I interviewed for a content writer position a few years back. A live test assignment was part of the entire recruitment process. It was nothing out of the ordinary as I was tasked to write about real estate listings. When I went to their headquarters, I was led to the conference room and given a laptop with an open Word document detailing the brief.
I had an hour to complete the assignment. I thought it was quite easy until it dawned on me that I didn’t have Grammarly at my disposal. You know how tragic that is especially when you are supposed to submit an immaculate piece. Keep reading this Grammarly review to find out more.
Grammarly Overview
I got the job! Turns out my grammar wasn’t that bad after all and my sample had no errors. But it was at that point that I realized the importance of Grammarly, at least to me. The interview also made me realize that I depended on it so much and was happy to take a break and self-edit my piece to the best of my knowledge.
However, you can’t stay away from Grammarly for too long because it’s that good.
What exactly is Grammarly?
Grammarly can be defined in so many ways. But let’s go with this:
Grammarly is a cloud-based Ukrainian-American typing assistant. The platform helps improve your writing by giving you suggestions about spellings, grammar and punctuations among others.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that its outright perfect since it can miss a mark every now and then. That’s why you might need to review some of its suggestions and not just rush to approve everything thinking Grammarly proofread the article.
Grammarly will help improve the quality of your writing significantly even with its shortcomings. I can give you a few pointers on Grammarly since I’ve been using the platform for more than five years now even though am far from a grammar expert.
I use Grammarly at my workplace daily since I write articles for Authority Hacker. Chrome extension also comes in handy when I want to edit important emails before sending them. Initially, I used Grammarly to edit sales pages, snippets of marketing copy as well as my college essays among others.
Grammarly has helped me in so many ways. At this point, I know you are probably thinking…
Why Do I Need a Grammar Checker?
You are the only one that can answer this question. However, having a grammar checker at your disposal comes with plenty of benefits.
For starters, you should know that even the most accomplished editors and writers in the world use Grammarly to edit their pieces and double check a text. This doesn’t imply that they are lacking in any way but because Grammarly is valuable as it helps automate parts of your editing process. You can catch some of these suggestions on your own if you focus and pay close attention to your writing.
Grammarly will save you the hassle that comes with editing and helps catch apparent errors. I guess it’s more convenient. Plus, you have nothing to lose, just give it a try! You can take advantage of the free version if you are not ready to dig into your pockets for the $12 monthly cost.
The only limitation is that the free version doesn’t give you more advanced suggestions for the errors in your piece. However, you’ll get the help you need catching basic punctuation and spelling mistakes.
How to Use Grammarly
If you are still here, I know you’re convinced Grammarly is quite helpful. So, here’s a highlight on how to use Grammarly and how it usually works. Keep scrolling!
Grammarly is a Suite of Different Browser Extensions
Grammarly extension is super helpful. This is because it tends to suggest corrections by simply looking at the things you write in your default browser. It’s as simple as that! It works perfectly well regardless of the site you might be on.
The browser extensions for Grammarly also double up as apps that you need to integrate with other business tools. For instance, Google Doc usually integrates perfectly with Grammarly provided you install the extension in your browser.
Browser extensions should be your first contact point with Grammarly. It’s not only easy to install but also convenient and effective when it comes to helping you perfect your writing. Unfortunately, there are some browser extensions with issues including Microsoft Edge. Here’s a highlight of the technical problems you might encounter:
- The text doesn’t change when you click on the recommendation and the suggestion disappears
- Grammarly stops working in case of a network outage even when you have an internet connection
- Recommended underlines don’t show below the problematic text but instead get displayed in random places.
These were some of the most common problems I encountered when using Microsoft Edge a couple of months ago. Google Chrome has similar issues. You should factor in these things especially when using browser extensions. However, you can look the other way since its not that big of a deal.
Plus, you can fix some of these problems by simply refreshing the page. Besides, Grammarly offer support articles that will help solve the situation. You can live with uncertainty if you are wondering why I was using Microsoft Edge in the first place.
Grammarly Document Editor
Grammarly comes with a document editor that you can access once you are logged in to your account on the platform.
The recommendations Grammarly gives you are accurate like in any other browser extension and Microsoft add-ons. It also gives you access to the history of your edited pieces. There are other unique features as well like metrics and readability score to help you assess your style of writing.
