5 Errors Spellcheck Won't Catch

"But, I ran spellcheck!" My students tell me, as they look in dismay at the red marks covering their papers. "How can there be so many mistakes?"

I hate to tell you this, boys and girls, but there is much more to proofreading your work than just letting Word give it a once-over. And yes, I know that since the advent of grammarcheck there are more errors being caught automatically. However, there are two excellent reasons to do a "manual" spellcheck. The first is that there are simply some errors that spellcheck and even grammarcheck don't catch. The other is that sometimes (more frequently than you may realize), both of these functions actually correct "errors" that were not really errors. If you use the automatic proofreaders and don't go over your writing afterwords, you could end up saying something you really didn't intend.

There are many ways to proofread, and many types of errors to look for, but there are five categories of frequently made errors that won't be caught by spellcheck, and will often escape grammarcheck as well. If you make sure to check for these varieties of error, your writing will sound more professional and intelligent, and be much easier to read and understand.

#1: Doubled Words

Oftentimes this mistake comes up when a writer was in the middle of a sentence and was interrupted or distracted. Doubled words are most often seen with small connector words, such as "and and" "the the" or "with with." Unfortunately, spellcheck won't catch these because the words are spelled correctly - just typed too many times. This error can be a prime signal to your reader that you didn't take the time to double check your writing. The easiest way to find doubled words is to read through your writing out loud. For some reason, although our brains are adept at skipping over our errors while reading silently, the added component of verbalizing the words allows us to catch more mistakes.

#2: Spaces, Capitalization, and Punctuation

This is an area where spellcheck often misses mistakes, and careful manual proofreading can save your writing piece from the dangers of being not only difficult to understand but downright embarrassing. Imagine this sentence, used for an advertisement, "Our pen is great for arthritis. It is easy on your hands and won't leak on you." Now remove the space between "pen" and "is." Pretty embarrassing when sent to your copy editor, right? And because the resulting word isn't misspelled, spellcheck won't find it. This example is somewhat childish, but this type of error happens often. The most common occurrence is with the word "she," when the word immediately before it can be pluralized by adding "s." Because the pluralized word is spelled correctly, and "he" is also a word, spellcheck and even grammarcheck will miss it.  It is even difficult for many people to catch by eye, because it is an error of only one letter, and people often read what they expect to see. To find these problems, try the above mentioned trick of reading out loud, or have someone else read through your writing. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes will find errors that you couldn't see.

Capitalization is also an issue that spellcheck can't help with. And although grammarcheck will catch it at the beginning of a sentence, it may miss it in other places. Whenever you use proper nouns (especially if they are also regular nouns, like "Smith"), make sure to double check that you have capitalized them. In addition, this is an important feature to check after running the Word checkers - did they correct something that was not, in fact, an error?

Punctuation falls under the category of "problems not caught by spellcheck or grammarcheck" for obvious reasons. The algorithms on which spellcheck and grammarcheck are based have no way of knowing what you intended to say for the majority of punctuation. Perhaps you put in a period when you meant to put in a question mark. This could make the sentence completely unintelligible. Reading out loud is an excellent fix for this problem, as English uses different inflection for sentences and questions.

#3: Too Many Commas

"Too many commas" was often the phrase scratched in red on the top of my papers when I got them back throughout my high school and college years. When I was initially taught the "correct" use of commas, I was told that you should, "put one in whenever you would naturally pause in speech." This phrase is all well and good if you are someone who speaks with few pauses. Apparently, however, the true "correct" use of commas is to put one in whenever you would pause and when the sentence does not make sense or takes on a different meaning without it. Again, the best way to check this is to read your work out loud, or to have a friend read it out loud to you. If their pauses seem unnatural or too frequent, revise your comma usage.

Here's an example of a sentence that can be simplified by removing a comma:

When she sang her favorite song, for everyone in the church, it was beautiful.
When she sang her favorite song for everyone in the church, it was beautiful.

The sentence still has flow and the meaning is preserved without breaking the rhythm.


#4: Overuse of (Parentheses)

Parentheses have many uses. Within normal writing, they are used to put in personal comments, afterthoughts, or for clarification. However, when used too often, parentheses can make your writing confusing, broken-up, and unprofessional. What can be done about this problem of overuse?

