Probably getting buried but Hemmingway Editor. Highlights your writing in the areas you use passive voice, overly wordy etc. Huge help for learning/improving your technical writing!
I think the intent is very cute and your boyfriend sounds like a stand-up chap, but the delivery still feels kinda weird to me? Like, "Hi, this is Jane. She's a nuclear physicist. And also my mom."
Not that what he said was odd, but it's almost as if it's violating the order of adjectives, like "my blue square big handbag" instead of "my big square blue handbag".
I highly recommend it for checking grammar. I'm a copywriter, I do ~10 articles every day and I use Ginger. Note that it isn't a text editor, you can't save anything you write in it. You can either copy and paste text in or, do what I do, work a paragraph at a time and then move each one into your document when you know it's right. The extra time it takes is less than the time you will save not having to correct basic grammar :)
Not a copywriting rockstar myself, but I'm using an app that helps you to write more concise sentences.
It's free, so just copy your text in there and you are good to go http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
> only seems to exasperate that
I agree with your message wholesale, but I think you meant exacerbate.
Moral:
> concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles
Morale:
> a state of individual psychological well-being based upon a sense of confidence and usefulness and purpose
http://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/moral-morale
so basically he's saying: fuck right and wrong, as long as I'm having fun it's ok.
Well, why do we say six rolls of film and not six films? English has counters.
Edit: I'm not a linguist. Since posting this I've realized there's a difference between measure counters and classifiers. English doesn't really have many classifiers in that sense [head of cattle] but we do have a lot of measuring ones [cups of water, blades of grass].
There are many aspects of languages that just... are. It's like asking german speakers why the second verb in a sentence goes at the end, or why their grammatical ordering is Motion -> Time -> Place. (I think, it's been a while). Or asking English speakers why we have a specific adjective type order.
Here are some suggestions:
Leave it alone for a while in order to help you see it with fresh eyes.
Read it out loud so that you have a better sense of how the sentences flow. Certainly edit anything that makes you stumble as you read it aloud. This should also help you hear the rhythm of your work: watch out for all your sentences being of similar length, for example.
Catch typos, doubled-up words, etc., by reading each line backwards.
Use software or online tools like this one to highlight excessive use of adverbs, convoluted sentences, passive voice, etc. Obviously don't change anything blindly just because some software told you to, but it can be a useful way to get a different perspective on your text.
Get feedback on it from trusted readers. Ask them to highlight any sections where the meaning was unclear or the sentences didn't flow well.
Expect the length to shrink, on average, as you successively omit needless words.
> Quantity or number; Quality or opinion; Size; Age; Shape; Color; Proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin, or material); Purpose or qualifier
So, for example, "one good little red Australian menstruation crustacean".
Use "too" for anything that is 'extra' or 'added on.' For instance: There was too much water in the boat. John and I went swimming, and Joe came too.
Use "to" for pretty much everything else. For instance: John and I went to the park.
Adjective order. I don't bring it up because it's difficult to learn, per se. Rather, it's surprising for natives that it needs to be learnt in the first place, as they handle it entirely subconsciously.
'The big red dog' rather than 'the red big dog', for example. The latter just sounds 'wrong' to natives, despite never being explicitly taught why. In English, adjectival order is as follows:
Because there is an order to adjectives to the order of quantity, quality, size, age, shape, color, Proper adjective, and finally purpose, or qualifier. So one would say the two great big old tall black African Americans. Because African, big, tall, old, black, great, two men sounds weird.
Source: http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/
Edit: Actually both of these are under size, but theres probably even more structure lying underneath.
Edit 2: thank you u/mason11987. Thin is indeed shape so OP is correct. The first edit is invalid.
I use the Hemingway App to de-complexify my academic writing. My work is in the top 1% of my cohort.
Orwell also has some great things to say on the subject. His six rules are :
The only downside is now when I'm reading other people's academic papers I have to work harder to stop thinking "you talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded"
For now, you are still good. But in a few generations it might permanently change because spell check wont find that mistake.
Perfect. I am using LanguageTool in Chrome on my PC, and it finds a lot of issues with my sentences. Having this in my phone would be nice. I hope it gets support for German soon.
Great question. I’d love to hear what other people have done.
For me, reading a lot has helped grow my writing skills. I also make a conscious effort to improve.
There’s an app that has helped me rework a lot of my messaging:
The web app is free and easy to use. At the very least, you can use it as a copy editor.
>"Later went on" vs. "Went on" to win an oscar- Went on. More concise and establishes the same thing.
https://ludwig.guru/s/later+went+on+to+win
Although it may not be as concise, I think that "later went on to win" is the correct term to use and makes sense in context of winning an Oscar Award.
Only advice I'd give is use occasionally, such as every 3rd chapter. I got bogged down in my first draft trying to cut all the repetitive phrases as I went along.
