Patent ID: 8019595

Claim:
A method of reducing writing problems in existing prose, the method comprising: scanning a sentence to determine whether a particular writing problem exists in the sentence, said scanning comprising determining if at least one sign is present, the sign indicating a possible occurrence or absence of the writing problem, the sign comprising the word “it”, wherein determining if at least one sign is present comprises searching for one or more of the following signs: “it” as part of a contraction, a “to be” verb within five words of “it”, “that” “who” or “which” following the “to be” verb, “not until”, a verb immediately followed by “n't until”, “that” between “until” and the end of the sentence, “that” appearing between commas, “that” appearing immediately after “that”; identifying a past tense verb within three words of the term “that”; and specifying a proposed edit, the proposed edit changing the sentence in a way that addresses the writing problem, the proposed edit comprising: an edit relating to converting the past tense verb to first person present tense and further relating to at least one of the following options: replacing “that” with a form of the verb “to do” to create a first provisional sentence; deleting the word “not” and the word “that” and inserting “did not” in front of the present tense verb to create a second provisional sentence; and an edit relating to moving all the words that follow “that” to a position immediately before the word “until”; said method performed by a computer system that comprises one or more computers.