In addition, Grammarly features plagiarism checker as well. You don’t have to copy then paste a piece in the document editor unless you want to use the plagiarism checker. Instead, use the Grammarly browser extension since it’s a lot faster. Avoid using this feature too much even though it can be pretty much helpful.
Grammarly Desktop App
You can use the Grammarly directly on your Windows or Mac if you prefer desktop apps. This allows you to use Grammarly in different things like Microsoft Office Suite or Slack app. It’s also quite helpful if you’re more inclined in using third-party apps. Like for instance, most writers create markdown documents using Typora.
Writers that use Typora to create markdown documents can only get grammar suggestions when using a Grammarly desktop app. What’s more, making it work is equally effortless with a click button. Type anything on your smart device then right click the Grammarly logo and you’ll be good to go.
However, that shouldn’t mislead you. Remember, you can use the Grammarly desktop app when you’re offline. As earlier mentioned, Grammarly is typically a cloud-based online writing tool so you need an internet connection to get the suggestions.
Grammarly Mobile Keyboard
Grammarly has a mobile app that you can get on iOS and Android alike. The app is easy to install but you’ll need to enable your keyboard as well. When you turn it on, the autocorrect feature can sometimes be annoying because Grammarly also makes mistakes from time to time. However, you can always choose to deactivate it.
The deactivating option comes highly recommended. You’ll be good to go once you turn off the autocorrect feature since you will receive tons of helpful grammar suggestions and predictive text suggestions.
In addition, it makes writing a little more flavorful by giving you different synonyms for the words in your piece. However, the quality and number of suggestions that Grammarly gives you usually depends on the plan you’re subscribed to. This applies to all the Grammarly apps.
The Difference Between Grammarly Free Version and Premium Version
Grammarly’s free version is neither a trick nor a free trial plan. It’s a viable alternative that you can choose to use for the long haul. It gives you incredible grammar suggestions, checks your writing style and spelling errors at no cost. Granted, they are basic grammar corrections for simple mistakes. You might want to upgrade to the premium version if you’re looking for more.
Grammarly premium is usually billed at $12 per month when you pay annually. This price falls on the lower side of the spectrum considering the value you get.
Save for the basic grammar corrections, the premium plan helps with sentence structure as it emulates a human editor. Grammarly premium also comes with other unique features including helping you with content flow and choice of words among others.
In addition, Grammarly offers a business plan as well. However, its best suited for those running a larger editorial team or those looking to create their own writing style for different Grammar checking business tools. Otherwise, the premium version works just fine. You can opt for the free version if you only want to use a personal dictionary.
Why You Should Invest in Grammarly’s Premium Version
You should invest in Grammarly’s premium version as it comes with many different amazing features that will help you write better.
For instance:
Check out this draft that I am currently working on for this Grammarly review.
Grammarly’s free version offers 34 suggestions to help me improve the article.
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Grammarly’s premium version, on the other hand, offers more than 180 suggestions for the same draft.
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From experience, this usually scales depending on the length of the article. At the time of writing this article, I was at 4500 words.
For the most part, articles with more than 3000 words always come with about 20 suggestions when using the free version and at least 80 suggestions for its premium counterpart. Remember, not all suggestions are right and that’s why you need to proofread the article. They are suggestions and Grammarly is sometimes wrong.
However, the premium version recommendations are invaluable. This is especially when you factor in the Grammarly cost. I can say without fear of contradiction that Grammarly’s premium version is totally worth it.
If you’re still not convinced then I believe you will once you go through a detailed breakdown of Grammarly’s features.
Features of Grammarly
Grammarly will help improve your grammar and spelling. It’s quite handy because even professional editors and writers use it. I suppose you get the drift by now. Let’s dive deeper into the features so that you can get a clear picture of how effective the premium version is.
I am conversant with all these features and how they work owing to my several years of experience using Grammarly daily at my job. Let’s get straight into it, shall we?
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Correctness – Core Grammar Checker
The correctness tool is one of Grammarly’s key features. It usually makes punctuation, grammar and spelling suggestions. The recommendations are pretty good. The personal dictionary also gives you more functionality as it allows you to add terms. That’s it about the core grammar checker.
