Definite/indefinite articles?

T

the_orn

I tend to write with too much familiarity and the expectation that my reader
knows what I'm talking about before I've actually explained it! An easiest
indicator of this is that I often refer to a noun with a definite article
("the thing") before I've described what "a thing" even is. I can't be
informal about this because I'm writing legal documents that require a very
specific form.

So... I'd really like word to help me find the problem phrases. I'm using
Word 2007 under Windows 7, both fully updated.

Is there already a check built into the grammar check that will look at noun
phrases? I see the "noun phrases" check box in the grammar rules, but it's
not clear to me what it's really checking. And I specifically need help in
this one specific area... I have no doubt that I create nasty long noun
phrases, but have no desire to break them up since that's required by my
audience.

How about plug-ins? Are there plug-ins already that can help me?

I'm considering using "rentacoder.com" to write a plugin for this. Can
someone tell me if this idea is even possible in Word (or in any other tool
system): I'd like to have a tool highlight all my definite articled noun
phrases and attempt to find the indefinite articled noun phrases that they
stem from. The visual interface for this would get insanely complex very
quickly. So the thought would be that it would highlight the specific
indefinite articled phrase when I moused over the definite articled phrase.
It would also highlight (in another color) the phrases that it could not find
indefinite articled phrases for...

thanks for looking at this!

Rudy
 

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