StyleWriter Reviews

The Daily Telegraph
by Richard Jones - Editor of the Good Software Guide

StyleWriter teaches the art of editing; how to run the editor's pen through inadequate writing; how to cut the waffle, how to turn a draft into clear and concise plain English. It persuades users to change their ingrained style. It persuades writers to produce prose that helps readers - effectively and briefly. And it is really very good.

The program works by analyzing writing for 35,000 known style and usage faults. To take two simple examples, it suggests altering "It was decided by the committee..." to "The committee decided..."; and "This pamphlet is intended to show..." to "This pamphlet shows...."

Blindingly obvious when you think about it. And it is what plain English is all about - clear, concise and effective writing. It also highlights complex words and suggests simpler alternatives, draws attention to abstract words, over-complex phrases, confused and misused words (a far more common problem than poor grammar) and the bare minimum of self-evident grammatical errors.

The results of using plain English are stunning. The UK Employment Department saved £250,000 a year in paper alone, merely by reducing the number of words used. StyleWriter may well be a surprise when you start to use it, mainly because its advice is so devastatingly sensible.

Poor writing is often the result of slipshod thinking or the muddled memory of unnecessary rules.

StyleWriter has the chance to break habits most writers are not aware they had. Anyone smug enough to think they have no writing problems should remember the old saying "Most writers only have two writing problems: first they don't know how to write; second they think they do!"

It is time to break these habits, either by joining the Plain English Campaign, or, on computers, using StyleWriter. It had a significant effect on me, and I know I knew it all. These people are talking my language, or indeed our language - English - clearly.

The Manual
Anne Bradbeer reviews a software package that should bring a touch of style to your work.

I first encountered StyleWriter tucked away unpretentiously at the back of a computer exhibition. It was competing for attention with a virtual reality game, free teddy bears, and a reconstruction of a Parisian cafe. At least you could tell what the StyleWriter stand was promoting. I liked it already.

The package comes from the UK-based company Editor Software. "StyleWriter is designed for people who do a lot of writing, but wouldn't necessarily consider themselves writers", according to the program designers. I'm sure it could benefit many people who do consider themselves writers!

As a manual writer myself, I believe that good software needs a good manual. When a product claims to help with writing style, its manual is doubly important. The StyleWriter (CD) manual is excellent. It is clear, to the point, and gives you every confidence in the claims of the software.

The Software

The package is easy to use; you certainly don't have to be a computer genius. It accepts text directly from the most popular word processing packages or through the clipboard. If you have a little computer experience its use is pretty intuitive, but the computerized manual and tutorial provide thorough backup.
StyleWriter has two kinds of online help. Predictably, one is about using the program. The other is like having the Chicago Manual of Style at your fingertips. For example, if you forget how to use the exclamation mark correctly, advice is available at the press of a key.

As it checks your text, StyleWriter looks for stylistic horrors such as long sentences and passive constructions. It also watches for sexist language, jargon and foreign terms amongst a host of other problems. It checks for up to 26 different categories of stylistic and proofreading pitfalls. The house style category lets you include your own organization's style rules for checking.

The Verdict

StyleWriter is undoubtedly useful for anyone who writes, not just technical authors. It takes the hard slog out of editing, and draws your attention to stylistic faults you probably didn't know you had. In an ideal world, every technical author would have a copy of it.

About.com
Melissa Alvarez - editor of About.com's Romance Fiction - would give StyleWriter ten stars if possible.

StyleWriter — the Plain English Editor is a software program that runs from within Microsoft Word, Word Perfect and other word processors. I've got to tell you that I LOVE this program. I've never seen anything else like it on the market and I believe that the developers have hit on a very good product.

StyleWriter goes through your document and highlights problem areas. This includes, repetitive words, grammar problems, cliches, passive voice and many other items. When you use StyleWriter you will find that your own writing improves because the more you use it the more you notice things you're doing wrong.

Another thing that I liked about StyleWriter is that it gives you an analysis of your work. This analysis includes the documents word count, average sentence length, the number of passive voice usages and best of all a number for style. Beside each of these numbers you also get a word to describe your work. For example, a style of 181 would be Dreadful and a style of 15 would be Excellent. Stylewriter also highlights words and phrases that might be unclear. The program points out the problem and it's up to the author to correct it. Within the program you can choose the types of problems that you want StyleWriter to look for. You can even set your own "House" style with this software. I really liked this option.

While StyleWriter doesn't rigidly hold you to any set style of writing by pointing out standard errors that an editor would catch it allows you to improve on your own.

The cost of StyleWriter is $149.99 USD (US Dollars) but if you consider that an editor would charge about $50.00 USD or more per hour to work on your writing, then StyleWriter pays for itself after just a few uses.

I highly recommend StyleWriter as an effective learning tool and as an excellent editing program for anyone who writes, regardless of what they write. If I could give this program ten stars I would.