Gary Blake is director of
The Communication Workshop, a Port Washington, New York-based company that offers webinars and seminars in claims writing and many other claims topics. For more information, call (516) 767-9590 or visit
www.writingworkshop.com.
If you think that Microsoft Word’s Spelling and Grammar tool will alert you to poor punctuation and grammar with the same accuracy it alerts you to incorrect spelling, think again.
The subtle uses of inappropriate or nonexistent punctuation in sentences are flagged less than half the time. The same is true for flagging the most common grammar issues (e.g., subject-verb disagreement, noun-pronoun disagreement, and run-on sentences).
How do I prove this to claims professionals who often write 15-20 hours a week and who rely on Word to catch errors—punctuation and grammar as well as spelling—before a letter is sent to a customer? Practice, of course.
Here we have a sample that is a fictitious paragraph containing at least 10 common punctuation errors and grammatical mistakes.
How many errors do you think the Spelling and Grammar checker caught? 15? 10? 6?
Only two errors were identified. The program caught the subject-verb disagreement in the first line (but failed to suggest a comma after “directors” and “presidents”). It also caught another subject-verb disagreement in the second line. However, the Word Spelling and Grammar checker did not catch errors involving the comma, apostrophe, hyphen, semicolon, noun-pronoun disagreement, inappropriate pronouns, and run-on sentences.
Exercize
Type or cut and paste the paragraph into your own document program and run your spelling and grammar checking software. How many mistakes are brought to your attention? Better yet, edit the paragraph yourself and identify the corrections needed.
Most claims professionals know that it is smart not to rely mindlessly on technology but to continue to build their writing skills. It makes them look good and their company look good, and allows client files to have a high level of excellence if there ever is a time when litigation brings every comma, vague phrase, and misspelled word to light. Technology can be a dangerous thing. When it comes to writing, you still need to take responsibility for the words, sentences, and paragraphs in every letter you sign.
Claims directors as well as vice presidents feels that Spell Checker’s is
helpful; and therefore why spend money on claims writing training. Other
are halfhearted in their feelings, including college educated professionals.
A supervisor must make up their own mind about this. John, George and
me met to talk about this issue recently but we didn’t get anywhere. We
then went out to lunch we had pizza. At lunch we had a dull repetitive
meeting. Tom Smart, a man who still has first dollar was there. According
to Tom, “Adjusters should know how to write before they are hired. His
May 1, 2010, budget didn’t have a penny for writing training.
