Save time when writing—and help students when they’re learning to edit sentences—with the Belcher Diagnostic macro 2.0, a tool I coded to automate “The Belcher Diagnostic Test” from Wendy Laura Belcher’s renowned book, Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. Collaboratively updated for the 2nd edition, this macro, complete with a color key for MS Word highlighting offers a private, offline method to refine your writing. Particularly beneficial in the era of AI-based writing technologies like ChatGPT, which don’t offer privacy by default.
Previous Version
Here’s the 2017 macro and color key for the 1st edition of WYJATW.
Instructions
Learn to run the macro with my screencast below.
Note: To interpret the diagnostic results, access a copy of “Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks.”
Known minor bugs in the 2.0 macro:
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- Blue – For they/them/their the search does not match all word forms, so partially highlights
“they’re”and“there’s”but does not match “theirs” at all. - Orange (25% gray in Word) – Word does not consider “n’t” endings a form of “not,” so only the “n’t” ending of contractions are highlighted rather than the entire word (e.g.,
doesn't) - Sandwiched words (pink in Word) – If there’s punctuation in a sentence before the middle word of the sandwich, the first word of the three is not highlighted. For example, in the case of “however, a compound sentence” only “, a compound” would be highlighted (e.g.,
"however, a compound sentence"rather than the expected"however, a compound sentence").
- Blue – For they/them/their the search does not match all word forms, so partially highlights