I’ve been putting Grammarly Pro through its paces recently. Grammarly is something that I’ve used in its free form for a while, and I wanted to see what the paid version could do. It turned out to be quite a lot, leaving no doubt in my mind that it’s worth the asking price. What I now want to do is let you know why. More importantly, allowing you to reflect on why software in this class may be valuable. Or possibly not.
What does a Grammar App Do?
The simple answer is automated proofreading. Yes, it identified simple things such as spell mistakes and basic grammatical errors. But there is more to it than that. A good grammar app will highlight passages that are hard to read. It’ll perform a tonal analysis. It is letting you know if your text hits a desired degree of formality.
Using one of these tools is like having a proofreader perched over your shoulder. Making suggestions as you work away.
It helps create a workflow where yes, you can bash out a stream of consciousness. But instead of text that you think is good as it sounded ok in your head, as you wrote. Now you get a little critic questioning your decisions and asking questions.
It’s like writing something and coming back days later to wonder if it is any good or not. Only the period isn’t days. It’s more like real-time.
The app’s purpose is not to take away from you. Or to add to you. It is to help you focus and put an emphasis on quality.
It’s a coach helping you be your best.
Will a Grammar App Suit Everyone?
If the question were could a grammar app help everyone, then I would say yes. Most people could do with a helping hand from time to time. If only to put some polish onto hastily typed emails.
That’s not the question. Does it suit you is an entirely different question. The answer lies in your relationship with technology. You have to be ok with looking at suggestions from the app and saying yes or no to it. Easy yeses are spelling errors and typos. Others have to do with word suitability and sentence structure. You have to be ok with judging these in context with your text.
For someone who likes working interactively with a system, that is great. For others, not so much.
The answer to this question lies with where your preference lies.
Recommended Grammar Apps
All of these can help out with drafting text. No two are quite the same. All can help.
“Editor” is included in current versions of Microsoft Word, and is also a browser extension. Monitoring your writing for spelling, grammar, clarity, conciseness, formality and punctuation. If you have Microsoft Word, it is an excellent place to start.
Hemingwayapp.com is the home page for the Hemingway editor, which is a digital embodiment of Hemingways Iceberg theory. Iceberg is a writing technique developed by Ernest Hemmingway. It’s a method that creates simple and straightforward writing. The app scores you as you write, trying to guide you towards polished prose.
I started this article with Grammarly making it an automatic entry on this list. Its style guides and suggestions are helpful. It’s one of the better-known Grammar Apps and with good reason to. It works well.
Like Grammarly, Ginger is an established player in the Grammar app market. One of its key features is sentence rephrasing. That should help keep things fresh as it comes up with alternative text for you.
Which One?
Which one would I recommend? Well, I went for Grammarly, and I’m happy with it. But for you, I recommend trying before buying. This purchase is not a simple case of finding which has the most features or is most efficient. You must get an app that you can work with daily. So test first, aiming not to regret later.