Several years ago, I tried the free version of Grammarly, a grammar and spell checker for proofreading articles, book chapters, and blog posts. Since then, the product has evolved into a powerful writing assistant.
What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is an advanced writing assistant that offers grammar and plagiarism checks and allows writers to improve the readability of their work.
The company is based in San Francisco and first released in 2009. The Grammarly product is available through a suite of desktop and web applications, as well as software plugins.
What does Grammarly do?
Essentially, Grammarly scans a piece of writing and, using artificial intelligence, identifies typos, errors, and other issues. It includes the following tools:
Grammar and punctuation
It detects grammar and punctuation errors of all types and provides real-time suggestions and guidelines on how to correct these errors, such as wandering commas, misplaced apostrophes, and other common punctuation errors.
Spell check
Grammarly includes a robust spell checker. You can also add words to a custom dictionary and even create a dedicated style guide using the business version.
Readability
Grammarly scans for awkward sentences, paragraphs, and passages, determines the ideal age group for a writing sample, and reports readability issues based on the number of words, the number of characters, reading time, and speaking time. Then, using AI technology, Grammarly delivers rewrites that are more concise and clear to the reader.
writing style
Grammarly provides word choice suggestions and rewrites based on the ideal audience and tone of a piece, as determined by the writer.
writing assistant
Grammarly includes an AI-powered writing assistant that scans a piece of writing and offers corrections and suggestions that you can accept or reject with a click.
Edition reports
Grammarly offers a downloadable report that you can send to another writer or editor. It provides metrics and information they can use to improve a piece of writing.
Plagiarism check
Grammarly detects plagiarism by comparing a piece of writing against billions of web pages across the web. It provides articles with a plagiarism score and provides links that an editor can check.
Who is this grammar checker good for?
Grammarly is useful for native English speakers and those who don’t write so often in the English language. It also acts as another line of defense for professional writers. Its ideal audience includes bloggers, freelance writers, content marketers, copyists, authors, journalists, students, academics and essayists, content editors, small business owners, and anyone who often writes in English.
Grammarly provides grammar checking tools in English only. However, it includes settings specific to Canadian English, American English, British English, Australian English, and more.
How much does Grammarly cost?
Here are Grammarly’s pricing options for 2022:
- Grammarly Premium monthly subscription costs €30 per month.
- Quarterly subscription to Grammarly Premium costs €60.
- Annual subscription to Grammarly Premium costs €144.
You can always try the free version of Grammarly before upgrading.
How to use Grammarly
To get started, create an account using your Google, Facebook, or email address. It’s good to start with the free version. Now you can use Grammarly in several different ways.
Web application
You can access the Grammarly web application via app.grammarly.com. Then paste a piece of writing directly into the web app. This will analyze your text and suggest corrections. You can then download the results or copy and paste them into your writing app of choice.
Desktop app
You can download a desktop app for Windows or Mac. These apps require internet access to use. They are quite useful because you can drag a Word file or doc directly into the app and check it. They also update automatically in the background.
The apps also support rich text formatting, which means you can copy formatted articles from the app to any writing or publishing app of your choice.
