A Discussion and Annotated Bibliography of Research on the Use of Style Checkers in the Computer-Assisted Writing Classroom
http://www.stc.org/ConfProceed/1993/PDFs/Pg450453.pdf

Moosally, Michelle J. and Roland D. Nerd
STC Proceedings
1993

Abstract:

Style checkers are software programs designed as writing tools. Despite their popularity in both academic and industrial settings, the effectiveness and advisability of using the technology is still unproven. A main issue is the ability of users to determine whether the program's suggestions are useful and to ignore inappropriate advice. Freshmen composition students, beginning technical writing students, and advanced technical writing students were asked to mark all suggestions made by RightWriter 4.0 as 'useful,' 'wrong,' or 'ignored.' Results show that all students ignored approximately 50% of the suggestions; however, freshman writers perceived a larger percentage of the suggestions that they ignored to be wrong rather than just not useful.