Using A Spell-Checker :

Writing with modern word-processors has changed the game of spelling somewhat, but not entirely. Spell-checkers are capable of discovering misspelled words for us — sometimes even as we write them — and most of them will suggest alternative spellings. Very good spell-checkers are even capable of asking whether we've confused a correctly spelled word with another word (e.g., we've used the word "they're," but do we really mean "their"?). Studies show, however, that papers written with the help of a spell-checker are only slightly better than papers written without a word-processor. The reason seems to be that a word-processor makes our text look so professional that we're apt to overlook misspelled words. Never blame a spell-checker for failing to catch a misspelled word in your paper. That is your responsibility! Perhaps the best we can say about spell-checkers is that they've taken away another excuse for bad spelling.

Using The Dictionary :

For online use, we recommend the Merriam-Webster's WWWebster Dictionary. For the purposes of checking your spelling, however, a small pocket dictionary will probably suffice. In fact, bookstores will often sell dictionaries that have nothing but spelling, and those can be very efficient, indeed, for this purpose. Small but powerful (and rather expensive) digital dictionaries are also available, and if they make looking up words more fun and if you have the money lying around to buy one, they can be a good investment. The important thing about owning any kind of dictionary, though, is that you must have it immediately at hand when you are writing. Putting the dictionary on a shelf in the den when you do your writing at the kitchen table doesn't do much good.

Using Mnemonics :

Mnemonics (Now there's a toughie to spell! It's pronounced as if that initial m didn't exist.) are little memory devices you can use to remember how to spell words. Geography students will remember that George Eliot's Old Grandfather Rode A Pig Home Yesterday. Some mnemonics seem more difficult to remember than the spelling they're supposed to serve. Mindy McAdams remembers the three e's in cemetery as three tombstones in a row. When you think of stationery, think of the e in envelope. Does it help to think of the r in separate as separating two like letters?

Writers who grow up in England, Canada, the Barbados, or any place where spelling habits conform to British preferences will be perplexed when the word colour comes back from an American instructor with a slash mark through the u. When Noah Webster started putting his dictionary together, he thought it would be a good idea to simplify some English spelling and that -our was one ending he thought we Americans could do without. Standard American spelling, ever since then, has been sometimes different from British, and it extends to other words as well. A good dictionary, even a good American dictionary, should account for these differences. Instructors should also be equipped to account for them, if not to allow for them.

American Spelling	British Spelling
canceled	cancelled
center	centre
check	cheque
color	colour
criticize	criticise
gray	grey
humor	humour
judgment	judgement
labor	labour
license	licence
realize	realise
theater	theatre
tire	tyre
valor	valour