We rarely see the errors in our own writing, which is why I'm a super fan of using professional editors to improve my own books.
But there are things we can do to improve the manuscript BEFORE sending it to an editor.
Grammarly is one of those useful tools that can sort out the basic errors, enabling you to improve your writing and learn as you go. It can also help with emails and online writing, where paying a pro editor isn't cost effective.
Why consider a tool like Grammarly?
As indie authors, we are 100% responsible for producing books that are not only readable and entertaining/informative but also ones that are mistake-free. When readers are distracted by misspellings and grammatical errors their reading experience is going to suffer. And that means your reputation as an author is going to suffer as well.
The Kindle also has a function for readers to report typos and if you get too many of these in a book, you're going to get a quality notification.
For this reason, we always want to use professional editors and proofreaders when we're publishing our books. Nothing can replace the editing and proofreading of a human being, especially one who specializes in your genre.
However, the messier a manuscript is when you send it to a professional for proofreading or editing, the more it's going to cost you to improve and fix.
This is where the online app, Grammarly, steps into the picture.
Watch my video tutorial below or here on YouTube:
Grammarly is an automated proofreader, and a grammar and plagiarism checker.
It scans your text and makes suggestions about where changes should or could be made. It even monitors word usage and will comment on sentence length (watching for those pesky run-on sentences that happen when we're writing fast). You can either use it in your web browser or install the Microsoft Office add-on. And you can even tell Grammarly whether you're writing in US or UK English so it will know how to support you.
As with most apps and plug-ins these days, there a free version and a paid one. With the free version, you can log-in and paste your text into a Grammarly document, wait a few seconds, and then see the feedback it's giving you about the possible mistakes in your text. When I ran this article through Grammarly's editor, even though Scrivener had already corrected my spelling in a few instances, Grammarly found several punctuation mistakes I hadn't caught, as well as a case where I'd typed ‘with' instead of ‘will'. Impressive!
Here are six ways Grammarly can improve your writing.
(1) You can learn from it and make fewer mistakes next time
Obviously, Grammarly is a tool for checking your grammar, spelling, and punctuation, something that both Word and Scrivener already do. One difference with Grammarly is that it will tell you why it's making the suggestion. This enables the writer to make an informed decision and perhaps even learn a bit along the way. As well, there is a free, online handbook about English, sorted by topics like style and mechanics, where you'll find articles about everything from how to use an apostrophe to the correct form of abbreviations.
(2) Discover your writer tic, or the words you use too often
All writers are guilty of using the same word too frequently.
And yet, as the author of the book or story, we're often so close to the manuscript, and we've read it so many times, that we can't see this. Grammarly will alert you to this type of problem. It will also allow you to see definitions of words and suggest synonyms if you want to change the word you're using.
In this way, it's like a thesaurus combined with a spelling and grammar checker.
(3) Learn to break up your sentences
“Bestsellers are about shorter, cleaner sentences, without unneeded words.” The Bestseller Code, Jodie Archer & Matthew L. Jockers
Data analysis of bestselling books indicates that shorter sentences characterize bestsellers, but we all know how hard that can be to do in practice.
Grammarly will comment on sentence length when it detects long or run-on sentences. This is another great feature for when we've read a manuscript so many times we can't see it any longer. Grammarly can act like a second pair of eyes, pointing out problems we wouldn't see otherwise.
(4) Take your manuscript one step closer to perfection
We all know how valuable our editors and proofreaders are. As I mentioned in the intro to this article, nothing can replace the skill and human touch of a professional editor / proofreader. However, if with Grammarly's help you've made your manuscript as clean (i.e., error-free) as possible, your editor is going to have an easier time catching every remaining correction. In a way, Grammarly can support your editor to take the manuscript even closer to perfection.
(5) Plagiarism checker
If you're a non-fiction writer, you'll love this next feature.
You can click a button and Grammarly will compare your text to over 8 billion web pages, checking for duplication. This is an amazing feature to prevent a potentially embarrassing mistake if you've accidentally copied text from an article on the web to refer to in your own writing, but have forgotten to include a citation.
Even if you're writing fiction, it's possible to add research material into a manuscript with the intention of putting it into your own words, and then forgetting. Grammarly will prevent any such accidentally oversights from happening.
(6) Use it for social media and email as well as your manuscript
Grammarly also provides a free plug-in for Chrome or Safari (although not for Scrivener, sadly). The plug-in will monitor your posts on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, ensuring you don't make any spelling and grammar mistakes. This can take the worry out of presenting a polished image to your readers and fans even when you're rushing to send out a quick Tweet.
