WORD needs a 1st-3rd/3rd to 1st person conversion feature.

[Sbaldwin]

Fiction writers and journalists constantly switch from first person (I) to
third (he/she) while editing.
Search and replace doesn't help completely. It's pure mechanics and should
be automated - let the computer do this drudgery.
I hoped it would be added to WORD 2007 but it's not there. Is there an
add-on?

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[Fumei2 via OfficeKB.com]

The add-on is called an editor.

" It's pure mechanics"

Really? I would disagree. It calls for writing ability and skill. It is
not mechanical at all. HOW would a computer be able to do it? A computer
does not - ever - read anything as actual text, as context. Yes, a human can
write some pretty sophisticated programming to do things, but the context is
always what the human decides to make the algorithm DO.

Come up with a proper algorithm, and you can make your own add-in.

How would a computer determine THIS "I" should be switched to a...hmmmmm,
should that be "he", or "she"???????? But THIS "I" should not be switched????
What would be the rules? Programming follows rules.

Actually, it is an interesting challege. Post specific and totally explicit
rules that cover every single possibility, and I am pretty sure there are
people here who could write the actual code.

 

[Jonathan West]

Fiction writers and journalists constantly switch from first person (I) to
third (he/she) while editing.
Search and replace doesn't help completely. It's pure mechanics and should
be automated - let the computer do this drudgery.
I hoped it would be added to WORD 2007 but it's not there. Is there an
add-on?

I agree with Fumei, this is a substantial bit of work, because there are so
many irregular verbs. Also, context is everything. For instance, when
converting from third person to first, should you change "He shook his hand"
to "he shook my hand", or "I shook his hand" or "I shook my hand"?

Even simpler changes using automatic find/replace can be dangerous. I once
heard of a novelist who had written most of a novel when he decided that he
didn't like the name "David" for the main protagonist, and did a global
find/replace to change the name.

His editor later found and fixed a passing reference in the book to
"Michelangelo's Ralph".

 

[ker_01]

I recall a co-worker who created a custom toolbar to create scripts for video
shoots. He had a different toolbar for each character; each time a writer
clicked on a button, it inserted the appropriate character name, formatting
(text color, indentation, opening quote, etc). There were also buttons that
would insert a text area for video direction ("Karl walks in holding an
umbrella", "pan wide from Chris to Karl", "a loud thud occurs offscreen",
etc.) and other types of info. You could use a similar approach to clearly
distinguish between 1st and 3rd person "sections"

I'm not clear on what exactly you are trying to automate, but I'd assume you
are looking to find inappropriate case in different sections of text. If you
as the writer set up some clear difference between areas that should be first
vs third person (see first paragraph) then I think you could write code to at
least search for *potentially* inappropriate cases, but you would still have
to then look at each search result. For example, in a text block marked as
first person, you might have a character say "I knew he was lying" and your
code could flag the "he" for review, but ignore the "I".

If you really wanted to get fancy you could have Word check your script as
you are typing, so if you were in a third-person block and typed the word "I"
then it could highlight the potential error real-time, but that is even more
code/hassle.

Finally, if you then want to create automatic replacement terms (in a third
person block of text replace "I" with "he") you'd have to write code for each
possible replacement for each- by text block type (first person, third
person, male vs female, etc). And that doesn't solve the larger issue of the
rest of your sentence syntax; changing "I didn't think so" to "He didn't
think so" is fine, but "Carol will give the car to Sharon and I to go
shopping" isn't easily readable when changed to "Carol will give the car to
Sharon and he to go shopping". (even if you use "him" instead of "he" in this
case, it still isn't the best way to phrase it)

So, can technology help? Sure.

Can it do the editing for you? Not without supervision, and it can't do the
level of syntax editing required, it can only highlight potential areas of
concern.

Is it worth spending the time to write code to do this, and follow rigorous
guidelines while writing to keep your different script sections separate so
that the code has a good starting point to work with? Only you can decide- it
depends on how much time you spend doing this type of editing on your own
work. Personally, I don't think it would be worth it, because the amount of
time it would take to program something I'd consider worth using would far
exceed the amount of time it would take me to just write purposefully and
then go back and do any necessary edits manually.

Best of luck if you do decide to pursue this!
Keith