A technophobic rant (Score 1)

It seems to me that this is less indicative of the progress of technology than of the decadence of thought. The difficulty of writing a genuinely correct grammar -- much less a grammar checker -- taints any such product technically. The general theory that "grammar doesn't matter" is only a response to the incorrect grammars invented by pedants.

But content is worse. Anyone who has read college essays knows that most are hackneyed and even foolish -- it's not much better than reading Slashdot with a low threshhold. Whatever may be popular, there are right and wrong ideas; in literary analysis, for instance, one might rightly posit that "we can draw a conclusion" from a text, but it takes a much better argument to establish genuine authorial intent. But while this software might track the structure of trivial arguments, and though it might compare it to certain standards and external content, I cannot believe that it holds a high standard. Likely it punishes advanced thought and structure.

Unless I see otherwise, I shall hold that its use should keep students away, for they know by it that standards are low and that they're dumping their money away. But then, that's true of most schools.