We all seen it, sat under or sentances as we happly type away sticking out like a finger in the eye. And the only info it gives the fragmented sentance. I know sometimes it signals a major rewright, but just how often do we need to take heed the warning of the zigzagged line in word? Speech excluded.
Frankly, I don't worship at the alter of MS Word. You might say that, were it not for the empirical evidence of its existence, I would be a Word Atheist. It regularly stumbles over the register of syntax I use in my work, giving me the green squiggle. I ignore it.
Ignore the Green Zigzags. Red zig zags I look for and I tend to add the words that are consistent like names of places or characters. About 90% of the time I ignore the zigzags. Rely on proof reading to refine your writing. Not a program that is intended for business. Computers cannot understand the difference between writing a story and writing a professional document
I'm smarter than Word. So are you. Get yourself a decent grammar and usage reference book and turn off Word's grammar checker. Then soar into the skies of literature, unfettered by squiggly green lines!
I stop and look at it and see if I agree. Sometimes I do. Oftentimes, I don't, and then I leave it as is. I decided a long time ago that my computer (including Microsoft software) works for me, not the other way around. In any event, I never waste more than a couple of minutes on it if I'm still on the first draft. I defer it until I'm in "review and editing" mode.
consider the squigglies to be suggestions by a moderately literate fourth grader. They may be correct, but always depend on your own knowledge of grammar. If your own command of grammar is shaky, you have a bigger problem than squigglies. You must master grammar. No one can do it for you. Don't expect Word to teach you.
Most people do not speak in proper sentences OR in full ones at that. MS Word had to accommodate people writing for all situations, not just story tellers.
It's the sad truth that people are so reliant on a spell-check just to properly pronounce moderately easy words into a full sentence. If people read more there wouldn't be such a huge amount of dependency on these spelling corrections.
I posted about this awhile ago, when I first came to the boards. I get the squiggles on the most inane things, such as once the term "tribal" was highlighted. The reason "racial bias/stereotype." Another one is any usage of the term "has been or had been" I get flagged for passive voice. Anyway, to answer your question, I ignore them 99% of the time. The only ones I look for are the red squiggles because my fingers move faster than my brain at times.
You do major rewrites because of those green zig-zag lines? Either you're not giving yourself enough credit and being too reliant on Word, or your grammar is really that bad and you should really brush up on it before you write anymore lol. The green lines don't mean a thing, and fragments are a legitimate device for storytelling - thus, green lines don't have to mean you're an amateur writer at all. When I see a green line, I re-read my sentence and figure out if that's really what I mean, and if yes, I ignore Word. Half the time my sentence isn't even wrong. One very obvious example - my MC is Will. So, I often have sentences that read: "Will went to the shop", for example. I'd get a green line every time. The only way to get rid of the green lines would be to change my MC's name lol and that'd just be stupid.
I use Open Office. It doesn't give me grammar suggestions, and I sure haven't missed them since I made the change.
I turn off the automatic spelling and grammar checking. It only slows you down and distracts you from getting what's in your head on to the page. When you finish writing the piece you can have the system check the document. This could also be done at the end of your session.
Thankfully no . But what i does is give me an uneasy feeling that hmmm perhaps they are on to something. It doesnt help that i'm fighting dyslexia so I'm second guessing myself a lot more and it dosent help. So the red line inparticular helps me so i began thinking that the green line might be as important. There is no red lines here on this computer so i apologise for the miss spellings and it taking me 4 rereads to make sure i make sense.
I think the squiggly lines on word processors should really be viewed as guidelines or even suggestions. Word can be wrong. Even when it might indicate that you're technically wrong, you should remember that you're the writer, and you can break the rules if appropriate. That said, sometimes even if the way you've written it is correct or the way you think you want it, the squiggly lines can indicate that there is an even better way. When it's not an obvious or easy tweak, view it as an opportunity to rethink, rephrase, and rewrite it into something even better.
