WARNING
Spell-check may cause stupidity

Yesterday, I stumbled on the blog of Steve Cody and an entry he made decrying spell-check.

It made me recall a study a few years back by the University of Pittsburgh’s Dennis Galletta, Professor of Business Administration, which showed that spell-check can actually make your writing worse.

In the study, 33 undergraduate students were asked to proofread a one-page business letter. Half of them proofed the letter without software, students with higher SAT verbal scores made, on average, five errors, compared with 12.3 errors for students with lower scores.

The other half used spelling and grammer software. Students with higher verbal scores averaged 16 errors, compared with 17 errors for students with lower scores.

Talk about leveling the educational playing field for the worse.

If you would like to read more about the study and hear Microsoft's response, do it here.