Each time, I’ve written an article, the first thing I do afterwards, is to hit F2. This magic button will copy the text into WhiteSmoke, where I can check it for spelling, grammar, and style.
This is always my first check. Only after that will I send the article to my proofreader, or – if I’m in a hurry – submit it directly to an article directory.
As a non-native English speaker or writer, the WhiteSmoke step gives me a certainty about having done my best. I don’t want to do sloppy work, but I wouldn’t trust my word processor alone to check spelling and grammar. And style? That helps me improve my language.
Right after WhiteSmoke has made the first check of my text, I get an view over the number of errors it has found, and which kind they are. It also gives me a “grade”, for instance “8 out of 10 Good”. I’ve gone as far as “9 out of 10 Very Good”, but I still strive to reach 10 🙂
When I know where my errors are, it’s time to correct them, which I do like this:
I check the underlined words and phrases in the text field, and correct the ones that I agree with. Sometimes, I disagree. WhiteSmoke doesn’t know a word like “AdSense” for instance, so it will mark it as a spelling error.
When everything is corrected, I click “Apply”, and the revised text returns to my text editing programme.
That’s how easy it is to use WhiteSmoke.
If you’re serious about writing articles or other English material, I strongly recommend that you get WhiteSmoke. It’s well worth it! You can get it for Mac OS X and Windows.
Pretty cool…someone mentioned Whitesmoke to me before but I’ve yet to check it out. The writing review section that shows in your screen shot looks nice…I’ve been wanting to find something that display quick data like that about my articles.
So be honest…in early 2012 are you still using Whitesmoke?
Honestly? Yes.
When I’m writing for my favourite requester on iWriter, I always run the articles through WhiteSmoke, before I submit them.
When I write for our PLR Store, I run the articles through WhiteSmoke, before I send them to a professional proofreader.
I tried Grammarly (got an affiliate link, if you want), but I wasn’t satisfied. It found too many false errors, I think, and then it took up a lot of time to go through them, and it changed the formatting of the text, so I had yellow markup on some of the words.
WhiteSmoke is not a perfect programme. It overlooks some errors and points out others as being errors, when they are not. And on a Mac, at least, you cannot add words to the dictionary.
But so far, it’s the best English grammar and spelling checker I’ve found. I like that it gives me a note, and that it gives advice on how to improve my writing.
I’ve never heard of Whitesmoke before until I read this!
Thanks for the post 🙂