Grammarly’s correctness feature is available in both versions and its quite helpful. If you’re looking for something to get you off the radar then you should remember that not all suggestions are right. Sometimes, the recommendations make no sense grammatically. Other times, the mistakes are not even flagged. It happens when you’ve spelled something correctly but it doesn’t match the context.
Bottom line, the correctness feature is as functional as they come and equally helpful when it comes to correcting spelling mistakes, punctuation errors and grammar.
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Clarity and Conciseness
Clarity suggestions are usually underlined in blue and it helps you make the text much more readable. The recommendations revolve around helping you make the flow of the text better. Most of the times, you’ll get suggestions to remove words like really, actually and basically from your content.
In addition, clarity corrections tend to suggest straightforward words especially for phrases. Grammarly’s premium version gives you suggestions for sentences that are hard to read and how to rephrase them to make the flow of text smoother. This feature is quite helpful as it highlights the entire sentence followed by an explanation of why its wrong.
What’s more, you can fix the problem with a click of a button. This is because Grammarly usually takes the message of the sentence then rephrases it for you to make it clearer.
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Engagement Corrections
Sometimes, engagement corrections coincide with clarity suggestions. However, they are slightly different since the engagement functionality helps analyze the entire text before making recommendations for improvement basing on your whole work.
To be specific, recommendations to help improve engagement. For instance, you might get engagement corrections to replace phrases that are too wordy. The engagement filter can also make suggestions for monotonous passages along with blank words. I know this sounds like something the clarity feature can do.
Here’s how to differentiate the two features:
Clarity suggests replacement of words like “really” terming it as a cliché and might not be important in conveying your message. The engagement filter, on the other hand, suggests replacing words like “if” after using it a lot at the beginning of your sentences consecutively.
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Tone Adjustment and Delivery Suggestions
Delivery suggestions are usually underlined in purple. Also, they are tied closely to the writing goals of the document. The recommendations are meant to help you to be consistent in your overall delivery, style and tone in your writing. Most people always underrate this feature.
However, it’s as helpful as it is effective especially for long articles that take days to write. You can easily lose track of how to convey the message when writing more than 4000 words and this is where Grammarly comes in handy.
Well, in this case, you’ll need to subscribe to Grammarly’s premium version. As earlier mentioned, it does more than just write errors, correct spellings and fix your grammar.
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Synonyms and Advanced Suggestions
Grammarly’s premium version users get access to other unique features save for delivery and engagement. For instance, Grammarly will suggest synonyms for your texts to make it more flavorful. This helps avoid English cliches.
You’ll forgive me for saying it again. Grammarly’s premium version is worth every penny!
If you are a writer and are looking to make your content publish-ready by yourself, then Grammarly’s premium version is the way to go. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it can replace an editor. However, its almost like the metaphorical third eye. The premium version is such a good deal especially at $12 per month.
Writing Goals
You should also know that some Grammarly recommendations are based on goals of the document being edited as opposed to grammar rules. You can click on the bullseye arrow to see the goals.
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This gives you different options that allows you to edit the goals of the document in question.
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- Audience – Here, you need to choose the target audience for your content from neutral, knowledgeable to expert audiences. Doing so helps you use the right amount on technical terms in the article.
- Formality – There three options to choose from including neutral, formal and informal. This helps you with delivery and style suggestions to ensure the tone is consistent.
- Domain – This feature offers more options that relate to the medium which you’re dealing with. Creative, business and academic writing have different particularities that Grammarly adapts to. However, it’s only available in Grammarly’s premium version.
- Intent – You can choose between the goals of your document – whether to tell a story, inform your target audience, persuade them or describe something.
The core suggestions of Grammarly are not affected based on the goals above. You can even write without knowing the goals exist in the first place and that will not affect the value of the suggestions. However, if you take some time to customize the goals to your personal specifications, then you’ll get perfect recommendations especially when it comes to delivery, clarity and engagement.
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Plagiarism Checker
If you are an academic writer, then Grammarly will come in handy. The medium is usually rigorous as compared to blogsphere. This means that Grammarly’s built-in plagiarism check is a life saver. Unfortunately, you can only use this feature in the platform’s document editor and that tends to eat up into its convenience as a core feature.
But it’s quite helpful for other types of content as well. Grammarly is the real deal especially if you are outsourcing content and don’t trust the writers. Grammarly will help you edit the content and also check if it’s plagiarized thanks to the built-in plagiarism checker.
