Nowadays, every important text is written with the help of a word processor. Amongst the standard support on offer is a spelling checker, which can be used either to remove typing errors or to correct spelling mistakes and inconsistencies in the spelling. But it is important to remember that spelling checkers do only a part of your work as far as spelling correction is concerned. The best way to use them is as a first rough correction device. Afterwards you still need to go through the text by hand, because there will often be mistakes that your spelling checker has been unable to detect. A simple example is the form to when what you wanted to write was too. In other words, there is enough reason for advanced students and professional users of English to have a clear idea of what the major spelling problem areas are, particularly where there are options available and where Dutch usage and English usage differ.
     This set of guidelines identifies these areas and gives clear advice on each problem. In identifying the problem areas we have again relied on our collection of essays to determine what actually goes wrong in practice. You will also notice that we have adopted a broad definition of spelling to include problems relating to suffix options, hyphenation and punctuation at word level.