So if you're feeling a little under-confident in your grammar, check out Grammarly here for your next piece of writing.
Do you use Grammarly? Do you have other tools for writing? Please join the conversation and leave a comment below.
Russell Phillips says
November 17, 2016 at 1:46 amI have a set of regular expressions that I run over my drafts. More details here:
http://andrewknighton.com/using-regular-expressions-to-find-common-errors-a-guest-post-by-russell-phillips/
For online forms, I use LanguageTool: https://www.languagetool.org/
Valerie Leroyer says
November 19, 2016 at 12:55 pmHi, Russel. Thanks for your references! And I visited your blog: Looks great! Will start curating your articles 🙂
Hervey Copeland says
November 17, 2016 at 5:07 amA technique that I have found to be really helpful is to print out the “finished draft” and sit down on the couch and read it. It’s amazing how many mistake I find, even though I have gone over the word document numerous times on my laptop. Then I print out the corrected version, and give it to my wife for a final reading. Works every time.
Joanna Penn says
November 17, 2016 at 5:22 amYes, I edit on paper by hand as well. Makes a huge difference!
Russell Phillips says
November 17, 2016 at 6:29 amI also have use text-to-speech software to have my phone or computer read it out to me. Unlike a human, computers read *exactly* what is on the page, which can be useful for finding repeated words, some typos, and the like.
Andrew says
November 17, 2016 at 9:15 amHow does Grammerly compare to Hemingway? I always run my draft through that software before sending to and editor, but the copy paste back to scrivener is a bit if a pain, ad Hemingway seems to add rather strange formatting that must be stripoed out.
Kerry says
November 19, 2016 at 2:00 amI find the Hemingway app very useful. I think it picks up some of the extra checks available in the Premium Grammarly but not all of them. I like the way Hemingway colour codes things to check and points out sentences that are difficult to read, adverbs, past tense etc. I run docs through Hemingway first to clear these up, then through the free Grammarly. This process picks up a lot of errors (but not all) and I miss seeing the green G button when typing on the iPad!
Tom Martin says
November 17, 2016 at 12:44 pmI use Grammerly and it is quite good. I copy a scene from Scrivener, paste it into Grammerly and do the edit in Grammerly until I get the highest “Score” I can then copy that and paste it back into Scrivener. I have not experienced any formatting problems. The Grammerly I use cost ~$30 a month. When I begin to get some revenue, I may find a professional editor, who I am sure will lift my game, but cannot afford that now.
Brian Astbury says
November 18, 2016 at 6:37 amBe careful of Grammerly and Facebook – make sure it’s not turned on for that. I was having all sorts of problems with my Facebook posts until I found out that it was Grammerly that was causing the glitches. Apart from that, it’s a great app.
Anja Skrba says
November 18, 2016 at 8:24 amI just love Grammarly, I have to say Joanna! 😀 Though I have encountered a few bugs from time to time, like doubling the content that it’s marked…but I find it to be a very useful tool!
And, as nothing is perfect in life, I see no reason to blame them for tiny bugs, since I know their team works constantly on improvements 🙂
Harley Christensen says
November 18, 2016 at 5:39 pmGreat post, as always, Joanna – I feel like I learn something new from you every day! 😀
I recently started using the free version of Grammarly, after running a few chapters of my WIP through a couple of other apps like ProWritingAid, SmartEdit and Hemingway…and after fixing the issues they identified, was surprised at the errors and suggestions that Grammarly returned—it’s just a completely different beast!
You mention running this blog post through the app—was it the free version? If so, would you consider purchasing the paid version, e.g. are the benefits worth the value? I know they run different specials throughout the year and just wanted to get your thoughts, if you are willing to share… 😉
Thank you much!
Valerie Leroyer says
November 19, 2016 at 12:49 pmYes, I’ve been using Grammarly for the past 6 months, mainly because English is a second language for me. That’s the only tool I use. Too bad it’s not available for Scrivener.
I use it for writing blog posts mainly, and since I curate content for writers and I usually put an excerpt of a post, I also discovered a few mistakes online as well! I’ve been learning a lot from that too. I had no problem using it with social media like Facebook.
It is so good, that I talk about this app on my productivity course for writers. I just added this article as a link (as a reference).