Grammarly Metrics
You are bound to love Grammarly metrics if you like numbers. You can only access them from Grammarly’s dedicated document editor. This feature gives you data about the document in question including:
- Vocabulary
- Word count
- Readability
- Reading time
However, these scores are not absolute value especially the readability score. Don’t fret, it’s not perfect.
The scores don’t mean that you should edit your article or that it’s not ready for publishing. However, you might need to switch things up a little bit if its very low. Grammarly Business version also gives you access to these metrics along with relevant reports on your team.
All these are features of Grammarly. But how do they fit together? You are about to find out, keep scrolling!
Grammarly’s Ease of Use and Interface
Grammarly’s interface varies depending on the tool you’re using. For instance, here’s a snippet of what Google Chrome browser extension looks like:
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It can be equally inconspicuous as show below:
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The dedicated document editor, on the other hand, is a bit complex:
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The constant is, none of them is hard to use. Whether you’re using a mobile keyboard, Google Docs integration or desktop app, they’re as convenient as they are intuitive. You’ll be writing and Grammarly gives you recommendations to correct your grammar. What’s more, you get a detailed explanation on the same on why the highlighted piece needs corrections.
This means that you’ll get necessary guidance on how to improve your text even if your grammar is not good. Plus, its educational in its own way. Grammarly helps develop the skills of beginner writers. You writing will be better in no time if you try understanding the grammar mistakes and pay attention to the recommendations.
What happens if that doesn’t work? How can I reach out to their customer support if they have any and are they reliable?
Grammarly Support
Grammarly has an excellent customer support and are equally reliable. They’ll give you an extensive knowledge base along with FAQs. The best thing about it is that you can search for what you want directly and that saves you the hassle of having to scroll through it.
Plus, you can send Grammarly a ticket if you don’t get the help that you need. Grammarly’s support team responds on time and gives you valuable information. We can give it to them for the excellent customer service.
Grammarly Pros
We have talked about Grammarly’s features, applications along with how it helps make your writing better. So, let’s look at some of the pros of using Grammarly.
For starters, one of the core features of Grammarly is grammar corrections. It gives you daily suggestions that will not only help improve your writing but also make your content more readable. Regardless of what you are writing about and the target audience.
Grammarly comes with other different perks including premium suggestions to help ensure your text is consistent, clear and engaging. It’s equally convenient, whether you are writing in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, drafting social media posts or Slack, Grammarly will come in handy.
Grammarly has no many competitors but none of them offer premium quality grammar suggestions and integrate effortlessly into the entire process of content creation.
When it comes to Grammarly desktop app, Grammarly keyboard and Chrome extension, its safe to say that Grammarly is easy to use.
Finally, Grammarly’s pricing plan is a pretty strong suit. It falls on the higher side of the spectrum as compared to other grammar tools. However, that doesn’t mean that its ludicrously priced. Besides, it worth for the price as it guarantees value for money.
Limitations – Areas Where Grammarly Could Use Some Improvement
Just like other grammar tools, Grammarly is not all sunshine and rainbows. Let’s be a little critical and look at some of its downsides, shall we?
As earlier mentioned, some of Grammarly’s suggestions are usually incorrect. This mostly happens when you have spelled a word correctly but it doesn’t fit in the context of the sentence. Sometimes, you might need to make use of the dismiss button.
Clicking on the dismiss button more than once is as annoying as it is frustrating especially when the same suggestions keep popping up even when you open the text later.
However, it would be best to always stay comparative in such cases. Most tools that help fix your grammar tend to mess up sometimes. That’s why they usually don’t work on correct but based on suggestions. Grammarly keyboard is an exception but it allows you to deactivate the autocorrect option.
In addition, Grammarly can miss errors as well since it’s not designed with human-level skills in terms of editing. For instance, you might have spelled a word correctly but its in the wrong context. In this case, Grammarly will fail to point out the mistake because it can’t even tell that it’s in the wrong place to begin with.
Plus, Grammarly’s browser extension gets buggy sometimes especially when using Microsoft Edge. However, this might not be that big of a deal since a simple refresh can fix the problem. If not, try updating it.
Grammarly is an exceptional tool even with these small limitations.