But a great program no less. Words, phrases, cliches, redundancy, grammar, pronoun overuse... Loads.
Edit: And don't let it dictate either. It's an editor not the author.
For a writer, there isn't a more useful website I know than hemingwayapp. Just copy your text in. It identifies too-complicated sentences, use of justifiers and adverbs, passive voice, actual spelling/grammar errors, and even points out when you used a phrase with a simpler alternative.
Like I know this is a joke, but http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ actually really helped me with writing personal statements. It calls you on the flowery bullshit that we love to fill pages with and encourages you to write with active voice. I highly recommend it to anyone stuck in a rut.
I came to this post expecting to read an article about the damage to the River's ecosystem.
TIL: What the difference is between dyeing and dying.
I always assumed he is referring to Eden itself as "her" like a sailor calls a ship "her". The following calls it metaphorical gender, although I'm not sure this is a widely accepted term. https://www.antidote.info/en/blog/reports/metaphorical-gender-english-feminine-boats-masculine-tools-and-neuter-animals
I liked it. I thought the opening for the first paragraph was a little heavy-handed, the ideas behind the first half of of it could be compressed (as well as removing one or two uses of "mock"), but perhaps that was the intent. If so, carry on. I would also suggest breaking these paragraphs apart, but that is more of a style/readability issue to me. Also, I would advise running your story through ProWritingAid and Grammarly because I saw a few grammar things that could be cleaned up.
Overall, I think it was an atmospheric story that kept me reading. Good job.
Antidote est un excellent outil pour améliorer son français écrit! Non seulement il te permettra de corriger tes fautes, mais il inclut aussi une tonne de ressources, dont définition, synonyme, antonyme, champs lexical, orthographe, grammaire, syntaxe, ponctuation, etc. Les paramètres d'utilisateur te permettent en plus de choisir ton niveau de connaissance du français (ex: débutant, intermédiaire, expert). J'imagine que si tu choisis "débutant", beaucoup plus de conseils te seront offerts que si tu choisis "expert".
Cause there's actually a rule for it. Not sure if it's like an official rule or just something everyone naturally does.
Fyi it's quantity, quality, size, age, shape, color, proper adjective and purpose.
There is a site called hemingwayapp that you can upload your writing to have it find simpler synonyms, highlight confusingly long sentences, and remove unnecessary adverbs.
I ran this sentence through it and it told me to remove "confusingly" and even after that it was still "very hard to read."
My do kaudi
1. You have to start reading newspapers and magazines that has some standard. ToI is not a newspaper.
2. Visit /r/DepthHub and other "serious" subreddits and observe how sentences are framed.
3. Install focuswriter and write for 20 minutes everyday. Spend 10 minutes for editing it. Then go to http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ find out more
4. Opinion pages and editorial of The Hindu is much better than any other newspaper in India even if you don't subscribe to their ideology. Check out the Atlantic and salon as well. Also visit /r/bharat and /r/WritingPrompts . These sources will demonstrate how to give clarity to your abstract thoughts and to express them in clear and concise manner.
5. If you trust us randians, then you can post here weekly. Prepare your inbox :)
6. Constantly try to improve your vocabulary. Visit vocabulary.com and workout atleast one level of exercise everyday.
All the best!
Heh...I can sympathize, I've had that same feeling many times. A lot of this stuff was drilled into my head by MY editors after repeated mistakes.
In the spirit of being helpful, though, here's something you can try: http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
I haven't used it a ton myself, but it's pretty cool. Basically, you paste your text in and it will highlight bits that are overly complex, needlessly large words, etc. it's not perfect and it's no replacement for a real editor, but it can really help you simplify and clarify your writing so that more people can easily understand it
Sorry, but I don't think that's correct. The gerund phrase is the object of the sentence, but the gerund verb within the phrase can also have an object. In this case "coaching Team Secret at the Major" is the gerund phrase and object of the sentence, and "Team Secret at the Major" is the object in the gerund phrase.
All great advice!
I'd add on to the resume advice to proofread for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. If you aren't the best with these, ask a family member or friend to look it over who can help. It's good to have someone read it anyways because you might write something that doesn't make sense to a reader and they can catch that.
I like using the Hemingway App to see how I can improve the readability and grammar of writing.
Having a well-written, easy to read, and proofread resume goes a long way.
> "BCE before Christ estimated. CE christian era."
It looks like it's using LanguageTool in the background (which you can use without all the ads -- https://languagetool.org/), and it seems to do okay for spelling, but it's certainly not going to be all that helpful for grammar. For example, if you plug an excerpt from the following humorous poem (which is intentionally written with multiple major grammatical errors), it will not find any errors at all:
Зеленых трав ложится под ногами,
И сам к бумаге тянется рука.
