Important Note: Effective May 1, 2010, ASFE's Dr. English is no longer available.  ASFE is no longer updating or supporting ASFE's Dr. English.  These pages have been left for the benefit of existing users, who may continue using ASFE's Dr. English and request renewal licenses as long it still works.

 
FAQs (Read first before downloading!)
Technical Requirements

Have your proposals and reports proofread by a Harvard English major who specializes in risk management for design and environmental professionals!

Developed by ASFE/The Geoprofessional Business Association and Bachner Communications, Inc., ASFE’s Dr. English is a plug-in for Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007. ASFE's Dr. English works like a spell-checker or grammar-checker. It scans documents for dangerous or otherwise questionable words and phrases that a spell-checker or grammar-checker typically won’t catch, including:

• “taboo words” like certify, ensure, and safety that, when used unwisely, can radically expand the scope of a design professional’s risks while negating the insurability of the additional exposures;
• absolute words that imply conditions that seldom actually exist, such as full, empty, all, and maximize;
• “obscure absolutes,” such as bald when used to describe someone who actually is affected by male-pattern baldness, circular when used to describe a driveway that’s far from being round, or more perfect when comparing something to a similar item that clearly is not perfect at all;
• “subjective modifiers” that blur communication more than clarify it, because they mean one thing to one person and something else to another person; e.g., hot, heavy, or tall;
• “useless subjective modifiers” that blur communication even more; e.g., very hot, quite heavy, or rather tall;
• useless words, including (most of the time) different, currently, and either;
• clichés that tend to make all who use them sound the same (more or less the definition of a commodity), with Enclosed please find and If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call leading the list;
• “archaisms” that might as well be accompanied by “thou” and “wishest,” typified by amongst and in lieu of;
• “overstuffisms” applied to make writing sound “formal” (whatever that’s supposed to mean), with in regard to, with respect to, in reference to, respecting, and concerning, among others, being favored over the humble about; and
• “accidental words” that usually wind up in professionals’ documents only because they are typos; e.g., hen, hat, heir, and mater.