The Blog of Harald

Beware the spellchecker! From NewScan Daily for 17 March 2003:

bq. A study at the University of Pittsburgh reveals that the ubiquitous spellchecker software may be doing as much harm as good, when it comes to writing. In the study, 33 undergraduate students were asked to proofread a one-page business letter — half of them using Microsoft Word, with its spell- and grammar-checking features and the other half using only their brains. Without the software, students with higher SAT verbal scores made, on average, five errors, compared with 12.3 errors made by students with lower scores. However, using the software, the two groups made about the same number of errors — 16 vs. 17. Dennis Galletta, a professor of information systems at the Katz Business School, says people have come to rely on spellchecking software too completely. “It’s not a software problem, it’s a behavior problem.” (AP 14 Mar 2003)
“http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030314/D7POQ7R80.html”:http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030314/D7POQ7R80.html