И я шепчу дрожащие губами:
«Велик могучим русский языка!»
Bro, you gotta grammar check your writing, I'm having a real hard time following what you're saying. Use the Hemmingway App if you have to.
Your main argument is: "Politically motivated pressure" is completely different from "political motive." Therefore, politically motivated people might have changed the outcome of the investigation.
That's a level of conspiracy theory I'm not willing to go.
>Hemingway App makes your writing bold and clear.
>The app highlights long, complex sentences and common errors; if you see a yellow sentence, shorten or split it. If you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense and complicated that your readers will get lost trying to follow its meandering, splitting logic — try editing this sentence to remove the red.
>You can utilize a shorter word in place of a purple one. Mouse over it for hints.
>Adverbs are helpfully shown in blue. Get rid of them and pick verbs with force instead.
>Phrases in green have been marked to show passive voice.
>You can format your text with the toolbar.
>Paste in something you're working on and edit away. Or, click the Write button to compose something new.
Use Hemingway App http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ to help you judge how easy your writing is to read. It will point out long sentences, simpler ways of writing the same thing, incorrect grammar and things like that.
I agree with your initial reviewer that you have a “show don’t tell” issue. Your character descriptions in particular are very literal and info-dumpy. Could use more nuance.
You also use a lot of alternatives to “said” that feel forced. A good rule of thumb is to use said for about 60% of dialogue tags.
https://prowritingaid.com/Unusual-Dialogue-Tags
You also use names a bit excessively over pronouns. I’d mix it up more.
You also have a couple dialog tags with periods where there should be commas.
I think you start the story at the right point—very action-forward.
You also introduce a lot of characters very fast, though. I was a bit overwhelmed with information.
The coming out scene also seems very random and out of place.
To then go to the kingpin scene feels disjointed and confusing. Definitely threw me off. I’d stick with the main group for a while.
That said, I’m a little unsure about giving you this criticism after seeing your argument with the free reviewer. I’m not sure you’re really ready for criticism if you react so strongly to what you’ve received.
I think your premise is interesting and your dialogue is natural, but you’re never going to improve as a writer if you can’t learn from criticism and grow. I think the reviewer probably should have been more thorough, but I also agree with a lot of their critique.
When you asked for a review, were you really just interested in a positive review or were you open to the reader not liking the book?
I don't think that's true - if we think about it logically "going on to do something" implies it happened later, so saying "later went on to win" is like a double future, if that makes sense. Saying "later won" would be grammatically correct but I'm pretty sure "later went on to win" is redundant.
And if you want Ludwig, https://ludwig.guru/s/went+on+to+win
What he wrote sounds unnatural.
"What would happen if you dropped a 1x1x1 rubber cube off a building?"
Size comes before material. http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/
Thanks for the feedback, I was worried I was using too many comma's left and right. I'm using the https://languagetool.org/ plugin to correct most of my abhorrent spelling.
This was just the intro.
Work on chapter 1 has started. I really didn't expect this amount of endorphin levels from people reading a story I wrote.
Could always consider trying LanguageTool instead.
It's a free and open-source alternative to Grammarly and pretty good.
It's free, has no ads, code is visible on GitHub, has support for many languages, and if you're a non-profit you can get the plus/proprietary version or free too. No account is needed to give it a quick test on the websites homepage too.
It's meant as a help though. Your punctuation and spelling do need considerable work, no offense, and the bot only mentioned a single of your many mistakes. If you want your voice to be heard in a discussion and taken seriously, writing reasonably well, with correct spelling, punctuation and sentence structure, helps a lot.
I'm curious why you're frequently chaining sentences and half sentences after another with lots of periods. I've seen this "style" elsewhere (and in several different languages), but it never made any sense to me.
If you need a good spell check that works in your browser or as a standalone program, I can recommend this tool:
It'll detect most spelling and many grammar mistakes.
It IS possible to make it with javascript, although I think it will be a bit complicated. Maybe you want to make something like https://languagetool.org/? Although that project is in Java. Btw I wonder if you are possibly from Denmark because of the firm rules about comma.
I don't think the word essay means what you think it means, it's not even 300 words. And, according to http://www.hemingwayapp.com/, eminently readable, sitting at a nice grade 9 overall.
Even if the slang is costing me a bit, but you should really read up on things before decrying them as basic and telling others they are wrong.
Remaining ignorant is your right.
Being unchallenged when you show it, is not.
Curious what people think of this sort of tool: Work In Social Impact? This New Tool Will Make Your Writing More Persuasive:
> A new tool called Viooly is designed to analyze whatever you write with algorithms, and offer clear suggestions on how to edit for readability, warmth, and power. The startup compares itself to spell check–but instead of looking for spelling mistakes, it looks for flaws in persuasiveness.
