it.. The punctuation is now correct.

Passive voice detection

There are certain cases where the passive voice (a verb that affects the subject) is acceptable. But if it is a formal letter, it is always better to use the active voice. You don’t want sentences that sound roundabout or indirect because they don’t achieve the clarity that formal writing requires.

Let’s consider the proposal The dog ate the cake. Word suggested changing this to The dog ate the cakewhich is the active voice.

Formality

Informal words do not match the tone of a formal letter. It’s like wearing flip-flops to a job interview: it’s unprofessional and immature. Word does a good job of highlighting these colloquial expressions, allowing you to match the formal tone of the document.

For example, it may help you change going to And No To I don’t And going to. So, pasting the document into Word is a good idea if you want to test the formality of your tone.

homophone

Homophones are words that sound alike but their meaning and spelling are different. It is very easy to make a mistake in these words. Well-known examples include their/there, your/you, this/it, here/hear, and effect/affect. Word does a good job of correcting homophone errors through grammatical and contextual analysis.

Areas where the grammar checker needs improvement

While a spell checker can help correct almost every misspelled word, a grammar checker could improve in the following areas.

Advanced Grammar

While basic disagreements between subject and verb are not a problem for Word, complex cases such as the sentence Everyone is going to the party, but none of them brings a gift. may be difficult to detect. Instead of no oneit must be no oneand Word completely missed it.

There is also a grammatical error missing in the sentence. He loves to run, swim and bike. The objects in this sentence should have the same shape, but they do not (incorrect parallelism). The correct sentence should be He loves to run, swim and ride a bike.

Contextual understanding

We also tested whether Word could understand context in ambiguous sentences. For example, a sentence She gave food to her friend’s dog is ambiguous. If Microsoft Word had advanced contextual understanding, it should have suggested we change it to She gave her dog food to her friendthis is wrong.

Word also has difficulty detecting misleading statements. Take for example the following sentence: Flying in the sky, the pilot admired the birds. This sentence should be Flying in the sky, the pilot admired the birds to make it clear that the pilot was flying in the sky when he was watching the birds.

Inappropriate modifier

An inappropriate modifier can make a sentence ambiguous or confusing. Microsoft Word also has problems detecting inappropriate modifiers.

I checked several suggestions, including She served pizza to guests on paper plates.and Word failed the test. In this example it should be She served pizza to guests on paper plates..

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In general, you can rely on Microsoft Word’s grammar and spelling checkers during the first round of editing. It can help you correct many grammatical and spelling errors in your documents. You can expect this to get even better over time, especially now that these tools are becoming AI-powered.

If you don’t have enough Word, you can install Microsoft Word add-ins with more advanced spelling and grammar checking capabilities (eg Grammarly).