Conclusion

As can be seen, it is maybe time consuming, but otherwise fairly easy to test a grammar checker. We have shown how it may be tested, relying partly on its own specifications, partly on the requirements of a specific user group.

To sum up, we have chosen the following strategy for testing a grammar checker:

• Establish quality characteristics on the basis of the functionality stated in the documentation of the grammar checker.
• Create a test suite corresponding to the quality characteristics and following the principles mentioned above under Method.
• Specify quality characteristics on the basis of a requirements analysis of a particular user group.
• Create a test suite corresponding to the user-specific quality characteristics and following the principles mentioned above under Method.
• Use the precison/recall measures.

We have seen that the framework model can easily be used for the evaluation of grammar checkers. It is possible to establish measurable quality characteristics corresponding to user requirements. The measures of precision and recall seem well suited for this type of evaluation.