> After you enter text–anything from a tweet to a full-length report–the software gives scores on reading ease (the average American reads at an 8th-grade level), verb tense (people connect more with verbs in the present tense), and concreteness (“wheat” is more relatable than “agriculture”).
> The tool analyzes seven other factors, highlights any problems it finds, and adjusts the score after you edit.
I don't mind the Hemingway editor which focuses on readability, but this seems to go further. e.g. it talks of detecting differences between talking about Syria and telling stories of Syrian individuals.
Do you think a tool of this variety is likely to improve communication, or merely to make communications even more propagandistic / polarized than they already are? (Although this might have the advantage of evening out things between individuals and groups able to afford more editors / speechwriters somewhat.)
I'll leave the Stoic insight to all the others, since I'm sure there are lots of other aspiring sages on /r/Stoicism. But I'm a writer, so I'll critique the straight-up writing.
I guess first I should ask, what translation of Marcus are you reading? Because this sounds like it was inspired by one of the not-good "Verily forsooth" versions. I mean, it's abundantly obvious that you spent some time with a thesaurus for this one. (That, or you're a biologist.) There's really no need for such a pretentious vocabulary; I'm sure you could find some simpler words. The sentence structure also seems like it's trying to sound wise. Maybe I'm just a jaded and hypercritical old man, but that one other famous reddit self-quote sprang to mind as I read this. I highly recommend the Hemingway Text Editor for self-editing of future projects.
On that note, I really do love the symbolism and the thought behind this piece. It's a new take on something that I already like to think about, and I'll be meditating on it later. Thank you for sharing, /u/AlbinoNeutrino! :)
How about the Hemingway App? (It's browser based.) http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
From the website: Hemingway highlights long, complex sentences and common errors; if you see a yellow highlight, shorten the sentence or split it. If you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense and complicated that your readers will get lost trying to follow its meandering, splitting logic — try editing this sentence to remove the red.
Adverbs are helpfully shown in blue. Get rid of them and pick verbs with force instead.
You can utilize a shorter word in place of a purple one. Mouse over it for hints.
Phrases in green have been marked to show passive voice.
Paste in something you're working on and edit away. Or, click the Write button to compose something new.
ProWritingAid has a nice sale, with the lifetime license 50% off: https://prowritingaid.com/en/App/Purchase And if Grammarly is your proofreading tool of choice, it also has a 55% off deal on its annual plan.
And another one, not strictly Black Friday, but you may find it useful if you're a dictionary lover like I am: the OED annual subscription is only $90 until the end of March 2019 (more info here: https://public.oed.com/help/ --> How to subscribe to the OED).
There is a much easier way for this and you can always use it yourself.
Your search term for this is called corpus. You can search any word in a corpus to see that word used in thousands of sentences.
Here is an example of a corpus website.
Also look for other corpuses. There are much better ones.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/compound-adjectives/ A compound adjective doesn't always need hyphens. The idea of hyphens in compound adjectives is to avoid ambiguity, but with something as abstract as poetry ambiguity is a good thing. It lets the reader use their imagination. This means any two words can be a compound. Also, a word can be an adjective and a verb at the same time. If you say a person is "sweating" it is also an adjective becuase sweat has a smell, a taste, texture and if you have the right mind set it also has color and temperature. Sweating becomes more than an action, but a quality.
I disagree. Emend and Amend mean very similar things. Emend is generally used in highly professional settings, like improving the text of a thesis, while amend is the more common form of "making it better".
Emended: see here
Three amigos. Now that's a movie I haven't seen in a while.
(Excuse me, not a native speaker, if I'm wrong on this please correct me, I'm just trying to learn.)
Does everyone on reddit use Shear instead of Sheer? Is it a thing?
Edit: nope, its not a thing Sheer vs Shear
I'm not the one who downvoted you, but if you have a source to back up your claim I'm all ears.
http://www.grammar.cl/rules/present-tense-vs-past-tense.gif
Edit: AFAIK, past participle applies mostly to "have", "haven't", "had", "hadn't", "has", "will have", "would have", etc instead of the forms of "do"
Edit2: There's also online grammar checkers such as https://www.nounplus.net/grammarcheck/ which will show the same correction, there's no need to be salty about being wrong, everyone makes mistakes...
Just as an FYI, if anyone needs a free, online grammar checker that checks at the highest level, https://www.slickwrite.com/#!home is great.
It does more than Grammarly's paid version and is on par with Word's grammar check with a PC and it's better than Word's grammar check on a Mac.
Slickwrite specifically tests for sentence type & length, even graphs the variety in your submissions.
For those interested in sentence length/type and their impact on your writing, here is an essay by Jauss on the subject in more detail
I don't want to offend you, but this is barely legible. Please for the sake of all of us and yourself find and use a spell-checking solution that works for you.
