doc: improve grammar, spelling, and punctuation

src/xdocs/beginning_development.xml

@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
 
     <section name="Starting Development">
       <p>
-        Here you can find instructions of importing and debugging the project for IDEs:<br/>
+        Here you can find instructions on importing and debugging the project for IDEs:<br/>
         <a href="eclipse.html">Eclipse IDE</a><br/>
         <a href="netbeans.html">NetBeans IDE</a><br/>
         <a href="idea.html">IntelliJ IDEA IDE</a><br/>

src/xdocs/config_system_properties.xml

@@ -28,18 +28,18 @@
     <section name="Enable External DTD load">
       <p>
         The property <code>checkstyle.enableExternalDtdLoad</code>
-        defines ability use custom DTD files in config and load them from some location.
+        defines the ability to use custom DTD files in config and load them from some location.
         The property type
         is <a href="property_types.html#boolean">boolean</a> and defaults
         to <code>false</code>. Disabled by default due to security concerns.
       </p>
       <subsection name="Examples" id="Enable_External_DTD_load_Examples">
         <p>
-          The following is an example of include xml files content in xml by ENTITY feature
-          to let keep common part of configs in single file and composite main config
-          by few smaller parts.
+          The following is an example of including the contents of other xml files by using the
+          ENTITY feature to keep common parts of configs in a single file and then creating
+          composite configs from smaller parts.
           <br/>
-          Imagine we want to define for test sources a bit different requirements
+          Imagine we want to define slightly different requirements for test sources
           than for main code.
         </p>
         <p>

src/xdocs/contributing.xml

@@ -55,20 +55,21 @@
     <section name="Report an issue">
 
       <p>
-        All functional changes in project should have registered issue and wide explanation in it.
-        Issue number has to be referenced in git commit message, see format below.
+        All functional changes in the project should have a registered issue and detailed
+        explanation in it. The Issue number has to be referenced in the git commit message,
+        see format below.
       </p>
 
       <p>
-        To report issue please follow our best practices page - <a href="report_issue.html">
+        To report an issue please follow our best practices page - <a href="report_issue.html">
         How to report an issue?</a> (<a href="report_issue.html#How_to_report_a_bug.3F">
         How to report a bug?</a>)
       </p>
     </section>
 
     <section name="Build">
       <p>
-        Project is following general maven layout and phases for build.
+        The project is following a general maven layout and phases for its build.
         Generated jars will be in folder <code>target</code>.
       </p>
 
@@ -87,8 +88,8 @@
     <section name="Quality matters">
 
       <p>
-        The developer team of checkstyle is really a lazy bunch of
-        people.  We try to avoid work as best as we can, but most of all
+        The developer team of checkstyle is a really lazy bunch of
+        people. We try to avoid work as best as we can, but most of all
         we try to avoid working on bugs that are reported by end users.
       </p>
 
@@ -107,7 +108,7 @@
         <br/>
         <code>mvn test jacoco:restore-instrumented-classes jacoco:report@default-report</code>.
         <br/>
-        Check results on report target/site/jacoco/index.html in project home folder.
+        Check the results on the report in target/site/jacoco/index.html in project home folder.
       </p>
 
       <p>
@@ -127,7 +128,7 @@
       </p>
 
       <p>
-        The last step of verification that all works fine please do testing of your
+        For the last step of verification, so that everything works fine, please do testing of your
         functionality on any open-source project (Spring, Hibernate, ....).
         Here is how to do it by
         <a href=

src/xdocs/index.xml.vm

@@ -72,10 +72,11 @@
     <section name="Previous Version Documentation">
       <p>
         Current site contains documentation only for latest, released version.
-        We only support this latest version. We highly recommend read latest documentation first.
+        We only support this latest version. We highly recommend reading the latest documentation
+        first.
         <br/>
         However, you might need documentation for previous releases because you are still using
-        an older version and latest version describe some features that does not work for you.
+        an older version and the latest version describes some features that don't work for you.
         <br/>
         You can find documentation for most old versions using a URL format like
         https://checkstyle.sourceforge.io/version/X.X where "X.X" is the version number.<br/>
@@ -99,15 +100,15 @@
       </ul>
 
       <p>
-        Checkstyle is following own view of
+        Checkstyle is following its own view of
           Hybrid Romantic and Semantic Versioning: This is in the form of
           "<b>First</b>.<b>Second</b>.<b>Third</b>"
       </p>
       <p>
         <b>First</b> digit is representing Romantic version.
            When it is the only number increasing, the maintainers marked it as
            a noticeably large breaking compatibility
-           or major conceptual change occurred from their perspective.<br/>
+           or major conceptual change which occurred from their perspective.<br/>
         <b>Second</b> digit is Semantic version which is a combination of major and minor.
            When it is the only number increasing, it means that
            either some breaking compatibility happened
@@ -117,7 +118,7 @@
       </p>
       <p>
         Checkstyle is not using <a href="https://semver.org/">Semantic Versioning</a>
-        due to reason that is explained at
+        due to the reason explained at
         <a href="https://github.com/checkstyle/checkstyle/issues/3709">issue #3709</a>.
       </p>
     </section>
@@ -167,10 +168,10 @@
         </table>
       </div>
       <p>
-        Checkstyle currently is confirmed to be build by all JDKs from 11 through 17.
+        Checkstyle currently is confirmed to be buildable by all JDKs from 11 through 17.
         Most recent JDKs may be supported. Please
         <a href="https://checkstyle.org/report_issue.html">report an issue</a>
-        if there is any problems with most recent JDKs.
+        if there are any problems with most recent JDKs.
       </p>
     </section>
 
@@ -229,7 +230,7 @@
 
     <section name="Additional Checks">
       <p>
-        There are other projects that provide additional checks
+        There are other projects that provide additional checks:
       </p>
       <div class="wrapper">
         <table>

src/xdocs/writingchecks.xml

@@ -540,7 +540,7 @@ public class MethodLimitCheck extends AbstractCheck
     <section name="Logging violations">
 
       <p>
-        Detecting violation is one thing. Presenting them to the user is
+        Detecting violations is one thing. Presenting them to the user is
         another. To do that, the Check base class provides several log
         methods, the simplest of them being <code>Check.log(String)</code>. In your
         Check you can simply use a verbatim violation string as the argument, i.e.