Glue Word Finder - Google Docs add-on

Searches text documents for sentences including a large percentage of 'glue' or 'filler' words.When writing prose, it is important for language to flow. If a sentence is grammatically difficult to interpret, it forces the reader to slow down and focus. This breaks the reader's immersion in the story and results in a bad user experience.

Many times, this confusion is due to a high percentage of 'glue words.' Glue words hold a sentence together and provide transitions between one idea and the next. Using too many glue words can make a sentence hard to read.

Glue words are words like 'that, the, and, is, are."

Example:

When she went outside, she saw the dog that was over by the shed and she went over to see if the dog would like to have some treats.

This sentence is 66% glue words. It could stand to be rewritten. Example:

She pocketed a handful of treats, and headed toward the dog waiting beside the shed.

This sentence is only 40% glue words, and is much easier to read.

This plug-in will evaluate a block of text and search for words with a high percentage of glue words. These sentences will be highlighted in yellow so that they can be inspected later.