Every mobile OS should have some sort of spell-check you may have to activate first. On PC, I'd recommend Language Tool. It's by far the most capable software of its kind I've tried and is even good at correcting grammar and punctuation.
Yikes, glad you managed to squeeze it into the word limit! I understand why they set word limits, but sometimes it's just brutal and you feel like you have to squeeze all of the life out of your writing and all of the details out of the project to make it fit.
If I've got my final piece and it's more than 100 words over limit, I know I've got to cut content, once its under 100 I start nitpicking for phrasing, word choice, and things like splitting sentences into two so I can eliminate connector words. I usually put the paragraph or letter into http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ and remove all adverbs, rephrase passive voice sentences into shorter active voice sentences, and replace complex words with shorter, less descriptive words (when there's a character limit, if it's a word limit then I'll keep it interesting). I usually write funding applications in first person (I know not everyone does), so replacing the three-word org name with we/our also helps.
I read the first four or five pages of the first chapter, and found it difficult to keep going.
For me, the omniscient narrator that feels like he's addressing me is odd. Not good-odd or bad-odd; I'm still trying to figure out how to qualify it. As something I'm not used to, the style frequently took me out of the story. I may not be the type of audience you're going for, so this may not matter.
The use of parenthesis and single quotes also felt odd as a style choice, but could easily be something that's outside of my norm but within the norm for others. You occasionally switched to double quotes, and I'd recommend sticking with one or the other for consistency.
The first chapter started off with what felt like a history lesson. There are a lot of facts told of things, but I don't feel any connection to character or story that anchors such facts in my mind. Partly due to the info dumping, and partly due to the long paragraph length, I found myself regularly starting to skim and had to keep going back.
Several pages in, I don't have an idea for what the plot is, and nothing in particular hooked my curiosity to read more.
Here's a website I recommend: http://www.hemingwayapp.com/. Don't take everything it says as gospel, but it provides an interesting perspective on the complexity of writing. I put several of your paragraphs into that site and it agreed with a feeling of complexity that may have been part of my difficulty in focusing on your writing.
Don't necessarily edit your work to make that site happy. In putting my own writing there, I found things that I disagreed with and kept as is. It's just an interesting perspective to consider.
This shouldn't be a JPEG but a feature in Hemingway.
Anyway here's a table:
Inflated | → | Concise |
---|---|---|
along the lines of | → | like |
as a matter of fact | → | in fact |
at all times | → | always |
at the present time | → | now, currently |
at this point in time | → | now, currently |
because of the fact that | → | because |
by means of | → | by |
draw your attention | → | point out |
due to the fact that | → | because |
for the purpose of | → | for |
for the reason that | → | because |
have the ability to | → | be able to, can |
in light of the fact that | → | because |
in order to | → | to |
in regards to | → | on, about |
in spite of the fact that | → | although, though |
in the event that | → | if |
in the final analysis | → | finally |
in the nature of | → | like |
in the neighborhood of | → | about |
make decisions about | → | decide on |
on the occasion of | → | when |
on two separate occasions | → | twice |
the level of water rose | → | the water rose |
the majority of | → | most |
the people who are located in | → | the people in |
the pie that is included in | → | the pie in |
until such time as | → | until |
with reference to | → | of, on, for, about |
Ah, right. Changed it to the Drake Equation and fixed the caps thing (I can never remember, and I tend to default treat the section after a semicolon as a new sentence).
I totally agree I use too many commas, but damn, when I try and edit it down in Hemmingway, I feel like I'm pulling my own teeth in doing so.
For what its worth, affect and effect confuses me too. I use "affected" most of the time.
For the non-searchers and the interested: https://prowritingaid.com/grammar/1000196/Effected-vs-affected%E2%80%94what-is-the-difference
>Je dois avouer que le français est une langue extrêmement dur à apprendre.
Lifehack! Installe dans to navigateur une extension "Language Tools" ou "Grammarly". Ça ne corrige pas que l'orthographe, mais aussi la grammaire. Ça aide avec tous ces problèmes pas évidents de masculin/féminin etc.
Par exemple dans la phrase ci-dessus il propose "dure" au lieu de "dur".
Ça m'a énormément aidé quand j'apprenais l'anglais, et j'ai un ami Espagnol que ça a énormément aidé pour le Français (surtout au travail).
So, content aside, it's not exactly readable in its current state due to the formatting. Consider referencing dialogue rules and basic paragraph structuring, as well as punctuation.
https://prowritingaid.com/art/369/How-to-Write-Dialogue-in-a-Narrative-Paragraph.aspx
I think you make great points! Just want to let you know it’s save not safe. Just a consistent mixup I’ve seen in your (very good) discussion on here and wanted to let ya know!
https://prowritingaid.com/grammar/1000269/Save-vs-safe—what-is-the-difference good resource!