One way to avoid too many parenthetical statements is to exchange parentheses for commas. This is only possible in some cases, so be careful. Always reread the statement after you have swapped out the parentheses. Here is an example where the swap works:

Suzy Smith (a high school English teacher) is in her tenth year of teaching.

Suzy Smith, a high school English teacher, is in her tenth year of teaching.

And one where it does not:

Some people feel that low-fat versions taste the same (I disagree).

Some people feel that low-fat versions taste the same, I disagree.

For the second example, the swap out reduces flow and makes the sentence hard to read. To correct this, "but" or "however" can be added after the second comma, or the portion in parentheses can become a new sentence.

Another method for avoiding overuse of parentheses is to simply remove the parenthetical statement. This is almost always the best option when writing scientific or academic pieces. A professor once told me, on the subject of lab reports in a psychology class, "If you had to put it in parentheses, then you didn't need it to begin with!" This is generally true for this type of work. Always try reading your sentences without the part in parentheses to determine if it really adds to the work, or just makes it longer.

For more information on how and when to use parentheses, click here.

#5: Incorrect Use of Words

Lastly, the most common grammatical error in the English language can be summed up in one big word: homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently, as opposed to homonyms which are spelled exactly the same but have different pronunciations. The often used (and misused) homophones are extremely common words. They include "they're/their/there," "your/you're" and "it's/its." Less commonly, there are word pairs like "patience/patients." There is one very good reason to proofread for these words: the misuse of these words will almost inevitably lower the opinion of your reader, not only of your writing skill but also of your overall intelligence. It is a sad but true fact. Here are a few little tips to help in remembering which of these words to use:

1)Think about what the words actually mean. This is especially useful in the case of contractions, such as "they're" and "you're." For example, you might write the error of "I really liked you're new shoes," but you wouldn't write "I really liked you are new shoes." If you think about what the contraction actually stands for, you will be far less likely to misuse it.

2)Think about what words those words are related to or come from. In the case of "there" vs. "they're" vs. "their" you can think of the related word "here." Everyone knows that "here" refers to a place. When trying to decide if "their," "they're" or "there" refers to a place, look for the word that contains its related word, "here" - "there." If you then apply the above rule for thinking about what contractions stand for, you know that "they're" means "they are," leaving only one other homophone in that group: "their."

3)"Its" and "it's" are often tricky because they appear to disobey a rule - the possessive apostrophe, as in "Mike's" or "Sally's." We know that "Mike's" means "belonging to Mike," so shouldn't "it's" mean "belonging to it"? No, and for a good reason. When we want to say "belonging to him" we don't says "him's," nor "her's" - we write "his" and "hers." Pronouns therefore do not follow the usual possessive apostrophe rule, and do not use apostrophes in their possessive form. So, "its" is absolutely normal, a possessive pronoun without an apostrophe. "It's," on the other hand, is another contraction like "they're" and "you're." It stands for "it is."

Run It, Then Check It Again

Please don't misunderstand me. There are certainly times when spellcheck is very useful. I will even grudgingly admit that there are rare occasions when grammarcheck is helpful, too. However, they are not the end-all be-all of proofreading, and should never be relied upon by themselves as adequate for this purpose.

My general recommendation, no matter what the purpose of your writing, is to run spellcheck and then read through your paper again. In fact, if you are someone who wants to get better at spelling, proofread your work manually first, run spellcheck, and then manually proofread again. Over time you will pick up your common mistakes before the program does, and start making those mistakes less frequently. Another good way to help yourself with this is to turn off autocorrect. This function simply serves to perpetuate your common misspellings, meaning that when you have to write by hand you are very likely to make them.

Overall, looking for and correcting these five types of errors will greatly improve your writing. If you are turning papers in for a grade, I guarantee that your grades will go up if you start correcting for these problems. If you are submitting articles for publication, these fixes will make your writing more professional and easy to read, thus making it more likely that your piece will be accepted. No matter what the purpose of your writing, manually proofreading will improve the quality of your work.