Is Grammarly a Viable Option in Comparison to Some of its Competitors
Grammarly has an edge over all the other grammar tools available on the market. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that its counterparts are bad, on the contrary. WhiteSmoke and ProWritingAid can give you amazing results for your writing. But they lack in some aspects and that is where Grammarly thrives as it offers an all-round service.
Let’s dive into the comparisons:
Grammarly vs ProWritingAid
I tried out ProWritingAid sometime last year so I know a thing or two about how it works. First, let’s look at its pros.
ProWritingAid offers more high-quality features than those found in Grammarly. These two grammar tools are almost similar at their core. They both give you recommendations for style and spelling improvements for your article. However, ProWritingAid usually gets into the details giving you more than 20 customized reports.
Granted, most of these grammar tools usually exit in Grammarly but are presented a bit differently. For instance, Overused reports and Thesaurus give you suggestions for replacements and synonyms for words that you might have overused in the document. Grammarly offers the two features.
However, ProWritingAid has a slight edge over Grammarly when it comes to helping improve the readability of your text. When using ProWriting Aid to edit your document, you’ll get some scores on the screen. In comparison to Grammarly, you can spot the scores effortlessly especially if you are looking to understand how readable your writing is at any particular time.
Unfortunately, these complex reports and features tend to become double-edged swords in the long run. Getting more than 20 recommendations is a good thing but can also clutter the screen which in turn, tends to slow down the editing process.
Ultimately, Grammarly and ProWritingAid boil down to this! The latter help generate more reports and for the most part, its recommendations are the same as those on Grammarly if not better.
ProWritingAid has a complicated interface which makes using it equally hard. However, you can look past the interface, you should know that its almost half Grammarly’s price if you subscribe to the annual plan.
Grammarly vs WhiteSmoke
WhiteSmoke has been around in the writing assistant scene for the longest time. It’s one of the most viable alternatives to Grammarly since its inception in 2002. It’s almost similar to ProWritingAid in terms of core grammar corrections and tips.
However, they are quite different in the templates area. WhiteSmoke comes with a lot of templates that cover different things including emails and cover letters. The suggestions to help improve your writing varies from one template to another.
It’s also important to put in mind that WhiteSmoke supports 55 different languages which is a significant bump from English only. If you are looking for a grammar tool that supports multiple languages, then WhiteSmoke is the way to go. However, it’s harder and less convenient to use as compared to Grammarly. This makes the latter an excellent option for an easy and quick grammar check provided your writing is in English.
Grammarly vs Ginger
Ginger and WhiteSmoke are almost the same.
Just like Grammarly, Ginger comes with many different extensions and apps that you can easily integrate to your workflow for effective grammar tips. Additionally, Ginger uses NLP as it helps emulate the human editor input on the text to ensure you get more advanced suggestions to improve your writing.
The biggest advantage is that it supports more than 60 languages. This means that Ginger is viable alternative to WhiteSmoke and Grammarly. Plus, it has the same pricing plan as that of Grammarly. If you are looking for support different languages, Ginger would be your best bet.
Grammarly vs Writer.Com
Writer.com is the way to go if you are looking for a viable alternative to Grammarly but are working on a tight budget. It’s less advanced as compared to ProWritingAid and Grammarly. However, that doesn’t mean that its suggestions are compromised in any way.
Writer.com usually supports more customization. Just like those subscribed to Grammarly’s business plan, Writer.com users can also come with their own writing style that the tool can use to correct their content. Writer.com is a viable alternative to Grammarly for those looking for the best grammar tool for their editorial team owing to its price point.
However, its suggestions are not top tier.
Grammarly vs Virtual Writing Tutor
You can get the same benefits that Grammarly offers when using Virtual Writing Tutor. The promises might not match up to Grammarly’s but they are pretty good. Virtual Writing Tutor made it to this list because of its educational benefits. Most notably, this grammar checker helps people develop English writing skills especially those who don’t speak it as their first language.
Virtual Writing Tutor is your best bet if you are looking to get better in English while writing for your target audience online. It can also double up as a teacher since you can use it to assess your student’s assignments.
Final Thoughts
Grammarly Premium is worth every penny. It’s such a handy tool and an incredible writing assistant. If you can’t afford the premium version, you can still use the free version because its equally helpful.
If you want to try out other options, then WhiteSmoke and ProWritingAid would be your best bet.
