For at least a year, I have seen ads for Grammarly specifically on YouTube. I’ve thought, “Hey, that’s pretty cool, but I have pretty good grammar and don’t need anything like that.”
I guess repeated advertising actually works because I finally tried it. I mean, I blog regularly. It couldn’t hurt to try.
One might argue, “That takes all the work out of having good grammar!” but I can honestly say that it has helped me a lot. I don’t have to worry about having a blatant misspelling in my writing. You know, the kind of misspelling that you cringe at when you’re reading a book and notice a word the editors missed (unbelievable).
We’ll start with the first benefit — it’s free! There is a premium version that I have not used. It provides guidance on things like word choice, sentence structure, and misplaced words or phrases. I will personally be trying it out soon.
If you get the desktop editor, it’s super easy to use on your computer. The thing I like most about it is that it is an unbelievably simple editor. In our time, it’s far too easy to get distracted. But as I’m writing this blog post, the editor takes up the entire window. It’s almost entirely white space except for a few simple buttons and the grammar assistant on the top right. This allows me to focus on my writing without ads popping up in the sidebars. I blog once a week so being able to bang out some writing without distractions really helps.
Obviously, it provides feedback on misspelled words and problems with grammar (not gonna lie, I probably would have spelled “grammar” with an -er). Ok, ok. So I misspelled “misspelled.” I’m an engineer, not an English teacher.
If I double-click on a word, it will automatically pull up not only general definitions of the word, but it will also give synonyms. This is a feature I particularly like because when I write a blog post, I find it difficult to have a variety of word usage. This feature will at least allow me to increase the quality of my writing. Here’s an example.
Aside from this, I have also put the extension into my online browser. Then, it uses the same software to check my emails and almost any other text box I write in. For example, I have now looked back through my previous blog posts using Grammarly. After the software has analyzed my text, it makes suggestions or points out mistakes so I can further edit my posts for future readers.
Overall, I really like the software and it has helped me increase the quality of my writing. I highly recommend it for those who write frequently AND for those who don’t (I mean, everyone has to send emails to their boss).
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Disclaimer: This is an honest review and I was not asked by Grammarly to give a good review.
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