Nope, I’m correct. Perhaps you’re thinking of after
https://prowritingaid.com/grammar/1008093/Is-it-grammatically-correct-to-put-a-comma-before-and-
>If the word "and" is used to join two independent clauses, then there should be a comma before the "and" and never after it. You might want to include a comma after the "and", but this is never correct.
Either you got the rule confused, or you’re arguing for the sake of arguing cause you’re bored. Whichever, have a good one
I get the concept, and it makes sense that people who are improvising a movie would need a shared history. Scenes are probably going to be shot out of order, scenes will be shot without all the actors present, they'd need to have some kind of baseline so they don't contradict each other.
But this isn't something I've heard of in any improv context ever. This is probably something you'd find more information on in writing forums than improv forums. Like this, for example
There are more general storyboard you can find online by googling it. If you want a more specialised checklist I could make one for you for free, I got some free time. The checklist will depend on what kind of story you are writing, its length and content.
This is something I found online if you just want something to note your ideas out quickly. https://prowritingaid.com/art/453/How-to-Use-Trello-to-Storyboard-Your-Novel.aspx
There is actually structure to lists of adjectives. I was never taught it but I inherently know it's odd to say a red, big ball instead of a big, red ball.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/
It seems to be a big thing here. There are rules about when and how to pronounce "the" though I'm halfway through a bottle of whisky and I can't be arsed remembering them.
It basically boils down to one of those things that native speakers just "know" but non-native speakers have to learn. Kind of like word order of adjectives
I remember having a full-on argument with a parent about this very matter. For some reason, some song we used in the class had the incorrect "the" sound for the vowel sound. This mum was known as a bit of a pain in the arse and made a big deal about it. The two native speakers were looking at her like she was an alien and trying to convince her that in English, there are always exceptions, and also songs sometimes make grammar mistakes to make it sound better, but even then, she was probably right, but it wasn't a particularly important point.
Bitch was having none of it and proceeded to fucking complain for 30 minutes.
Was glad to leave that job behind.
I think that everyone on all sides should pay greater attention to how they actually use terms. Throughout your whole post, you have capitalized both Socialism and Capitalism. Usually a proper noun conveys the intent to use these terms as groups or ideologies, not as technical terms.
So for example, socialism (with a lowercase s) is a technical term with a very specific definition. Defined as a system of property relation (where that relation is social) and a system of distribution (where that distribution is determined socially).
Socialism (with an uppercase s) indicates a group or ideology that may or may not be in line with the technical definition. For example: Republicans indicate a specific group, with a specific agenda and platform. On the other hand, a republican is "(of a form of government, constitution, etc.) belonging to, or characteristic of a republic." You can be a Republican and support and pursue very un-republican things. You can also be republican while being a Democrat. As another example, even if the former Soviet Union called it self communist or socialist, they were only in name, and hence they were Communist, not communist. Was the Soviet Union a social arrangement characterized by the dissolution of the state and the obsolescence of money? No. Therefore it wasn't communist per the technical term. Are Scandinavian countries socialist? Do the works own the means of production? Not really. Therefore they aren't socialist per the technical term.
More specifically, we can have some Socialist movement or Socialist party that seeks to bring the world marginally closer to socialism. But it wont be technically socialist till, for instance, property relations are made social, the means of production are social, and distribution is social.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/order-of-adjectives/
For native English speakers it's mostly intuitive. For speakers of English as a second language, it's a nightmare.
Few beliefs. Not little.
Little refers to non-countable nouns, and is used with the singular form to indicate that something exists only in a small amount or to a slight degree. Few refers to countable nouns, and is used with the plural form to indicate not many persons or things.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/adjectives/few-vs-little/
You might have a preference for a certain order because of familiarity, but there's also an interesting pattern that native speakers tend to use. The Order of Adjectives tends to work even in unfamiliar phrases.
Which sounds better? A native speaker naturally would be more comfortable with the second.
I don't ever remember learning this in school, but I think that over time, it's been ingrained.
Run the piece through Slick Write and you can see what he's talking about.
As an example, of the first 1000 words there are 41 sentences, 17 of which are compound-complex. While paragraphs average 2 1/2 sentences, those sentences average 26 words.
Based on word frequency & rarity overall, the average grade comprehension level is 15, or college junior. Works written for wide-stream audience do best in 7th-8th grade capacity (which is most of us, tbh).
Probably more telling from a purely statistical analysis is the sentence deviation to length ratio, which is a rough score of variety in sentence & word type and length. The closer this number is to 1, the more ideal your composition. This piece scores a .54, which is like saying a D paper passes.
Data from Reddit API.
Top 5000 comments from top posts (Top 50 comments per post) for top the 100 user created subreddits.
Python script to download data.
https://languagetool.org for processing comment data for punctuation, grammar, and case errors.
