What is your take on software programs like Whitesmoke?

[Torsten]

You might have heard of software programs like Whitesmoke that are supposed to help you compose any type of document by correcting your grammar mistakes, suggesting alternative word choices and enriching your text. All of this is called "natural language processing technolgy". According to Whitesmoke a native English speaker would not be able to distinguish between a text written without the software and one that was edited by Whitesmoke.

What is your take on this?
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Yankee]

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Whitesmoke would probably have a field day with comma usage in "Alnglish". :wink:
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"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Lost_Soul]

I tried using this program to proofread what I wrote and to be honest, it's no great shakes.
Well, it warned me about the "look forward to" mistake but when I typed in "I enjoy to go there", it looked through it.
So, this program is not the be-all and end-all. :)

[Yankee]

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That's pretty much what I would expect from that sort of software. Some programs are better than others, of course. Even with the best programs, however, I would still expect a lot of human input to be necessary.
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"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Lost_Soul]

So, it's no use trying to create (or "program") a substitute for you :lol:

PS: I think the problem becomes even more "acute", or insurmountable when it comes to languages such as Russian. In such languages it is possible (in some cases) to sidestep from the direct word order (subject + verb + order) and mix subject/verb/object as one wishes. For example, I love her = I her love = love her I = love I her (and the most natural option would be "I her love" )

[Torsten]

This is a message that appears on the Whitesmoke website: "Wichtiger – Die Lizenz wird an diese E-Mail-Adresse nur!" If they can't even translate such basic sentences they should simply stick to English.

TOEFL listening discussions: Why doesn't the young man want to assume the family business?

[Marrit]

oops, never heard about this kind of smoke :roll: So, off I go to google...

Just checked - tooooo expensive to buy without knowing how it REALLY works....Nice and easy idea though...

[Happytofita]

I have some experience with that software and with another one named StyleWriter ( http://www.stylewriter-usa.com/stylewriter.html ). I think WhiteSmoke is better. Both of them need the human touch, however. We cannot solely rely on those softwares because their possibility of making some appalling mistakes is 100% if not 1000%.

[Zeuslee]

I found StyleWriter to be better than whitesmoke though. Still, I totally agreed with Happytofita that both need the human touch to their software. Still waiting for a good proofreader though.