Between Teachers and Computers: Does Text-Checking Software Really Improve Student Writing?

puter, noting in particular how arbitrary and idiosyncratic most teachers' are. Besides, Sommers concludes, calm, reasonable language of the computer provided quite a contrast to the hostility and mean-spiritedness of most of the teachers' comments (171). If a computer can evaluate students' technique as well as most teachers-or better than most, as Sommers argues-then what is left for us teachers to do? More to the point, perhaps, can teachers and computers work together to improve student writing in the classroom and beyond? And what advantage, if any, do packages like Writer's Workshop and a host of similar programs have over traditional methods of reducing the incidence of distracting grammatical problems, encouraging stylistic effectiveness, and increasing overall writing quality? The answers may be found by examining what the architects of grammar and style checkers have designed their products to do and then determining how the programs really work in the classroom.