When it comes to grammar, I cheat.
But can you really call it cheating when I use a tool that’s available to everyone? And it’s free!
Grammarly fills the gaps and gives me confidence that what I’m writing is mostly correct…more correct than before at least.
Here’s how it works. It literally checks your writing for the correct use of grammar to ensure that everything you type is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free. As I type, there is a small green G in the bottom right of my screen. I see it spinning and checking my sentence structure and grammar. If it finds a mistake, it will underline the error and help me to fix it on the fly.
In writing this article it came up with at least 5 mistakes in my grammar! I even get reports to let me know how words I write, what percentage were correct, and how I compare to the rest of the world (I’m not too shabby most weeks).
Key items it looks for are:
- Missing comma in compound sentence
- Confused prepositions
- Wordy sentences
- Overuse of passive voice
I’m a repeat offender of all of these, but hopefully, you will never know it!
I have the plugin installed for chrome which is useful when writing emails in a browser, or even this blog. I also have it installed on OSX to check basically everywhere else. You can use their web browser if you wanted to copy and paste something in for the app to check out too.
There are also paid plans that you can purchase monthly or at a discounted rate for yearly plans that will provide a deeper analysis of your grammar content.
The plugin was built by linguist and language lovers…you know people smarter than me. One thing I’ve learned, take advantage of smart people when they are giving out free tools.
If you are already a user, I would love to hear about your experiences. If you aren’t, go download it today at Grammarly.com and check it out.
