PROSE(1) PROSE(1) NAME prose - describe style characteristics of text SYNOPSIS prose [ -flags ][ -ver ] [ -tm | -c | -t | -x standards-file ][ -mm | -ms ] [ -li | +li ][ -s ][ -f style-file | file ...] DESCRIPTION Prose describes the writing style of a document as deter- mined by style(1), but the output is in prose form. The output describes readability, word and sentence lengths, sentence structure and variation. The program checks that a document's scores on certain style variables fall within the average range for documents of a specified type. Whenever the score for a variable is out- side the average range, a warning message is printed with information about the variable, and commands that can be run to get further information. Prose creates a file called styl.tmp that contains the table produced by style. Prose compares a document with standards for one of several document types, according to the following flags: -tm Compare input text to good Bell Laboratories TM's. (This is the default.) -c Evaluate input text for craft suitability. -t Compare input text with good training documents. -x standards-file Compare input text with standards contained in user-specified standards-file. See mkstand(1) to set up the standards-file. Because prose runs deroff(1) before looking at the text, formatting header files should be included as part of the input. Options affecting deroff(1) are: -mm eliminate mm(1) macros, and associated text that is not part of sentences (e.g. headings), from the analysis. This is the default. -ms eliminate ms(1) macros, and associated text that PROSE(1) PROSE(1) is not part of sentences, from the analysis. The -ms flag overrides the default, -mm. -li eliminate list items, as defined by mm macros, from the analysis. This is the default. +li Include list items in the input text, in the anal- ysis. This flag should be used if the text con- tains lists of sentences, but not if the text con- tains many lists of non-sentences. Other options are: -s Produce a short (10 line) summary version of prose. -f style-file If a file containing the style table exists as output from the style program, or from a previous prose run, it may be specified so that prose need not run style again. Styl.tmp can be used as the style-file. The input text file should not be used with the -f flag. Two options give information about the program: -flags print the command synopsis line (see above) showing command flags and options, then exit. -ver print the Writer's Workbench version number of the command, then exit. Prose is one of the programs run under the wwb(1) command. EXAMPLES The command: prose -t +li filename will describe how the style characteristics of filename com- pare with standards for training documents. Lists will be included in the analysis. The style(1) table will be left in the file styl.tmp. Then the command: prose -x standards-file -f styl.tmp will use the style statistics already gathered for filename, and describe how they compare with the user-defined stan- dards contained in standards-file. FILES PROSE(1) PROSE(1) styl.tmp contains style table wwb/lib/prosedoc contains all standards used for compar- ison, and stored prose output text files SEE ALSO style(1), wwb(1), deroff(1), match(1), wwbstand(1), mkstand(1), worduse(1). SUPPORT COMPONENT NAME: Writer's Workbench APPROVAL AUTHORITY: Div 452 STATUS: Standard SUPPLIER: Dept 45271 USER INTERFACE: Stacey Keenan, Dept 45271, PY x3733 .}f SUPPORT LEVEL: Class B - unqualified support other than Div 452 .}f