Shakespeare posited that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Tell that to a student who is the unfortunate victim of spell check and substitutes the wrong word for one he has misspelled in a research paper, one that makes absolutely no sense given the surrounding context. Whoops. There went your credibility.
While incidents like these which are found in newspapers and on the internet make good fodder for late night comedians looking to fill time between the opening monologue and the first guest, they aren't so funny when they lower your grade.
This can be extremely frustrating for students who are trying to use different words to expand their vocabulary and improve their writing, but end up using words that don't mean quite what they intended.
Grammerly.com now has a simple program that will help you with this issue. Grammarly Words can help you find out the true meaning of the word you are trying to use. I know, for die hard book lovers, there is always the dictionary. (And believe me, I am one of *those* parents that still tell my children, "Well, look it up in the dictionary!") However, once you access Grammarly Words, you can bookmark it on your computer so that all you have to do is flip from one computer screen to another when you are composing and need to check a troublesome word. If you aren't sure of the spelling, it even completes the word for you and brings up a list of possible options. Now it just doesn't get much easier than that!
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