We are delighted to announce the arrival of Drivel Defence from the Plain English Campaign. This is a software tool that can be used online to check your text for difficult English before including it in your web site. We’re looking forward to using it in the NCS College’s resources. It should be helpful to our students, particularly those who have English as a second language.Â
So how well does it perform? I loaded the first paragraph from this post into it and scored well for clarity. The only change recommended was that the second last sentence should be rewritten as “We’re looking send to using it in the NCS College’s resources.” Oh, well, back to the drawing board, guys. For now I’d recommend not ticking the box marked “possible alternative words (from PEC A to Z).” It does very well in identifying good sentences, though.
