I'm reminded of a yarn about an editing program that converted the epigram "Out of sight, out of mind," to "Invisible, unthinkable."
I heard similar things about natural language translation programs, but not about editing programs.
On the other hand, I hear how translation programs are getting better, and maybe that can be applied to editing or "language processing" programs.
I do wonder if many of the purist opinions in this thread could reasonably be levied against spelling and grammar checkers?
Even spelling checkers mislead if you don't double-check them. When I see text with obvious (to me) homonyms, it's a sign someone used a spelling checker who either didn't look closely or isn't familiar with such programs. Combining a grammar checker and a spelling checker can help with that in some cases, but not all. Grammar is also really hard to get right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_flies_like_an_arrow;_fruit_flies_like_a_banana
Of course, the trick to being an author is telling a good story, not necessarily spelling Quetzalcoatl correctly; whether or not using the word 'capitulate' too much is fundamental or peripheral to telling a good story is left as an exercise to the writer.
A concordance/cross reference program can make a list of words a text uses and the number of times each word is used. The author can then decide whether each word is used "too often."
I do recall reading (ISTR here on AW) about a book that used a very unusual word twice, and the uses were within a couple of pages, and the reader/reviewer found that the two usages stood out and were annoying. I suppose in this case a concordance or whatever software could also tag it as a "very unusual word" that probably shouldn't be used twice in one word, unless the book was about a topic that clearly involved use of the word.
It doesn't look like it improves your writing or does shortcuts so much as...just looks like it points stuff out to you that you might not have noticed--overuse of words and wordiness and stuff.
Which is part of what my betas do for me...
Whom I rely on.
Not to say that I recommend this software; I dunno what it is really. Just seems that the function has a useful purpose. *shrug* *hugs betas needily*
If such points help improve a work, and you apply these to your future writing, wouldn't that have improved your writing? (just being obnoxious
)
I guess if that's how you want to look at editing software, this nefarious piece of written code that is looking to hijack all your written prose and turn it into gobblety gook against your free will, then sure, you probably don't want to use it.
Last I used editing software, not Hemingway btw, it wasn't forcing any changes on me at all. It located some things that its simpleminded coding suggested might be problem areas and did me the favor of highlighting them all so that I could take a closer look and make the final judgment of 'do I want this changed or don't I?'
And in the process of reading through to look, found other areas that could use some tightening in the process.
...or am I mistaking the editing process in general, where the writer goes through their work with whatever tools they have at hand (as in, say, oh...the lists of overused words that many writers compile for their own personal use?) and doing the same exact thing only without the fancy color coded highlighting through the entire document?
I have found that editing software has significantly reduced the amount of time I edit by catching the vast majority of the potential problem areas at once for me to go through with a fine tooth comb (don't all writers do this?) and instead of it taking five or six or however many passes it took to catch the vast majority of them, I got them in one go?
That was a winner for me.
On the other hand, if the work needs a rewrite, doing these minor tweaks won't do much (other than telling you not to phrases such as "on the other hand" so much) until after you've completed the final draft.