C.K. MacLeod says
November 19, 2016 at 4:39 pmThere are lots of terrific writing apps — ProWriting Aid and Grammarly among them. All these apps will give you valuable feedback on your writing.
Because of its simplicity, Hemingway is my current favourite. It checks for only five things. These five things seem to matter most when it comes to making your writing more readable.
Kent Smith says
November 23, 2016 at 1:38 pmThanks to this great post, I have started using Grammarly on my completed MS. I have had 3 very detailed reviewers (unpaid friends, but very well versed in grammar) review it and I am still seeing at least 1 error per page with the free version! Ouch. I will definitely be running my WIP through Grammarly.
Since I can only scan 60 pages at a time, I just copy 60 pages from my MS and send that to Grammarly and then follow along with Grammarly while I edit my own copy. I am mostly finding grammatical errors that I didn’t know about. I suspect I will be better with those in my new writing.
I see there are more advanced errors flagged in the paid subscription. I guess I will need to try out the paid version at least once to see how much more screwed up my grammar is before I send any more material to potential agents. 8^)
Thanks again for the great post and blog!
Darlene says
November 27, 2016 at 10:21 amKent, if you download the Grammarly app in your Word program it will apply the suggested edits to that document.
Kent Smith says
November 29, 2016 at 12:09 amThanks, Darlene. I did find that Word plugin shortly after I posted my original message. That is certainly much easier to use. I paid for a three-month premium subscription to find out what more they can recommend.
I can’t wait until they improve that plugin to have it remember when you ignore a suggestion. It is painful to ignore over one thousand undesired changes every time you open the document. 🙁
April Munday says
November 29, 2016 at 12:30 pmI haven’t used Grammarly before, but I gave it a go on a short story I’m writing. It did pick up a couple of words I’d mistyped (e.g. ‘noting’ instead of ‘nothing’, ‘their’ instead of ‘there’). I might have picked these up myself and I might not. I did find, however, that it’s extremely erratic with regard to commas and completely insane about prepositions. It also didn’t pick up three errors in the first sentence of this comment, although there are, apparently two further errors which the paid version would identify for me. I’ll never know, as I don’t think it’s worth paying for. The third error is, of course, that I just ended a sentence with a preposition and we all know what Churchill (allegedly) thought about that.
Dave says
November 29, 2016 at 9:38 pmI’ve found, since buying the paid version, that it does pick up a lot more than the free: passive tense use, vocab options, over-long sentences, plagiarism, etc.
However, it’s not entirely foolproof. I still found errors it hadn’t picked up, so put the particular chapter I’d been working back into Word. I also dcorrected those myself.
Another drawback. The Word plugin won’t work on older versions of Word.
However, I shouldn’t complain as I got a 60% reduction for a year’s subscription, and it does improve your manuscript.
Karen says
November 30, 2016 at 5:37 pmHow did you get it for 60% off Dave?
Les Jones says
December 1, 2016 at 9:12 amI use autocrat, which works well for me. It even provides much needed encouragement once the benchmark score has been reached!
Les Jones says
December 1, 2016 at 9:13 amI meant ‘autocrit’!!
Tony says
December 2, 2016 at 12:17 pmGlad I read your post Joanna I was annoyed with the American spell check er correcting words like ‘labour’ to ‘Labor’. Glad to find out they can offer and English version.
Enlightening article thank you.
Marina Jones says
December 7, 2016 at 1:01 amYes, how do you get 60% off?
Nirodha Abayalath says
December 15, 2016 at 2:28 pmHi,
I’m not a good writer and my grammar is not perfect. I know that. That is the why I purchased Grammarly premium. It is like a good teacher to me and never hesitate to recommend.
I have a question for you, what do you think about the Ginger? Can Ginger compete with Grammarly?
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Peter Ralph says
December 27, 2016 at 6:22 amHi.
I use Grammarly but it is a tool to be used with great caution.
I took the first two chapters of a John Grisham novel and inserted them into Word, and then used Grammarly to test for errors…119 ‘purported errors’ in those two chapters.
I didn’t and don’t believe it. He would have the finest editors money can buy.
Grammarly has its good points but every supposed error needs to be looked at in isolation. The software is far from perfect.
Joanna Penn says
December 27, 2016 at 8:31 amThis implies there is one correct answer – but there isn’t. Every publisher has a house style. Every country and even region has different rules. Every author has a different voice. Also, grammar checkers and ‘real live’ editors are only for guidance. The author has final say. Grammarly is just another tool in the author’s arsenal. You choose how to use it.