The evolution of intelligent writing assistants: trends and future prospects

Abstract

Since Writer's Workbench (Bell Telephone Laboratories, early 1980's), software for writing assistance and style checking has evolved over the last decade (1984-94) to become more intelligent and interactive. During this period the author has been involved in the development of several software packages and has monitored the growth and sophistication of software solutions. Today certain characteristics have become standard; yet challenges remain. The author discusses trends and suggests areas where we might expect continued future development. Today writers have a variety of useful but limited style and grammar checkers available for most computer systems. Some even come bundled with the current generation of enhanced word processors and are used by many writers. Another approach to writing assistance is suggested by online interactive group writing systems like MediaLink. Possibilities for combining the best features of current systems exist, but further improvements in the quality of the knowledge offered by automated writing assistants will depend on research advances in other areas of natural language processing. The author examines some of these problem areas and suggests approaches from ongoing NLP research that we can expect the writing assistants and style checkers of the future to include among their resources.<>