Image courtesy of Matt Lee of Unsplash, cropped by Erin Penn
Never substitute human eyes for mechanical help.
Not that the mechanical help isn’t helpful, because it is. I use two different editing programs as part of my editing process. But I use them very, very carefully. They cut out a lot of easy stuff, allowing me (when I am editing) and my human editor (when I am writing) to concentrate on fixing the real issues.
But mechanical suggestions are just that, suggestions. Just don’t take them as gospel.
Example:
He nodded and patted his horse’s neck in an affectionate way.
Machine recommend changing “in an affectionate way” to “affectionately” – true, normally this would get rid of extra words and help clarity, but for verbal nuances, this changes the sentence to something a little creepy.