The miracles of word processing allow whole sentences, paragraphs, or even pages to be moved with the stroke of one key. Single-keystroke entry frees students from the drudgery of retyping the whole paper because of revisions and editing changes. Using the computer for word processing, as a sophisticated electronic typewriter that performs marvelous feats, is not the only profitable use of a computer, however. Programs now exist that talk back to the user, acting as an audience, providing feedback on the writer's prose. This audience, though an imperfect or, perhaps better, an incomplete one, provides valuable feedback to students and also provides a vehicle for emphasizing the dangers of uncritically accepting readability information from computerized text programs as measurements of comprehensibility.
Several programs provide feedback to writers.
The programs I am mostly interested in analyze text for certain stylistic features, those incorporating some type of readability formula as a basis for analyzing and providing feedback. I am interested in this type of analysis for two reasons. First, such programs do provide valuable, though limited, feedback. I would like to elaborate on these two points through example. First, some background information.