The Inspection Prism
The one hundred or so filters of the Inspection prism dissect the basic elements of your text, allowing you to examine it in depth.
Consider, for example, the distribution of participial modifiers (Syntactic function), e.g. The candidate supported by the majority is elected. Are there too many of them, or not enough? What is the distribution of verbs in terms of verbal mood (Conjugation)? Does the text conform to British or American spelling conventions, or both, and if so in what proportion (National Varieties)?
The inspection filters are primarily intended for educational purposes. Being able to see the category and syntactic function of all the words displayed in a complete text, for example, can help people understand these grammatical concepts.
National varieties
These filters highlight the words that use American English, British English (traditional or Oxford spelling), or Canadian English spelling.
Categories
These filters display all the words and expressions that belong to a particular word category (e.g. all proper nouns).
Phrases
These filters display the phrases that form the various syntactic constituents of the text (e.g. all noun phrases).
Syntactic functions
These filters display all the groups of words that function in a particular grammatical role (e.g. all subjects).
Conjugation
These filters display all verbs that are conjugated in a given mood or tense (e.g. all imperatives).
Search
Enter a word (or any sequence of characters) into the search box, and the Search filter will show you all its occurrences in the text. If the Inflections box is checked, it will display all the inflected forms of a word (open, opens, opened, opening, etc.).
- There are options that let you restrict the search to whole words (rather than parts of words), or words in the same case (e.g. uppercase); or you can search not only for the word itself, but include all its inflected forms (singular, plural, comparative, superlative), as well as all its conjugated forms.
Favourites
At the end of the prisms panel, there is a Favourites section that lets you save your favourite filters for quicker access. To add a filter to your favourites, click on the name of the filter in the prisms panel, using the right mouse button. In the context menu that appears, select Add to favourites. This option is also available in the Edit menu, or you can simply drag and drop the filter into Favourites.
To remove an item from the Favourites list, display it and then, using a right click, choose Remove from favourites in the context menu. This option is also available in the Edit menu, or you can simply drag and drop the filter into the trash.