HTML/CSS/JS to create chart.
Data is from June 20th, 2021.
Also consider adding in some images and graphic design to the doc, just to break up the text. For example, when you mention your app, include a picture!
I do still think you should try to shorten your text a little. You're using a lot of words but I think you could express the same ideas in shorter phrases. (This is something I struggle with too!) One thing that helps me is using a text editor like http://www.hemingwayapp.com/. It identifies where you're using long sentences, adverbs, and big words and suggests alternatives. Might help you cut down on your word count!
This is an amazing initiative and I wish you all the luck!
> Side note: IF YOU DON'T HAVE MICROSOFT WORD, AT LEAST USE OPEN OFFICE OR GOOGLE DOCS!
Hemingway is an excellent editor that includes structure help, as well as spellcheck.
You know you should go into writing? My only critique would be to make your writing more easily accessible and coherent. Instead of logically sound. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ is a good resource for this I copy pasted this comment into the app and it gave you a grade 13 and said to aim for grade 9. I highly enjoy your long comments whenever you make the effort, but something about the way you write makes it very hard to decipher. I would work on being more clear if I were you.
But no you definitely can write a philosophy book with your infinite amounts of knowledge on personal growth! It would benefit many than just a few on reddit who bother to read the comments.
I tend to spend my life in the future. Always obsessing, always trying to play God. But you are so right. I gotta feel alive in every moment. I look forward to sleeping a lot because it is an escape from the raw pain of being alive. I escape in any way I can. Being alive for me is painful and uncertain. But if only I let go like you said. And let life surprise me. It would be so much better!
I stumbled upon this gem of a tool on /r/writing.
I was searching to see if there was anything that could help me count adverbs, sentences in passive voice, sentence length, et cetera and did not know something like http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ existed. My god. I'm crying holy tears at this.
Edit: The thread I'm referring to is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/6frhe1/how_to_color_your_text_based_on_sentence_length/
Here's the link... I tried changing the blue "adverb" and green "passive voice" to achieve the same meaning as they are after (ie didn't just delete "helpfully"), and it keeps disliking my choices! I am kinda shocked, I always assumed I was naturally decent at this! Suggestions?!
Hello!
I did a bunch of commenting on the document, so I'll just touch on my general feeling here.
First and foremost, I think this has good potential. Your writing is pretty solid as a whole and you do quite well with jumping straight into the scene while avoiding info dumps. The prose flowed pretty well. I didn't have the urge to stop at any point, so I suppose that says quite a bit.
That said, there are a couple things you could improve on - always the case, isn't it?
You use way too many adverbs... I think I counted almost 35 in less than 2000 words. While I don't find adverbs to be the complete devil like some do, I still think that's excessive. Any time you use an adverb, look at what you just wrote. Was it necessary? Was there absolutely no better way to say it with a stronger verb? Sometimes there isn't (and I marked an example on the doc), but usually you can replace it with something better.
You have a bit of passive voice, but not so much that it's a problem. Again, this has its place when used sparingly, but I like to cut down on it as much as possible. If you have trouble seeing it, this website is a great tool for finding all the occurrences for you.
Lastly, watch out for those dialogue markers. It wasn't bad, but enough that I noticed. Nine times out of ten you should probably be using 'said'.
Anyway, as I said, I think you have some good potential here. There's nothing glaring wrong in your writing that can't be easily fixed, so keep at it and you'll be writing great stuff before you know it.
I recently had to write college application also. I used the Hemingway web app This helped me to see sentences that were too difficult to read, and restructure them in a way that was easier to read.
Overall I like it! What's the question or topic that you're writing about? I'm guessing it has something to do with your background or growing up?
The UI is minimal, but it's a PITA to use. Might as well just use notepad.
I feel like this is the perfect example of the different types of minimalism at play. I personally try to be minimalistic in reliance. Downloading this just makes me have one more piece of software to remember when I switch computers, or just for general use.
Mac/OSX is great for this type of minimalism, since everything is built in (Mail, Safari, Messages, iTunes, textedit, etc.).
My biggest problem with this software is that it's lack of practical use. It's a text editor that's bad at editing text. It's clumsy, hogs the screen, and has a crummy selection (uncustomizable) of backgrounds and songs. Meh. I'll just stick with notepad/textedit, my own wallpaper of choice, and put on some music in iTunes. Same exact thing, except I get a ton more features if I need them, and it doesn't hog up my entire screen if I don't want it to.
IMO, if you want a cool minimalistic editor, hemingway is a better choice. The UI is just as minimalistic, but it's a web app (no download), it highlights and corrects your writing (so it's cleaner prose), etc.
I'm sure some people will like this, and that's cool. But IMO, there's much better tools that are more minimalistic in a variety of ways that still allow flexibility if want/needed.
