Dear Professor Chester,
We came across one of your blog postings about our proofreading software ErrNET. You noted that ErrNET marks contractions as errors and that this is a problem for fiction writers, and we agree with you. ErrNET marks contractions, colloquial words and phrases as errors because it was originally developed for a large scientific publisher that uses a specific (formal) writing style. However, we are in the process of reducing the stringency of ErrNET, including removing all contractions, to allow for more stylistic freedom. Although other fiction writers and editors that use ErrNET have brought this to our attention, they find that ErrNET is useful in detecting technical errors (grammar, spelling, and punctuation) that were overlooked. This is especially true for large documents.
As ErrNET becomes more mainstream, we are modifying it to mark only objective errors and be non-intrusive to writing style. We welcome your comments and suggestions and would be happy to set up a free trial for you if you would like to check one of your manuscripts. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tom Perrin
ErrNET Team