The errors a spell checker can’t see
A document can be spelled perfectly and still look careless: “email” in one paragraph, “e-mail” in the next; “colour” beside “color”; curly quotes mixed with straight ones. Copy editors call this consistency, and it’s one of the main things they’re paid to fix.
The checker compares your text with itself and reports every place where competing forms appear:
- US vs UK spelling (about 2,000 word forms). Oxford spelling (British text with -ize endings) is recognised as a legitimate style.
- Word choices: toward/towards, OK/okay, among/amongst, learned/learnt, adviser/advisor, percent/per cent.
- Hyphenation: any compound written both hyphenated and closed (follow-up/followup, e-mail/email, co-operate/cooperate).
- Capitalisation of the same word in mid-sentence (Board/board, Internet/internet).
- Punctuation styles: straight vs curly quotes and apostrophes, dash styles, ellipsis styles, serial comma use, spaces after full stops.
- Numbers and time: 5% vs five percent, numerals vs words for one to nine, a.m. vs AM.
The table shows each inconsistency with how often each variant appears; the minority forms are highlighted in your text so you can bring them in line.
Worked example
Here is what the Consistency Checker returns for its built-in example. Click Try an example in the tool above to load it, then change it as you like.
We emailed the e-mail list about our colour scheme. The color palette uses the Internet standard, but the internet team disagreed. "Quotes" and “quotes” differ — so do dashes - see? It costs 5% or five percent. The follow-up and the followup are both scheduled. We bought apples, pears, and plums; then cats, dogs and birds.| Found | Type | Suggestion |
|---|---|---|
| “colour” | US/UK spelling | — |
| “internet” | Word choice | — |
| ““” | Quotes | — |
| “”” | Quotes | — |
| “ - ” | Dashes | — |
| “percent” | Numbers | — |
| “followup” | Hyphenation | — |
| “cats, dogs and ” | Serial comma | — |
Questions
What is a style consistency check?
A review that makes sure the same thing is written the same way throughout a document: spelling variety, hyphenation, capitalisation, punctuation and number formats.
Is mixing “email” and “e-mail” wrong?
Either is acceptable on its own; using both in the same document looks inconsistent. Most modern style guides prefer “email”.
Last reviewed · How Textkiln tools work