🚀 go-pugleaf

Has anyone received their complementary copy of Grammatik Mac via the 
contest yet?  How long does it take to get the thing?

Then again, I just read a review which dampened my enthusiasm of getting it.

Here's the review:

Computer Comment


                    United Press International
        Writing is difficult for many people, but a new writing aid for
Macintosh computers could make it downright impossible.
        Reference Software boasts its new Grammatik Mac writing-improvement
program ``will improve your writing in 30 days or your money back.''
        Spending 30 days with Grammatik Mac, however, could render users
incapable of writing the San Francisco software publisher to request the
promised refund.
        The program is a mishmash of bells and whistles that calls
attention to what it perceives as errors and suggests revisions. But the
errors it cites often are not errors, and the revisions it suggests are
sometimes inane or, worse erroneous.
        An excerpt from a basic reading primer -- the old story of Dick and
Jane and their dog Spot -- stumped Grammatik Mac. The program was tripped
up by the sentence: ``Dick and Jane play with Spot.''
        ``No verb found,'' Grammatik Mac protested. ``This may be an
incomplete sentence.''
        Wrong.
        In another test, it checked the sentence, ``The advice Grammatik
Mac gives is hard to accept.''
        The program flagged the word ``accept'' and advised:
        ```Accept' means to receive: `Please accept my offer.' `Except'
means to leave out: `Except the last provision of the contract.'''
        Beside the ``Replace With'' button it displayed the word
``effect.'' That is dead wrong.
        While the program was only suggesting that ``accept'' might be
wrong, it appeared to be recommending the incorrect word. That is not
the kind of help a writer unsure of grammar needs.
        The program had similar problems with ``affect'' and ``effect,''
and provided equally misleading advice.
        It also is inconsistent. It will detect a grammar error in a
document, and miss the same error in a copy of that document.
        Some errors it will not find at all. It detected nothing wrong with
this sentence: ``Programmers work in an office wear people talk strange
and where odd clothing.''
        Grammatik Mac features an array of eye-catching features -- like a
chart that compares the readability of your document to the Gettysburg
Address, a Hemingway short story and an insurance policy.
        It also allows users to customize the comparison chart by replacing
the readability statistics for one or more of the three standard
documents. You could, for example, substitute a first draft of something
you are writing for the insurance policy, then use the comparison
feature to track your progress.
        Or you could replace the Hemingway story statistics with your
company's model sales proposal and check your work against that
standard.
        Grammatik Mac provides readability statistics on the Flesch Reading
Ease scale, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level scale and Gunning's Fog
Index.
        It also provides statistics on the average length of paragraphs,
sentences and words -- in both letters and syllables -- and a plethora of
other trivia.
        But it fails to accomplish its primary tasks. Its grammar and
punctuation checkers are inconsistent, and its spelling checker is
cumbersome.
        As for style, when fed a passage from Shakespeare -- Portia's speech
from ``The Merchant of Venice'' about the quality of mercy -- Grammatik
Mac pronounced it choppy and suggested revision.
        Grammatik Mac also is plagued by bugs.
        Running under MultiFinder, icons in the Grammatik Mac folder would
frequently disappear when I quit the application. When I closed and
reopened the folder, they reappeared.
        The program also failed to recognize paragraphs -- an significant
shortcoming, since the number of sentences per paragraphs is one factor
used in assessing readability.
        Only once could I make it discern paragraphs -- and that was when I
used it to check the ``Read Me'' file in the Grammatik Mac folder.
        It failed in all other attempts, using documents in Macwrite and
Microsoft Word 4.0 formats as well as documents created with those word
processors and stored as plain text.
        The supplemental documentation cautions that Grammatik Mac may not
recognize paragraphs unless documents are stored using the ``Save As''
option. I tried using both the Save As and the quick Save options, and
in no case could I make the program recognize paragraphs.
        Strangely, paragraph marks appeared on the screen when documents
were checked in the program's fully interactive mode, but the document
statistics file consistently showed the documents as one long paragraph.
        Ironically, the program comes with an excellent book on writing by
veteran newspaper editor DeWitt H. Scott. Scott's book, ``Secrets of
Successful Writing,'' should be standard equipment for anyone who
writes.
        Grammatik Mac, on the other hand, should be avoided.
------
        Software: Grammatik Mac by Reference Software, 330 Townsend Street,
San Francisco, Calif., 94107; System requirements: Mac Plus or greater,
two 800k floppy drives or hard disk, System 5.0 or higher; Microsoft
Word, MacWrite, MacWrite II, WordPerfect; Write Now or word processor
capable of saving documents in text or RTF format; List price: $99.
Write protection: no; Reviewers evalutation (on scale of 1 to 5) 0 --
(program disks would be better used as coasters).
adv sun march 11 or thereafter


What a flame, eh?  What do other users feel about it?  Do you guys concur?

---Derek Fong
fong@cive.stanford.edu
thewho@portia.stanford.edu