Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007 and 2010. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Checking for Sentences Beginning with Conjunctions.

Checking for Sentences Beginning with Conjunctions

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 17, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007 and 2010

The grammar checker included with Word is quite powerful when it comes to checking matters of style in your writing. One of the things you can have Word check for is whether any of your sentences begin with certain conjunctions, such as "and," "but," or "hopefully." If you want Word to flag sentences that begin this way, follow these steps:

Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
Click the Proofing option at the left side of the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Proofing options of the Word Options dialog box.

Click the Settings button. Word displays the Grammar Settings dialog box. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. The Grammar Settings dialog box.

Scroll through the options list until you find the Sentences Beginning with And, But, and Hopefully option. (It is in the Style section of the list.) Make sure it is checked.
Click on OK to close the Grammar Settings dialog box.
Click on OK to close the Word Options dialog box.

If you enable this grammar-checking option, Word will also flag sentences that use the word "plus" as a conjunction between independent clauses in a sentence.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7547) applies to Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Checking for Sentences Beginning with Conjunctions.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Changing How Word Presents Your Document

Tired of the old black-on-white text displayed by Word? Depending on your program version, you can configure Word to show ...

Discover More

Quickly Updating Values

If you need to update a bunch of values in a worksheet by a standard amount, you can use the Paste Special feature of ...

Discover More

Trimming Spaces from Strings

Need to get rid of extraneous spaces before or after the text in a string? VBA provides three different functions you can ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Leading Quote Mark Generates Grammar Error

One of the mostly helpful tools that Word includes is a grammar checker. Sometimes, however, the grammar checker might ...

Discover More

Changing How Word Flags Compound Words

It is not uncommon to add hyphens between words to help clarify the meaning of your prose. You might even add ...

Discover More

Disappearing Readability Statistics

Word provides some handy document analysis that can help improve your writing. One such tool is the readability ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 8 - 5?

2022-01-17 07:18:16

David Allen

Strangely, in Office 365, despite having a lot more proofing options, the particular check for a sentence beginning with a conjunction seems to have been removed.
And a good job too!

2016-02-11 12:43:23

Peter Kirkpatrick

That's a bit unfair, given that all Word features evolve through different versions and Wyatt has specifically stated at the head of this tip which versions it applies to.

2016-02-11 08:14:15

peter compo

Kind of misleading tip since this no longer works in Word 2016

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.