As a writer, I can rant and rave about the Oxford comma (long may it last) and the proper use of ellipses (with either three or four dots). But I know that there are some grammar rules I’m never going to grasp. There are also words I know I’m never going to be able to spell correctly on the first try. I know what they are, but I still don’t quite get it, and honestly, with today’s word processing, I’ve given up trying.
I think that these pesky typographical mistakes in my writing are very similar to a car’s blind spot—you know it’s there, but you still can’t see what’s lurking in your mirrors. You ALWAYS have to check, just to make sure.
If you share your writing with others (which, if you haven’t done yet, you should do now), you’ve probably had that semi-humiliating moment when your reader picks out a constant grammar mistake you’ve somehow forgotten needed fixing.
It’s important to clean up your manuscript’s grammatical and spelling errors as much as possible on your own before moving to editing and beta. You want your critique partners and editors to focus on your ideas, not on your mechanics.
Your trusty Microsoft Word didn’t catch some errors because it was too busy telling you that you spelled your last name wrong. Lesson learned: never trust spellcheck at face value.
Luckily, there’s new(ish) kid in town that puts Word to shame and has saved me more times than I can count on emails, manuscripts, and even this blog post.
Grammarly is an online, algorithm-based spell-and-grammar-checker (there’s also a plagiarism checker) that catches over 250 grammatical and spelling mistakes.
My favorite thing about Grammarly is that it adapts its algorithms to your writing style over time, which in my mind is even cooler than AI learning to love.
Wise Ink has also recently discovered that there’s a Grammarly extension available on Google Chrome, which checks your posts on social media, comments, and email for errors. There’s also an add-in for Word if you work on a PC (but we’re Mac users, so we can’t vouch for how awesome that is).
The only thing to keep in mind with Grammarly if you’re a long-form writer is that it is only capable of checking twenty pages of text at a time. While this will add some transcription errors to your work, I’ve actually come to appreciate this limitation, and it makes it easier to go back and find specific passages within a corrected section.
Grammarly is subscription-based, and, therefore, can be shared with friends, much like the online Chicago Manual of Style we love so much. It runs at $29.96 per month, but if you get quarterly or annual subscriptions, the monthly price goes down quite a bit.
If you can swing it, we recommend getting a Grammarly account of your very own because that way, your account will be able to zero in on your style of writing and learn its ins and outs, which will make your writing better overall.
For the next week, we will be holding a giveaway for one lucky Wise Inker.
The prize? A free, six-month premium Grammarly account.
To enter, please share, comment, or like this post on social media.
The winner will be announced on Wednesday, February 11th!
Thanks for the giveaway!
My grammar is not the best so this software could come in handy. 😀
This is great. Thank you so much for doing this. =)
Ok this is pretty EPIC! I had no idea this was even a thing
Do you have any idea what a break this will give my readers? It will save them from the constant messages of “Hey, idiot, it’s ‘your’ not ‘you’re'”.
Also, I’m not sure the period of that last sentence is correctly placed.
I need this friggin’ algorithm on my side.
This is awesome! Fingers crossed.
This tool appears advantageous in every way for aspiring writers. In high school, I rebelled at grammar education, diagramming sentences and learning the names of dozens of words and phrases. It all seemed so foolish. Does one require all this minutia to know whether or not his spoken words make sense? What rubbish. Shortly after high school, however, I discovered my passion for written BS, i.e., Science Fiction, and have been struggling ever since to learn what I’d stuck my nose up at years before.
Having now written multiple novels and learned some of what I need to know, I have formed a Self-Publishing business and determined to print and sell my own books through my own website. Using the rudimentary spelling and grammar checkers available has helped, but there is a new and unsavory element growing in the online writers culture which annoys me to no end. It is a shady alliance forged among Book Designers and various types of Editors, who prey upon, often desperate, writers trying to get their first work in print. Again and again I have taken some of these people to task over their marketing and the often absurd claims that they, and only they, can turn the writers pathetic and laughable efforts into the award-winning stuff great authors produce.
Arrant nonsense. A writer has to learn their trade, part one, just as any painter has to learn canvas, brushes and paint. Marketing and promotion are something else altogether, but a writer must learn to write. I am hopeful this tool is an effective and affordable teaching tool. I am, however, skeptical. The $30 a month ‘use fee’, and no visible way to purchase the program, smells to me much like another bear in the stream feasting on the desperate hopes and last pennies of would-be authors. There is a smell of raw sewage whenever I see something that says, “If you can’t afford to enter the park, you must not possess the talent to play the game.”
I want this! Never even heard of it, but I need it!
Interesting and no doubt helpful, but at $30/month? Seems steep in price, though. Certainly willing to try it on a trial basis, so please include me in on the contest.
THANKS!
Would love the license!
Helpful tool but could work out a little expensive.
Amazing software. And the subscription can be shared? Whoot! My crit group would love this!
Hi, I use Grammarly, but it keeps upsetting my Intenet Explorer and Outlook programs, and I keep getting warnings that this could harm my computer. Windows also keeps asking if I want them to remove Grammarly.
I do switch Grammarly off when I’m not using it.
Have you heard of anyone else having these problems?
Its such a useful tool that I’s hate to be without Grammarly.
Good post! Now-a-days English is one of the most important languages and grammar is playing a very important role in this language. A few years ago, I was very poor in English; luckily I got a tool (NOUNPLUS). I improved my knowledge through this tool. Thanks for sharing with us such a lovely post. Keep Blogging.
One of the best and reliable plagiarism checker tool is offered by http://www.plagiarismchecker.us and the best thing about this tool is that it can be used for checking any kind of content such as essays, thesis, website content, blogs, articles and much more.
Thanks for the addition, Ravi!
That and I had to pry myself away from it long enough to
write about it. Yes, indeed. Many game enthusiasts all over the world elect to build video
gaming pc’s.
I use free Grammarly on a daily basis. Last week, I racked 80,000 words, but the free version is very limited when it comes to finding all the mistakes. I would really love to use the premium version of Grammarly and understand how it works and improve my writing.
Thanks for the giveaway!