CTI Textual Studies L a n g u a g e S t u d i e s

I am interested in style and grammar resources for English language studies.

Style/grammar resources

The ongoing ARIES project at Glasgow University has produced a demo version of 'Assisted Revision in English Style' software. The program is intended to help users to achieve competence in written style; it is intended for use on two levels, as it provides both exercises and information and is or will be made up of a number of modules concentrating on 'problem areas' of language use. See the web page at http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/STELLA/aries.htm or email aries@arts.gla.ac.uk for more information. It is possible to download a demo version suitable for the PC from the web page. This package is currently under development, so not all modules are yet available.

Stylewriter 'The Plain English Editor' offers a second option for the exploration of grammar and syntax; it works within a word-processor as a more sophisticated version of a grammar checker, by providing a split screen view of the original text, with errors or suggestions shown in the lower window. It will also provide statistics, guides to commonly used or unusual words, foreign words and so on. It was given a positive review on the 'Multimedia and New Technologies in Humanities' mailing list in March this year, but there is again the problem of price; it costs £91 for a single-user version. A web page is available at http://www.plc--waw.demon.co.uk/

For the Macintosh, Intellimation Library produce a collection of tools including 'Tools for Writers Academic', which presents a series of eleven lessons in grammar, style and organisation checking and which costs about $50 for a single user licence. It may be worth acquiring the Intellimation Catalogue which gives details of further writing skills packages and is available freely on request from Intellimation in the US (no email address unfortunately), tel. 001 805 968 2291 or fax 001 805 968 8899.

(SP)

HTML Author: Sarah Porter
Document created: 27 May 1997
Document last modified:

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