Trying to be more confident, I used Paper Rater to get some suggestions on my writing. So I pasted my earlier post Why It Feels So Hard To Write In English? to this site and let it analyzes my writing.
The Get Report button brings me these up:
It checks the Plagiarism, says:
No sign of plagiarism was found. That's what we like to see!
then Spelling, says:
Possible spelling corrections are underlined in red within the text itself. Click on the underlined text to edit, replace, or ignore suggested changes.
In my post I wrote ‘Local language is used in our informal dearly-expressing feelings.’ and the phrase ‘dearly-expressing’ is underlined in red. Paper Rater suggests me to not hyphenate the phrase. It then becomes ‘…our informal dearly expressing feelings.’
and Grammar, says:
Possible grammar suggestions are underlined in green within the text. Select the underlined text to edit, replace, or ignore changes.
I wrote ‘…in non English speaking community.’ and ‘non English’ is underlined in green. I clicked on the green underlined phrase and got ‘Hyphen Required’.
The most fascinating thing that I got from this online service is that it brings me out the Word Choice suggestions. This is particularly important and useful for me since, you know, as a foreign English speaker my vocabularies are very limited and choosing the right word is the most difficult thing to do. Language has syntax rule. It tells us how words are supposed to be properly placed within a sentence. It has form. Words are to be placed in a certain form. Grammar talks on this. Foreign learner used to study the grammar of the language to be able to say simple sentence such as ‘I go…’ or ‘I write…’ putting the Predicate (verb) directly after the Subject (noun) with no ‘am’ or ‘was’ and not otherwise. But language also has meaning. It is meaning that language has to deliver. And it is semantic that deals with it. Word choice is about semantic and this is very much harder to master.
In my post I wrote ‘We are a nation of hundreds of tribes.’ and ‘tribes’ is underlined in blue. Paper Rater says It is a Bias Language. Even more, it explains the term, says:
Bias words and phrases may express gender, ethnic, or racial bias. These can turn people off. Bias-free language has the same meaning and treats people with respect.
Replace tribes with
- ethnic groups
I honestly still feel not as so comfortable as when I speak and write in my language after all these analyzing processes. But at least I got ‘someone’ I can consult to.
Please leave your comments.