If that's all you need, find some beta readers. That's basically what they're there for. I use them for every release - they get a free book to read, I get feedback. Everybody wins.
Since they aren't actually editing, (altering/changing/marking text) it doesn't qualify as an "edit". It's just a readthrough.
Alternatively, the Hemingway app can help you nip a lot of those more functional oopsies.
Also, try a writing assistant like ProWritingAid to help with spelling and grammar. The plug-in is free, and you get limited use of the premium version for free as well. I couldn't live without it.
Even if it isn't technically the correct usage, it is still very common.
https://ludwig.guru/s/I+was+intrigued+that
Take a look there for examples of it being used in publications.
As a side note, I really suggest you evaluate how you interact with others. Nobody thinks you're funny or smart, you just sound like a dick. A lot of people, including myself, actively try to avoid people like you.
I use a combination of the free Grammarly (gotta paste chapter by chapter like people have recommended) and the paid version of ProwritingAid since they both catch different things. Also with the paid version of PWA you can load Word and Scrivener files directly into the editor program.
There’s also Editminion, but I haven’t used it as much.
Try prowritingaid.com
It has a free online version (but I think you have to register), and it does check for overused words in close proximity to each other. The online version underlines these words, and the google docs/word version will highlight them.
https://prowritingaid.com/art/343/How-to-use...-The-Overused-Words-Check.aspx
We have two sentences to consider:
1 uses "good memory" as a non-count noun phrase. So, we do not use the determiner "a." This could mean that he generally memorizes things well.
2 uses "good memory" as a count noun phrase, which is why we use the determiner "a." This could mean that he has a singularly good ability to memorize things, possibly for a particular context.
However, the difference in meaning here is so subtle that most people won't consider the two sentences to differ in meaning at all. Both sentences are correct, but I find that most people would use sentence 2. Use sentence 2.
I give you some evidence showing that 2 is the most common phrasing: good memory | English examples in context | Ludwig
First, equating basic comprehension of words to compactifying informal sentences is one of the dumbest hills to die on I've heard this week. If their response to my statement was to try and correct grammar then they already lost.
Second, "i have tired" is correct English. Next time at least Google the fucking sentence before trying to teach others. Read a fucking book.
http://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/beside-besides
Beside definition:
Besides definition:
Our little champ is getting awfully fussy! It might be nap time for you, slugger!
I hope you are joking.
It has to do with the context. "I advise you, as my client to do X" In saying that statement I just gave you advice.
In case it's too difficult to grasp: http://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/advice-advise
Hate to be that bot, but /u/CAPS_4_FUN actually did mean capital. The word capitol exclusively refers to governance buildings.
I think it's actually "once in a while." A while = a length of time. Awhile = a short period of time. "Sit down and stay awhile."
http://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/a%20while-awhile
As an American, I generally stick to the -ed forms of verbs, except for "dreamt," which I use quite often.
Interestingly, I had just been looking up the difference between "dreamt" and "dreamed." I found a website that said "dreamt" is the past tense of "dream" (in a literal sense, as in seeing images when you sleep), whereas "dreamed" is the past tense of "dream" (as in goals, hopes, desires, or ambitions--e.g. I dreamed of going to Hollywood).
Honestly at this point a 3rd party app that scans written works and searches against similarities through databases (we'll assume the more sensible cheaters are clever enough to substitute the odd word or so, or scramble a complex sentence into two simples even while keeping the bulk of a purloined submission), and just spits out "plague-quotients".
/u/craigerator has an app that is already a program that parses text for analysis, that might be retrofitted to an anti-plagiarism bot.
Think newsletters or publications would be interested, or is Hedges going to be held aghast as "the only guy who plagiarizes in the industry, ergo we must villify him for his amoral transgression"?
J'ai cherché dans la liste fournie par Hunspell sur mon système, qui je pense doit reprendre la liste de grammalecte
Agree with a lot of the comments in here. Grammar checkers are a great tool, but as any tool, it isn't perfect. All languages have a long list of grammar exceptions or complicated nuances, and automatic tools tend to have problems with the more obscure ones, such as some aspects of academic writing. I'm just starting in my field, and English isn't my native language, so I find a grammar tool invaluable. It doesn't save you from learning proper grammar, as you should know when the tool is wrong, because it will be wrong in some scenarios.
I personally find that Grammarly Premium is prohibitively expensive for me, and looking for alternatives I found LanguageTool (https://languagetool.org), it is an open source grammar checker with a cheaper hosted premium option and good extensions for browsers.
Najgorsze, że są do tego odpowiednie narzędzia, tylko z nich nie korzystają. Pomijając zwykłe sprawdzanie pisowni (Wordy czy przeglądarkowe), jest np. languagetool.org, który pomoże dopasować styl itp.
Trzeba tylko chcieć...