Correcting Spelling and Grammatical Errors


In the days of handwritten and typewritten documents, people might have tolerated a typographical or grammatical error or two because correcting such errors without creating a mess was difficult. Word processors like Word have built-in spelling and grammar checkers, so now documents that contain these types of errors are likely to reflect badly on their creators.

Tip

Although Word can help you eliminate misspellings and grammatical errors, its tools are not infallible. You should always read through your documents to catch the problems that the Word tools can't detect.


Word provides two tools to help you with the chore of eliminating spelling and grammar errors: the AutoCorrect and Spelling And Grammar features.

Have you noticed that Word automatically corrects some misspellings as you type them? This is the work of the AutoCorrect feature. AutoCorrect corrects commonly misspelled words, such as adn to and, so that you don't have to correct them yourself. AutoCorrect comes with a long list of frequently misspelled words and their correct spellings. If you frequently misspell a word that AutoCorrect doesn't change, you can add it to the list in the AutoCorrect dialog box.

If you deliberately mistype a word and don't want to accept the AutoCorrect change, you can reverse it by clicking the Undo button on the Quick Access Toolbar before you type anything else.

Although AutoCorrect ensures that your documents are free of common misspellings, it doesn't detect random typographical and grammatical errors. For those types of errors, you can turn to the Spelling And Grammar feature for help. You might have noticed that as you type, Word underlines potential spelling errors with red wavy underlines and grammatical errors with green wavy underlines. You can right-click an underlined word or phrase to display suggested corrections.

If you want to check the spelling or grammar of the entire document, it is easier to click the Spelling & Grammar button in the Proofing group on the Review tab than to deal with underlined words and phrases individually. Word then works its way through the document from the insertion point and displays the Spelling And Grammar dialog box if it encounters a potential error. If the error is a misspelling, the Spelling And Grammar dialog box suggests corrections; if the error is a breach of grammar, the Spelling And Grammar dialog box tells you which rule you have broken as well as suggesting corrections. The buttons available in the Spelling And Grammar dialog box are dynamic and change to those most appropriate for fixing the error. For example, for a grammatical error, you are given the opportunity to ignore the rule you have broken throughout the document.

In this exercise, you'll change an AutoCorrect setting and add a misspelled word to its list. You'll check the spelling in the document and add terms to the custom dictionary, and you'll find, review, and correct a grammatical error.

USE the 06_Spelling document. This practice file is located in the Chapter02 subfolder under SBS_Word2007.

OPEN the 06_Spelling document.


1.

Click at the end of the first paragraph in the letter, press , and then type in your reserch, followed by a period.

As soon as you type the period, AutoCorrect changes reserch to research.

2.

Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.

Microsoft Office Button

3.

In the left pane of the Word Options window, click Proofing, and then on the Proofing page, click AutoCorrect Options.

The AutoCorrect dialog box opens, displaying the AutoCorrect tab.

Notice the corrections that AutoCorrect will make. You can clear the check box of any item you don't want corrected. For example, if you don't want AutoCorrect to capitalize a lowercase letter or word that follows a period, clear the Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences check box.

4.

Click in the Replace box, and then type avalable.

Word scrolls the list below to show the entry that is closest to what you typed.

5.

Press the key to move the insertion point to the With box, and then type available.

6.

Click Add to add the entry to the correction list, and then click OK.

7.

Click OK to close the Word Options window.

8.

Press Ctrl+End to move to the end of the document, and then in the paragraph that begins Thank you for your interest, position the insertion point to the right of the period at the end of the third sentence.

9.

Press , and then type Shelly will not be avalable May 10-15 followed by a period.

The word avalable changes to available.

10.

Press to move to the top of the document, and then right-click sorces, the first word with a red wavy underline.

Word lists possible correct spellings for this word, as well as actions you might want to carry out.

11.

In the list, click sources.

Word removes the red wavy underline and inserts the correction.

12.

Press again, and then on the Review tab, in the Proofing group, click the Spelling & Grammar button.

The Spelling And Grammar dialog box opens, with the first word that Word does not recognize, commited, displayed in red in the Not In Dictionary box.

13.

With committed selected in the Suggestions box, click AutoCorrect.

Word adds the misspelling and the selected correction to the AutoCorrect list, so that the next time you type commited by mistake, the spelling will be corrected for you as you type. Word then flags Dyck as the next possible misspelling.

Troubleshooting

If the errors we mention don't appear to be in the practice file, click Options at the bottom of the Spelling And Grammar dialog box. Then in the Word Options window, under When Correcting Spelling And Grammar In Word, click Recheck Document, click Yes to reset the checkers, and then click OK.

14.

Click Ignore All.

Word will now skip over this and any other occurrences of this proper noun. It moves on to highlight the duplicate word for.

15.

Click Delete.

Word deletes the second for and then flags a possible grammatical error.

This grammatical error is identified as incorrect use of a comma. You need to read the sentence and then decide whether and how to correct it. In this case, the error is not related to the comma after venture but to the fact that there is no verb in the first half of the sentence.

Tip

Word's grammar checker helps identify phrases and clauses that do not follow traditional grammatical rules, but it is not always accurate. It is easy to get in the habit of ignoring green wavy underlines. However, it is wise to scrutinize them all to be sure that your documents don't contain any embarrassing mistakes.

16.

Behind the Spelling and Grammar dialog box, click the document, double-click the word An at the beginning of the sentence with the error, and then type The import business is an.

17.

Click the title bar of the Spelling and Grammar dialog box, and then click Resume.

Word flags Florian as a word that it doesn't recognize. Florian is a proper noun and is spelled correctly. By adding words like this one to the custom dictionary, you can prevent Word from continuing to flag them.

18.

Click Add to Dictionary.

Word displays a message, indicating that it has finished checking the spelling and grammar of the document.

19.

Click OK to close the message box.

CLOSE the 06_Spelling document without saving your changes.


Viewing Document Statistics

As you type, Word keeps track of the number of pages and words in your document, displaying this information at the left end of the status bar. To see the number of words in only part of the document, such as a few paragraphs, simply select that part. The status bar then displays the number of words in the selection, expressed as a fraction of the total, such as 250/800.

To see more statistics, you can open the Word Count dialog box by clicking the Word Count button in the Proofing group on the Review tab. In addition to the count of pages and words, the Word Count dialog box displays the number of characters, paragraphs, and lines. It also gives you the option of including or excluding words in text boxes, footnotes, and endnotes.




MicrosoftR Office Word 2007 Step by Step
MicrosoftВ® Office Word 2007 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
ISBN: 0735623023
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 129

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